I worked In a Mental Hospital (with both Criminally committed and civilly committed patients)

This place was a locked in mental hospital, until 1988 it was called an asylum. No one could freely leave, we had sally ports at all the exits.

One flew over the cuckoos nest was rather accurate if dated.

The craziest conspiracy theroies that patients had, idk how to pick I guess. TONS of patients believed Obama was speaking to them through the newspaper / TV / Phones. One guy believed he was next in line to be Santa Claus. The guy "Chris" who thought the oxygen condensor was a bomb often said that the whole world was a computer simulation we were hooked up to / other transhumanism type shit.

When a patients assaulted doctors they would often get a big shot of thorazine which would put them in a near coma state for like a week (a large portion of our schizophrenics where on some level of it, but that shit is SUPER heavy handed) tho in the short term we would do intramuscular ativan shots which would work within a min or so
 
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Also, as far as psychiatrists, so when doctors are nearing the end of med school and are trying to get matched for residency programs nobody wants to go into psych, its the lowest paid specialization, has next to no prestige, and has a decent level of general bullshit. It's FAR less competitive than others, so most of the doctors that go into psych residencies are at the bottom of their class. Now, they can still do fairly well in private practice and make 50% more than what they would in a state facility. It's also not that different for the medical doctors we had, and for any doctors or nurses good luck moving into a different field after you've worked a state mental hosp for 4 or 5 years.

None of our patients had internet access of any kind haha~
 
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One of the two main buildings was built in the late 1800s, the other in I think the 1930s? a few of the supporting structures where completely defunct.

OK so moment of clarity question: We had this guy, lets call him Bob. This guy was mid 50s, was admitted about 15 years prior and had never been discharged. He had been in a police chase in a stolen car and had both a frontal lobe injury and had some additional damage from brain swelling afterwards. He had zero impulse control and would throw a punch before his face would change, and over something that normally wouldn't cause anyone else to react to (outside of maybe a fleeting annoyance in your own mind lets say). His body also could no longer accurately regulate sodium and he would bounce between hypo and hypernatremia by the hour (so he would bounce between being uncontious to seemingly drunk AF). He also would ALWAYS, and I mean ALWAYS swing on / hit a woman before ANY man, if another male patient told him to fuck off he would swing on some chick that said nothing to him, useually while looking straight at the male patient / staff w/e that angered him.
Anyway, about once a month I would see this guy have a moment of clarity, maybe 5mins long. If I had the time I would ask him about his life and he would always tell me the same thing while he was clear (but he would speak of none of this when he was half awake / water-drunk) and that story was that he was in the army for 12 years (confirmed in his records) and after that he bounced around in a few jobs in civilian life but it didnt really work out for him. One of his friends from the army recruited him to do some government work, and that work was basically as follows: he would steal a generic car to go pickup someone from the airport, often a foreign national, with the purpose of driving them for their stay. First to a hotel, then the next day to a series of meetings, except he would actually drive them to some secluded place, kill them, then ditch both in some other secluded area after bleaching it all down. He was told if he was ever arrested nobody would help him and he only knew / worked through his army friend anyway so he had no proof. He said when he ended up in that police chase he was stealing a car to pick someone up later that day.

I think he was making this shit up and he probably just boosted cars to make money at the time but its fun to imagine otherwise.

My favorite patient was the guy "Chris" who I mentioned twice before, btw his voice was like James Earl Jones and his manner of speaking was kinda funny in that, even if he was calling someone a whore or telling you to fuck off he would ALWAYS say Sir or Mam. "MAM, MAM YOU ARE A HARLOT, YOU FUCK FOR MONEY MAM!" and shit like that, with old timey curse words and shit. Or he'd say "I DAMN YOU! I DAMN YOU TO HELL" with that voice it was wild AF haha. Like I said earlier he was also really strong but he would punch or kick staff with not even enough force to move your shoulder lets say (If we were physically restraining him or something, to give him meds he was legally ordered to take), he would resist with all that power, but the strikes where like idk to show you that he could fucking destroy people but was chosing not to? (WITH MOST STAFF I sould clarify, he fucked a few people UP). He died of a bowel obstruction (psych meds have a p strong suppressive effect on bowel undulation, and 40 years of them is rough)

Tons of others swore that the full moon made patients wild and people would swear we in for the wild shift every time one came around but I never noticed that to be true. Interesting enough statistically June and July had almost 3x as many assaults as December and January over like 20 years of data, but almost the entirety of that difference was patient on patient attacks (the assumption being outdoor sports / activities lead to patient conflict ><)

edit: just double posted like a boomer, ill post mo shit tomorrow
 
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I witnessed a patient with Huntington's disease (who had a early onset of symptoms, and the earlier the onset the faster the progression, at this point he was 35 and had no impulse control and had a visible gait) running into the dining room full speed. Another patient walked in front of him w/o noticing him barreling down the hall full speed. The first patient lays him out w/ a right straight, as he contines to run into the dining room for breakfast. The second patent was knocked clean out, and fell directly on the back of his head, fractured his skull. Immediately transfered to a medical hosp, coma for 4 or 5 days then he passed away. I never directly witnessed a patient outright kill someone other than that.

A few assaults of note:
So earlier I said the hospital had no developmentally disabled patients, that wasn't exactly true. It had one ward that was nothing but, but that made up less than 5% of the patients in the hospital. One of those patients was a 25y/o dude that would basically do anything to get into any fight with staff. This patient had an IQ that had been tested in the mid 70s and to contrast some of the sadistic patients with antisocial personality disorder(sociopaths), he had next to no planning, didn't really think about if it was 1v5 or 1v10, was 5'7 130lbs, and was confined to his room + the hallway that lead to it (with 4 rooms locked and left vacant to create this area for him. So he had a really limited ability to do any meaningful harm. HOWEVER, one day he busted up one of the windows (all of them being plastic) and managed to break a piece out of it sharp enough to cut someone (this was 3 hours before I came on shift and I don't remember how he did, he had no furniture that I think could do this, certainly no metal chairs, YES for the entire time I worked there they STILL HAD METAL CHAIRS) and he did, he cut his wrist enough to bleed, but not enough to kill himself, stripped down naked, and covered himself in blood (he had Hep C btw, however he had heard from another patient how prisoners would strip down and cover themselves in butter, cooking oil, or anything slick they could get their hands on to keep from being restrained in a fight, granted blood dries lol) and morning shift had fought with him and put him in a seclusion room +restrained him. 30Min into my shift I got called to his ward because he had been taken out of restraints and reopened his wound, me and 6 other guys fought with him again and strapped him back down. We had the time to put on these throwaway plastic bodysuits that existed for shit like this but they tear easy AF and while in some since it wasn't an otherwise remarkable seclusion, Hep C is way more infectious than HIV and that shit itself is scary (a few years before I started there a patient had bit their lip open and spit blood directly into a nurses eyes, she died a few years later (after I had started working there).
This same patient did a similar thing with his own shit a few months later, stripping down and smearing it all over himself head to toe, he only did it once because he spent 6 hours strapped down to a bed covered in his own shit afterwards and that was an adaquate deterrent.

That same ward had a patient who was 19, 6'3'' 300lbs, very autistic (didnt speak, would try to eat his own poop, and would self injure for stimulus). He was rather dangerous but also very predictable and would start making noises / hooting sounds as he was getting excited enough to attack people. This ward had a tub room with 5 hospital bathtubs that was normally locked, but he had been allowed to take a bath in there, but didn't want to leave after like 3 hours, but he couldn't control the water and had gotten pissed. He had started throwing anything that wasn't tied down around the room. There was a whole cabinet full of soaps, and a few bottles of shampoo had broken open and that shit covered the floor. That ward called for more male staff and I came down. 8 of us went in to restrain him and it instantly went to the ground and he almost instantly was covered in shampoo and thrashing around trying to kick / bite / claw / headbutt / anything he could do to hurt somebody.
(oh I should mention, ANY physical contact with this kid would result in harm, reguardless of his mood. If he was visibly happy and you let him touch you anywhere he would latch on to your skin and try to pull or scrape some off, giggling and laughing. if he got ahold of a womans hair that hair was coming with him, and if any part of you got close to his mouth he was taking flesh. You could say thats sadistic but he did this shit to himself too and as you may have heard, profoundly autistic people tend to experience stimuli/pain totally differently than you or I)
Anyway, it took us probably 10minutes to restrain him. two rotator cuffs, at least one significant back injury, two knee injuries, and a bite requireing time off.

-- Ill edit again and add 2 others soon --

I think the biggest thing that kept staff and patients from getting killed was a complete lack of trust. Most new staff useually had everyone watching them / assuming they where idiots who wouldn't think twice about getting into a dangerous isolated situation. Some did but got lucky enough to not get killed, just beat up. Those people quit. there was 6weeks of training before people would even enter a ward for the first time, and I think the 30day (after training) turnover rate was >50%. Also, schizophrenics who are actively psychotic are OBVIOUS AF and while you could say they're unpredictable, literally nobody patient or staff would assume someone who is yelling at a hallucination couldn't assault someone at any given moment.

Edit: adding other gnarly assaults.
 
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Is it true staff in these places steal the lucrative/recreational drugs like xanax/benzos/thorazine or opioids? I've always wondered about staff adjusting the patients meds higher on paper and pocketing the excessiv/uneccsary "good stuff" . Does your faciility deal with the recently self medicated IE heroin addicts and their detoxing?
 
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Did they ever release someone entirely because of budget cuts/politics - downsizing the operation not of necessity but politics - and then maybe pointing to statistics saying that persons with that disorder only has a successful suicide rate of 1/5 so it's a low risk release and playing the numbers of downsizing it frees up beds and manpower... then the girl they released promptly killed herself, just like the staff familiar with her tried to raise hell about, she wasn't the 4/5.
 
Babyspackle said:
I witnessed a patient with Huntington's disease (who had a early onset of symptoms, and the earlier the onset the faster the progression, at this point he was 35 and had no impulse control and had a visible gait) running into the dining room full speed. Another patient walked in front of him w/o noticing him barreling down the hall full speed. The first patient lays him out w/ a right straight, as he contines to run into the dining room for breakfast. The second patent was knocked clean out, and fell directly on the back of his head, fractured his skull. Immediately transfered to a medical hosp, coma for 4 or 5 days then he passed away. I never directly witnessed a patient outright kill someone other than that.

A few assaults of note:
So earlier I said the hospital had no developmentally disabled patients, that wasn't exactly true. It had one ward that was nothing but, but that made up less than 5% of the patients in the hospital. One of those patients was a 25y/o dude that would basically do anything to get into any fight with staff. This patient had an IQ that had been tested in the mid 70s and to contrast some of the sadistic patients with antisocial personality disorder(sociopaths), he had next to no planning, didn't really think about if it was 1v5 or 1v10, was 5'7 130lbs, and was confined to his room + the hallway that lead to it (with 4 rooms locked and left vacant to create this area for him. So he had a really limited ability to do any meaningful harm. HOWEVER, one day he busted up one of the windows (all of them being plastic) and managed to break a piece out of it sharp enough to cut someone (this was 3 hours before I came on shift and I don't remember how he did, he had no furniture that I think could do this, certainly no metal chairs, YES for the entire time I worked there they STILL HAD METAL CHAIRS) and he did, he cut his wrist enough to bleed, but not enough to kill himself, stripped down naked, and covered himself in blood (he had Hep C btw, however he had heard from another patient how prisoners would strip down and cover themselves in butter, cooking oil, or anything slick they could get their hands on to keep from being restrained in a fight, granted blood dries lol) and morning shift had fought with him and put him in a seclusion room +restrained him. 30Min into my shift I got called to his ward because he had been taken out of restraints and reopened his wound, me and 6 other guys fought with him again and strapped him back down. We had the time to put on these throwaway plastic bodysuits that existed for shit like this but they tear easy AF and while in some since it wasn't an otherwise remarkable seclusion, Hep C is way more infectious than HIV and that shit itself is scary (a few years before I started there a patient had bit their lip open and spit blood directly into a nurses eyes, she died a few years later (after I had started working there).
This same patient did a similar thing with his own shit a few months later, stripping down and smearing it all over himself head to toe, he only did it once because he spent 6 hours strapped down to a bed covered in his own shit afterwards and that was an adaquate deterrent.

That same ward had a patient who was 19, 6'3'' 300lbs, very autistic (didnt speak, would try to eat his own poop, and would self injure for stimulus). He was rather dangerous but also very predictable and would start making noises / hooting sounds as he was getting excited enough to attack people. This ward had a tub room with 5 hospital bathtubs that was normally locked, but he had been allowed to take a bath in there, but didn't want to leave after like 3 hours, but he couldn't control the water and had gotten pissed. He had started throwing anything that wasn't tied down around the room. There was a whole cabinet full of soaps, and a few bottles of shampoo had broken open and that shit covered the floor. That ward called for more male staff and I came down. 8 of us went in to restrain him and it instantly went to the ground and he almost instantly was covered in shampoo and thrashing around trying to kick / bite / claw / headbutt / anything he could do to hurt somebody.
(oh I should mention, ANY physical contact with this kid would result in harm, reguardless of his mood. If he was visibly happy and you let him touch you anywhere he would latch on to your skin and try to pull or scrape some off, giggling and laughing. if he got ahold of a womans hair that hair was coming with him, and if any part of you got close to his mouth he was taking flesh. You could say thats sadistic but he did this shit to himself too and as you may have heard, profoundly autistic people tend to experience stimuli/pain totally differently than you or I)
Anyway, it took us probably 10minutes to restrain him. two rotator cuffs, at least one significant back injury, two knee injuries, and a bite requireing time off.

-- Ill edit again and add 2 others soon --

I think the biggest thing that kept staff and patients from getting killed was a complete lack of trust. Most new staff useually had everyone watching them / assuming they where idiots who wouldn't think twice about getting into a dangerous isolated situation. Some did but got lucky enough to not get killed, just beat up. Those people quit. there was 6weeks of training before people would even enter a ward for the first time, and I think the 30day (after training) turnover rate was >50%. Also, schizophrenics who are actively psychotic are OBVIOUS AF and while you could say they're unpredictable, literally nobody patient or staff would assume someone who is yelling at a hallucination couldn't assault someone at any given moment.

Edit: adding other gnarly assaults.
Click to expand...
Proof we need to kill the heavily autistic.
 
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OP talks like they're actually a patient in that facility that believes they are employed there and therefore gets used by the staff as free labor but please continue this thread. No matter how fucking ridiculous a mental hospital story is they're always even more insane in reality.
 
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