Hospitalizations Pt #1

Hospitalizations Part 1

This post is not meant to diagnose, treat, or save you from mental illness, if you or someone you love is in danger, please get help. You can text HOME to 741741 to be connected with a crisis counselor. I personally have. You can also call or text 988 for suicide and crisis help.

Www.cdc.gov/suicide/facts

Each hospital stay is completely different from the other. Even if you are admitted in the same way, at the same place, for the same condition. Each stay has its own sets of circumstances. There are a variety of variables that take place. Starting with:

1. Why you are being admitted? Were you forced or did you sign yourself in?
2. What brings you in?
3. Are you a danger to yourself or others?
4. Do you have any outside doctors, psychiatrists, or therapists?
5. What are you hoping will be the outcome?
6. Do you need long term care or short term care?
7. Are you addicted to any substances? Medications?
8. What are the coping skills you already have?
9. How open are you to accepting help?
10. Have you made a decision within yourself to want help and improvement?

All of these are the questions you will be faced with (directly and indirectly) by your hospital stay and staff. Some of these questions are ones you will have to look inside yourself to find. Others, you will be forced to answer, or you will have answered for you. There are times when some people are court ordered to admission and hospitalization.

Other factors that go into how your time will go in the hospital include: how well do you adapt to your new environment? There are many people who simply cannot fathom giving up “normal life” in order to be treated in a hospital setting. For these people, care is not well received. I have personally seen many people who do in fact need the help, have the help at their fingertips, and turn a blind eye or a cheek towards accepting that help. They look at their hospital stay as more of a punishment than a privilege.

I am here to tell you that yes it is not the same for all, yes it sucks and it isn’t always fair. But I can personally attest to the fact that the mental health industry has come an extremely long way in helping those who give their best efforts to help themselves. Is it still flawed? Yes. Are you going to get all your questions answered and all of your problems solved in just one visit? No. But the more open you are to receive care, the more resources will become available to you and the more help you will be able to obtain.

So, just like with admitting you need help, being open minded is the first step to getting that help. Admitting that hospitalization may be your only answer is a big step too. For me, I was never a danger to myself or others. Yes I have and had thought about suicide, but I have never had any real plan to do it. The answers to these questions, for me, made it hard to be admitted to the hospital. And as a free adult person, it was a huge hurdle to admit myself and say “I am not in my right frame of mind, something is very wrong, I am willing to do anything and everything I need to in order to make it right.” Then step one is to walk into the hospital doors and tell the ER that you need help. I myself was in psychosis, so I was a danger to myself as I may have wandered very far away from home, and any sort of safety, in order to fulfill what I though was some divine plan the universe had for me.

I AM NOT HERE TO DIAGNOSE YOU ****if you or someone you love is in danger, please dial the hotline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or text or call 988. For life threatening emergencies, get to your nearest ER or dial 911.

-A Manic Monday