The Reality of a Psych Ward

The Reality of a Psych Ward

I asked some friends to share their experiences of the reality of an NHS psych ward. Maybe you've never been to a psychiatric ward, I hadn't done before April 2019, or maybe you want to read the differing experiences and views of 4 friends and myself. I hope this gives you a glimpse into the reality of a psych ward. 

Maddie - "I knew if I didn’t go into hospital, I wouldn’t be here at all."

I felt at my safest on the ward and met the most interesting and strongest people I know. Everyone stigmatises mental health and think it would be most scariest horrible place but during my crisis, it was my safety. However, I didn’t get what I needed from my admission- Therapy and plan of continuing recovery care. I did make a friend who can understand totally how I feel and she inspired me to start writing and I found my voice. Despite what anyone says or thinks, I know if I didn’t spend 2 weeks in hospital during my crisis, I wouldn’t of been safe and I definitely wouldn’t be here today- continuing to fight and making first steps to recovery. I finally saw the ward consultant psychiatrist, who took time to listen to me. The consultant was first person to put it altogether and make referral to a neurologist. She also put together my whole history and symptoms and diagnosed me with EUPD as well as PTSD. 

Overall to sum it up, my 2 weeks in hospital was best decision I made during my crisis episode, it wasn’t perfect but I learnt a lot about medication, care, stigma and ultimately myself. It helped to keep me safe and I found my courage, fight, voice and understanding, which together has brought me to where I am now. Recovering. I will not be made to feel ashamed that I went to a psychiatric hospital for 2 weeks to enable me to survive a mental health crisis. I have learnt that it was right and safest thing for me at the time and it has enabled me to take the first steps towards my recovery and has been a huge learning experience, which I am grateful. I got the protection I needed to enable me be where I am today. 

Brooke - A psych ward isn’t all about lovely nurses and doctors with mind stopping medicines. It’s not about painting to your hearts content or spending hours in therapy. The reality of a psych ward is seeing people you class as your friends cry in extreme mental pain. It's witnessing the unimaginable, self harm, suicide attempts, violent fights - with no chance to escape. Its constantly being on edge, just waiting for the emergency alarms to go on, again. It’s being told what to do, what medication to take, what to eat, how much to drink. A psych ward, is not a therapeutic place to be- it’s traumatising.

A -  Being a psychiatric inpatient is hell. It’s not the cushy place you might imagine, with inspirational quotes all over, miracle pills and access to 24 hour airy fairy therapy. When I spent time here last year I was lucky to see a therapist once a week (and that was only on one of my admissions). I was also circulated through a heck of a lot of different medication to reach the right mix - which is largely the same as today. The consultants all had varied views about my diagnoses and seemed to ignore all others when they landed on EUPD. There were patients screaming, shouting and swearing, alarms going off and sadly patients who would wander around not even knowing where they were.

But being a psychiatric inpatient is also safety. It was walls that held me until I was strong enough to build my own. I made a few of my closest friends there - not so I could ‘speak mental health talk’, ‘get ideas’ or ‘compare notes’ as my family seem to think but because they understood me and I knew I could turn to them when things were bad. 

Amidst the storm of the ward, there were certainly moments of calm (and even sunshine occasionally!) and the best care came from certain lovely nurses, HCAs and even the cooks and cleaners. I wouldn’t wish being an inpatient on anyone, but I also wouldn’t take it away from me as it has made me who I am today.

Ciara -  Some people think a psych ward is about medication and therapies. Actually it’s a lot more than that, it’s about having an attachment to certain people and then having agency nurses come in every night. Its watching the people you have grown close to, cry out in pain and distress, it’s feeling the pain everyone around you is feeling, it’s having medication thrown at you if your distressed. It’s seeing things you cannot forget, hearing alarms because someone has done something to harm themselves. It’s being told how you can and can’t go about your day, what you can and can’t do, when you can and can’t go out. People think psych wards are somewhere therapeutic to go, trust me they are not. They are traumatising and distressing.

Steph - I've been on 4 different wards of 2 different hospitals and each one has many similarities. The thing that sticks out most to me is the emergency alarms that go off throughout the ward when there is an incident of self harm, suicide attempt, violence, absconding or something different. If you've been on the ward for a while these alarms have an extra layer of worry as you consider could it be someone you know the staff are running and attending to? Theres been many occasions I've watched as staff from throughout the hospital run towards the room of someone I know and I wonder if that person is ever going to be alright again. 

If you spend a while on a ward you grow close to staff, make attachments only for them to be cut abruptly short when you get no notice of your imminent discharge. You don't get to say goodbye, or if you do it's the hardest goodbye because those members of staff have literally picked you up off the floor on your darkest of days. How can a simple goodbye be a good enough thank you for those members of staff? 

Psych wards pump you full of meds, your dose increases or your meds change and you spent so much of the day recovering from the drastic side effects that so many meds give you. It's about being distress and the first response being give you meds to calm you down instead of a chat because most of the time they're short staffed or busy. It's having to ask permission to leave, to have what your wearing written down each time you leave site, it's about locked doors and doors with windows so they can check on you regularly. It's the no privacy, even in the bathroom, and it's the lack of dignity as you experience incidents of your own. It's about befriending people who you don't know if you'll ever see again, it's about the waiting round doing nothing day after day after day. It's the small snippets of time where the Occupational therapy team or the activities co-ordinator manage to plan something you feel well enough to engage in. Its about weekly ward rounds with a doctor that barely knows you that could mean anything, discharge, a longer stay, who knows? 

I saw a (lovely) psychologist twice on my longer stays on ward, but often on a shorter stay I didn't get to chat to many staff at all to help me process what was going on in my head. You witness the unimaginable on a psych ward and you hear screams and cries you never want to hear again. It's full of nights you can't sleep but you can't chat to staff because most of them are agency and you don't trust them yet, and full of nights you sleep too long and miss meals or activities.  Inpatient life is not therapeutic, it's somewhere you're kept reasonably safe during a crisis.

However, psych wards have kept me alive when I couldn't do that any more, and I've met some of the kindest most inspiring nurses and HCA's who when they can take time out to chat to you, play a game with you or help you get out of a panic attack.