LilSasquatchFriend

The one that freaked me out the most, a middle-aged biker friend of mine and I went out on the yard (electric barbed wire fence, all that) and he introduced me to a man he had lived with in a past unit. The man was very bizarre, scrawny and spaced out, and my being a lady, he took my hand and kissed it and greeted me, it was bizarre but not unusual in that kind of place. Afterwards my friend told me the man he had introduced me to was a serial killer who ripped out his victim's nails and teeth. I later confirmed with staff that this was true, and that his father had died and he killed his victims so they would keep his father company in heaven. Staff also said he had an episode on a real crime show that he was proud of.

Severe mental illness is different in person than what is seen on tv. There were a lot of schizophrenics, and you find yourself feeling sorry for them. A lot of them are very sweet. In the hospital I was at, the only abuse came from the patients. The staff had such restricted ability to restrain or seclude patients that often we were left feeling endangered being out on the floor with someone in a rage while staff stayed in the office behind unbreakable glass. Patients rights have gone too far and mentally ill patients are not held accountable for their actions, even ones who are fully aware of what they are doing and that it is wrong. There is also a lot less freedom in mental hospitals than you see in tv, less freedom than in prisons even. No cigarettes, absolutely no caffeine, no privacy.... there are group showers and the bathroom stalls are only separated by curtains. There were about 20 beds in a unit and each bedsection (containing four beds) was separated only by a 4' wall for monitering and so staff could jump over them. We were not allowed to have pencils or pens, if we needed to use a writing utensil we could check out a "pen" from the nurses station that was just a flexible ink tube with pen tip, no hard plastic casing.

I was court ordered to be there, I had a criminal case and got some good lawyers who got me acquitted for insanity because of my bipolar disorder. But I was one of the, if not THE, highest functioning patient/s there.

My favorite moments were conversations I had with some of the staff members, who were great. Any time family or my boyfriend visited was wonderful, and they came up pretty often considering it was a 6 hour drive. I made a friend there, a 60 year old bipolar woman who was in a severe dissociative and paranoid state when I arrived. She didn't talk or move or eat, had to be escorted and forced to shower because she was afraid of showering, and just laid in bed and got bed sores. A while after I was there one night she came in the day room and opened up and was very friendly, told me I reminded her of her daughter and that she had thought I was her daughter planted in the unit with her when I first arrived. She laughed and told stories and told me about her family for a couple of hours. Then the next day she switched back to how she was, like the night before had never happened. Over the next 10 months she started coming out of her dissociative paranoid state more and more and I helped her and she helped me, her progress was slow and she often regressed but by the time 10 months was over she was eating in the cafeteria, had put on weight she needed, and was socializing very much like a normal person. She always credited me with her recovery.

Armed burglary and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.

That's a broad question. To start, I can say you learn to sleep through screaming and banging and get used to other people's body fluids showing up in weird places.