It's worse for the loved ones on the outside

I recall one story my mother tells of speaking to a young man who was a patient. The next day she said hello to him and used his name and he became extremely confused and aggressive because he couldn't understand how this lady knew his name. He obviously had no memory about the day before when they had spoken.

This post is about how when I was psychotic and admitted in a psychiatric hospital, my memory of the events are quite sparse and hazy.

But I feel it was worse for the loved ones who are lucid and seeing me and the other patients all together being mentally unwell.

I feel this time is worse for the people left behind. Those that are outside the psychiatric ward versus those who are in it.

While I do have memories of being in the psychiatric ward most of the trauma I have is before then when I was in the world and unwell. Not so much as a psychiatric patient.

In fact when you are a patient you can get better because you don't have to deal with daily living and tasks. That is all being looked after. You get the chance to go from being untethered to being tethered once more.

And I always remember being a patient in a psych ward doesn't make me a 'crazy person', even though people put the two and two together: psych ward plus patient equals crazy person. The truth is I was essentially psychotic pre-admission. Being admitted is where being 'crazy' ends and treatment begins. It's more of a beginning of being well and the ending of being unwell. Not the other way around.

Like when you are unwell with an ailment then you go to hospital to get well. Same goes with the psychiatric ward, you were unwell pre-admission and now the wellness gets a chance to begin.

And as for the stigma of being a psychotic patient. It is definitely alive and well.

But at the end of the day the psychiatric ward is just a building right?

It reminds me of that line from William Shakespeare 'Romeo and Juliet':

'What's in a name? That which we call a rose. By any other word would smell as sweet.'

Why does the name 'psych ward' install such terror? It was just a room I stayed in with a bed and nursing care.

And yet the name creates such stigma and imagery of horrors.

Maybe we should change the name to 'Brain Resting Centre'. Would that evoke such terror?

And what's funny is that when I've been unwell I didn't care that I ended up in the psychiatric ward, in fact I needed it. I had to go there.

But when I became 'well' the idea of being there horrified me just like the people on the outside who had never been in one.

Yes I became a part of the outside people once more. Aghast of what horrors the word 'psych ward' conjures up.

And yet when I was a patient there I found it was just a room with a bed and round the clock care.

Nothing crazy about that.

The Brain Resting Centre (aka psych ward) did its job.