I was just wondering [Archive] - Virtual Teen Forums

Syvelocin

February 26th, 2011, 08:47 PM

They do vary, but they all have similar concepts I find. Details will be different, but they usually operate quite similarly.

Here's my description of the short-term juvenile ward I always went to.

Psych wards.
A place you want to avoid going to for the first time at all costs. Can be one of the most traumatic experiences of your life.
To get in the psych ward, you either call for an appointment to be evaluated. You fill out some paperwork, meet with a guy, and sign a paper saying they have your permission to keep you if they see fit. So they evaluate you and decide to keep you or not. The alternative is being forced into the psych ward against your will by doctors or by ambulence.
Short term facilities, you'll stay anywhere from 3-14 days usually. Long term, depending on the place, a couple of months or more.
So after they tag you with your lovely hospital bracelet that has all your personal information on it, which they always put on just loose enough that most of us can slip it over our hands when the counselors don't notice. The rooms are separated with a boy's hallway and a girl's hallway, and both groups (children and adolescents) are kept in their hallways (so it's a common thing to hear kids screaming in the mornings). The rooms are also numbered, and you will often be referred to as 20D for example (room twenty, bed next to the door. That was my first room. My last one was 28W [window bed]) And after they strip search you in your new-found, disgustingly cheery, tiny, two-bed room (for instance, the place I always go has sea-green blankets on the beds and lavender wall paint) Oh yes, they strip search you. Right in front of a nurse who you know hates you from the look on her face, you take off all your close and your bra half-way (so she can make sure you didn't hide any knives, bombs, needles, etc. in it) and then she proceeds to interrogate you about every scar (whether it was accidental or not) on your body, not believing you at all when you say they are indeed accidental even if they are.
After that charming experience, you are released to frolic among the other mental teens in the day room.
Your day is pretty much laid out as follows:
6:00am - A doctor comes in and draws blood from your half-asleep corpse to make sure you're not doing heroin or something. You go back to sleep for an hour.
7:00am - Whichever counselor is working the day shift that day walks into everyone's rooms, turns on the light, and yells in your ears to wake up. Brush your teeth, put on some pants, and get your shoes on, or whatever you can do in only 15 minutes (most don't change till after breakfast) and get out to the main office. In the main office, you will find lines to get your vitals checked. Then if you have medicine in the morning, you go get that. You have no control over your meds by the way. They get to shove whatever meds they choose down your throat and you have to take them.
7:30am - Brief rundown by the counselor of the days plans (which don't change to much, but this would be when he announces the therapy types, whether you get to go to the gym after lunch or not, etc.)
8:00pm - Breakfast, either off the ward or on the ward depending. Usually it's on the ward on weekends. New arrivals cannot go off the ward until their doctor sees them though which can take one or two days, so food is brought back for them and they have no choice on what they get. If breakfast is off the ward, you line up in a quiet single-file line, genders are separated, and you walk down to the hospital cafeteria.
Hospital food sucks. Like hell. ESPECIALLY when you're a vegetarian like me. I swear, I lose like ten pounds every time I go because of how little I'm able to eat. You are also tempted with coffee you can't have and soda you can only have at lunch and at dinner. But most food there is meat, and either is quite edible or not edible at all. Salads are very rare, and you only get dressing when the salad bar is open too (they have pre-packaged salads but don't include dressing). The salad bar, I swear, is open one or two times a week only at lunch or dinner time.
9:00am - Back to the unit. Everyone sits in the day room on blue chairs which are separated into three separate lines that go in a circle. Two lines of chairs are only for the girls, the other line is only for boys. Yep, because they want to watch what you're doing. Mad teenagers are very prone to spontaneously rape someone in front of security cameras and counselors. You're not allowed to touch at all (this goes for hugging the lovely people you befriend and grow close with as well). So, for the next three hours or so, you listen to everyone's problems. about only five minutes of that is focused on you and getting better, the rest is the counselors picking on people.
12:00pm - Lunch
1:00pm - Either gym (where there are balls to play with and an oddly out-of-tune electric piano with a couple broken keys. The group I always hung out with would sit in chairs in a circle and play truth or dare... psych ward style. All the truth questions are sex-related and the dares include saying strange things to the counselors or other patients who are either playing ping pong or basketball. It's also a great time to talk to people without so many security cameras and counselors ( I believe there are only two security cameras in the gym).
1:30pm - Expressive therapy or back to the unit for the usual group therapy. Expressive therapy is usually interesting. It's let by a gay dude who likes to show us the importance of team work, or likes to make us draw pictures in crayon to express our feelings and share them with everyone.
Lots of sitting around in the day room or room time (I swear we have to sit there quietly in our rooms for at least two hours straight a day) And there's virtually nothing to do except talk or read a book if your parents were thoughtful enough to bring one for you. During that period you might shower also in the incredibly tiny bathroom each room has. There's also a shift change for counselors then. And usually, unless it's Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, it isn't important. But on the weekend, the ONLY nice and helpful counselor takes the night shift. Mr. Bob. He's great, I owe him a lot. And he lets us watch a movie and get pizza if we're good ^_^
6:00pm - With soaking hair and PJ's if it's the weekend, you head to the cafeteria for dinner.
7:00pm - Therapy again. And if it's Mr. Bob, the only helpful group therapy session you will have.
8:00pm - If it's a weekday, vending machine time if you have money. If it's the weekend, movie and pizza and you get to stay up late ^_^. If you're lucky. See, if the group isn't good, after three strikes, he counts down from ten and we all have to be in our rooms... that early. And by 0, if you're not in your room, you're in trouble O.o
10:00pm - Usually, it's back to your rooms.
10:30pm - Lights out. And if you're anything like me, the insomniac, you don't get much sleep. Especially there though. The first time I went, my sleep meds worked great. Then they switched me onto a different drug and I didn't sleep at all the last time. But a nurse or night-shift counselor comes in and checks on you every 15 minutes to make sure you haven't hung your self yet. A rag is kept between the door and the frame to keep it open. It sucks to have the bed next to the door cause you're positioned just so the light from the hallways streams onto your face all night.