Know any aspies who've been institutionalized?

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I stayed in a regular hospital for a week once because I had pneumonia. When I got well enough to talk, I asked the doctor a question. He thought my voice sounded emotional, so he had the nurses force me to take valium three times a day for the rest of my stay. When I got home, I went through benzo withdrawal (which, for me, means severe depression and insomnia). So evidently, Aspies can end up being treated like mental patients in any hospital situation.

Y'know, my ex partner (1974 dumping) used to have GREAT fun, years ago, convincing me that, were my schizoid tendencies ever known by a doctor they would be treated by forcing me to be with people...

He did this because has was something called "a nasty piece of work"...and I was a fool for listening.

It sounds to me as if your friend did develop problems way beyond AS for this to happen, though I certainly question the sense in the way she was committed as well as the potential of the mental health system to really help her. She attacked someone, and between the lines, it was not the first time. That cannot just be overlooked.

When I was 15 I was committed for 28 days with the maximum prejudice and cold blooded political corruption the UK could muster in the 70s...

Even then, it took more than just AS to do it...so rest easy...

M

Just got off the phone with her. Apparently (she feels like) they're way over-medicating her (she's pretty sensitive to any kind of substance, in general), which gives her nasty side-effects (nightmares, inability to form thoughts, extreme drowsiness, etc.). Because of this, she resists taking the meds, which makes the nurses/techs even more forceful, and ultimately results in an increase in dosage. She says, because it's the weekend, she can't even talk to a doctor about changing the dose until Monday--but she doesn't think she can hold it together before then, if by pill-time they make her take the same (high) dose as usual.

Sort of a catch-22, n'est-ce-pas?

I told her just to "play along," and to stifle any reaction/desire to fight back, no matter how hard that is, until she can talk with a doctor about the dosage on Monday. She's in a state-run ward, which, she says, is very disorganized and where the staff are much more insensitive than the private hospital in the city, where she spent a couple weeks this summer.

Yes. She says that dealing with the noise (patients incessantly banging objects on tables, people talking all the time), the meds, and the "disorganization" (nothing is structured, other than meals; there wasn't a pen to be found when I asked her to write something down, etc.), is pretty stressful in itself. Not to mention the fact that she knows nobody and can recognize no one, including her doctor.

Is there any way of making contact with the Cuckoo's Nest and piling on the pressure to get her moved to a private room in a quiet area before the effects of the public ward push her over the edge?

Just trying to think outside the box here, but maybe a private room in a geriatric ward? They are usually quiet places. Should stand down a lot of the stress?

I DO relate to the way that "need to isolate", and the ill effect of disregarding that, doesn't seem to be recognised at all within the mental health system if you need it for other reasons. It is completely crazy and they should know better, but they don't.

"Isolation" is still regarded as a form of punishment/last ditch containment within the system, I don't think they can make the flip to it being "a constructive need" for anyone.

M

any more opinions/thoughts on this?

[bump]

What do you still most worry about?

[Sigh]
That's just it, I guess. I don't know.

She was my closest friend throughout the debacle that is grad school--the one whom I could relate to the most--from within a program of about 200 grad students (60 in our class alone). I've always been a little codependent with her--always trying to solve her problems and help her out of her most recent crisis, whatever that happens to be. It's not necessarily healthy for me, and lord knows I've got my own issues to deal with, but I can't help being protective of her, even though we're the same age and everything. Her life (and trying to help her with her issues) has been, on and off, almost like another "special interest" of mine, even if at the expense of my well-being, sometimes. Maybe because I see so much of myself in her?

And I just feel for her, being trapped in Podunk, Oregon, without her dogs and without her family and without any friends. I want to DO something, but I just don't know what. I've given her so much unsolicited (and solicited) advice that she never follows, instead repeating the same behaviors over and over and over again, and it's incredibly heartbreaking and frustrating (probably moreso for her) to witness. Then again, I do the same thing--it's just that my problems are perhaps less externalized than hers. Which is why she's locked up.

I just don't know what to do, and I feel helpless to help, but I want to do something.

It would be hard for me to provide you something specific to do, as I dont personally know your friend and have very little knowledge about the US health system. But for having stayed 2 weeks in a mental institute, the best advice I can give is to be as supportive as you can without taking personnal blame if everything is not perfect.

Basically tell her that she can contact you anytime she wants (Id be really surprised she doesnt have access to a phone), dont be judgemental to her for being in a mental institute, and try to approch her current struggle with a positive attitude. As I stated in another post, Id be surprised her condition keeps worsening ; the first few weeks of stay might the hardest (finding the right medication, getting to know her new environnement, overcoming the stress she suffered from the past few weeks/months).

Thanks, everyone.

I'm actually thinking about willfully admitting myself to a hospital.

I'm pretty meesed up inside and at this point in my life, I need something pretty significant to straighten my head out. But since I'm on Medicaid (or in Tenneessee it's called TennCare) the longest I will be treated is two weeks - healed or not.

I'm actually looking forward to hospitalization at this point. I hope like hell it will help me. I so desperately want to get back to a normal frame of mind again.

affengeil,am think the same as mechanima to about finding out whether she could get a private room.
they should have private rooms for people who need them as there are always reasons for why private might be more suitable.
although this is not the same type of treatment when am go into hospital for operations [trafford general,a nhs/free hospital],they always have a side/private room reserved for am,don't expect am to change clothes,won't put any wrist tags,or monitors on till unconcious,and let am out the backway to avoid echoeing and noise through corridors.
am think everyone should get this level of understanding and treatment for ASD,regardless of diagnosis or not-if they show the traits and could be helped by keeping them somewhere quieter for instance,then that is what they should do.
if anything,it is they who are making her mental health worse by keeping her there in such an unsuitable place.