How a Short Stint at a Psychiatric Hospital Made Me Realize I Was the Sanest Person in the Room

What they don’t tell you about psychiatric hospitals is nobody cares if you get better

Photo by on

What they don’t tell you about psychiatric hospitals is nobody cares if you get better. It might seem that those spaces support you in the time of crisis and need, but in reality, it is all lies. You revert to a childlike state and willingly accept everything you are told to do and think, imagining you are in the caring hands of competent mother-like figures who will make everything better. You just relax and embrace everything, honey. And don’t resist, or the loving motherly hands will quickly sedate you to a state of absolute conformity.

I was 19 when I was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. A year earlier, my psychiatrist diagnosed me with bipolar affective disorder, which I have been suffering from since I was 12 years old. A year of messy and useless treatment by an incompetent psychiatrist and cynical psychologist led me to experience a prolonged major depressive episode that eventually led me to what people would call a full-blown nervous breakdown. I also developed an eating disorder along the way and was obsessively planning an exit strategy out of my own life.