5 Things Movies Don't Tell You About Mental Institutions

Once, I was sitting in leathers in the ER, restrained to a hospital bed with a security guard outside my door. I was reading a book, but it was impossible to turn the pages with just one hand. I slipped out one hand to turn the pages, then sneaked back into the cuffs and played dumb when the nurse came in. All innocently: "Could you flip the page for me? I've been stuck on this one for like 10 minutes!"

Once the staff caught on, they still didn't switch to movie-style straitjackets. They just started using leathers and chemical restraints together. Think about it: Which is easier, lacing up an elaborate crazy-girdle on an unwilling participant, or slamming a syringe full of Ativan into a thigh? Option 2, of course. Which was fine with me: Being knocked into dreamworld was much more fun than drawing myself as a tree in art therapy -- again.

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Virtually every place lets you bring your own clothes, with some restrictions. No belts, shoelaces, drawstrings on hoodies or sweatpants, nothing with violent images. No Manson T-shirts or gang colors. But you can totally wear a suit or cocktail dress if you really want.

You're allowed to have visitors, and they can bring you things like books and edible food (of course, the staff searches the bags first). At the state-run hospital, I was only allowed to have three books at a time, but they kept five books behind at the station I could trade in. That particular hospital also gave me a plastic baggie with a toothbrush, deodorant, and assorted toiletries from random hotels. Nothing says luxury like JW Marriott shampoo next to the biohazard disposal container.

At one private hospital, I could bring my laptop and keep it in my room, cord and all. I'd do my homework and keep up with class assignments with the hospital's free Wi-Fi. I could also order delivery and have it buzzed through to the floor. You're not treated like a criminal, because you're not criminally insane. Movies often lose the distinction between the two -- normal people with mental issues aren't going into some dystopian crazy-prison, because they've done nothing wrong. They're sick, and the whole point is to help.

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After three days in a psych ward, you can leave ... if the doctors say you can leave. If there's a disagreement between you and your docs, you go to court. But most people use the third option: voluntarily signing themselves into treatment.

Movie mental hospitals are filled with clearly-just-eccentric people held there against their will, either planning to escape or gaming the system as best they can to get "released." Maybe that was accurate 40 years ago, but shorter stays combined with a better understanding of mental illness means functional people aren't locked up for years.

The hospitals I stayed in were filled with people who knew they needed help. One person flew across the country in order to take advantage of the facilities at McLean. We'd compare notes among ourselves about the various hospitals: which had the nicest psychiatrists, the best after-care programs, the worst food, the most affordable payment plans.

During each of my 10-plus stays at six hospitals, I signed myself in voluntarily, and I don't remember hearing about anyone who didn't do the same thing. Mental illness is an illness. Sure, there's the odd nutbar version of Typhoid Mary who just refuses treatment. But most of us sick people just want to not be sick.

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But if you've been obnoxious or disruptive, those checks are every 15 minutes. Or 10. And the worst folks have a 1:1 rule placed on them, which means they need a staff member within 10 feet of them at all times. The staff doesn't touch you or harass you -- they're just around. They make sure you don't hurt anyone or yourself, or lack for a tennis partner should a mandatory game situation ever arise (it never has).

The places I went were pretty understanding, especially when I punched a dude in the face. He deserved it. He was young, maybe 19, and creepy as hell with his unwavering stares. He took it a step further by whispering stuff like "I'm going to come into your room at night and rape you" every time he passed a woman. And of course, none of our rooms had locks.

One day, I was reading in my room and he barged in, which is a huge taboo. Patients are never allowed in each other's rooms. I told him to get the fuck out, shoved him backward, and used the door to force him out of my room. But each of our doors had a little Plexiglas window (for those frequent checks) and he kept staring at me through the window.

So I opened the door. He didn't move. I pulled back my fist and looked at him. He still didn't move, so I punched him square in the face. I took the book I was reading (one of the last Harry Potter ones, a big, fat, pre-weaponized hardcover) and chased him, screaming and beating him with the book while he tried to run away down a 20-foot hallway. Not a lot of places to hide in a psych hospital.

Staff members pulled us apart. He got put on 1:1s, but I just got a warning ("Please don't punch anyone else"). It probably had something to do with the fact that, as a rape survivor, I don't respond well to rape threats or assholes barging into my room. So yeah, gonna go with "He deserved it."

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It took me more than a decade to go from my first therapy session to knowing what I had. I started with a diagnosis of major depressive disorder, but after my first episode of mania, it turned into bipolar disorder, then bipolar with psychotic features, and finally schizoaffective disorder, bipolar subtype (and no, there's no fun little acronym for that one because it would be SAD-BS). Your brain changes as you age, so it's possible for your disorders to evolve like terrible crippling Pokemon. I started therapy at 13, but I didn't have a full-on delusion until I was 21. It was not very effective.

Since the doctors can't be 100 percent sure what's wrong, they can't be sure that the treatment is going to work. It could even make you worse. If you're secretly bipolar, but have only outwardly shown signs of depression, then antidepressants could throw you into your first mania. That's besides all the normal risks and side effects of medication. If you only get dizzy, sleepy, nauseated, or jittery, consider yourself lucky. Bad side effects include fainting, dangerously low blood pressure, seizures, the beginnings of Stevens-Johnson syndrome, and muscle stiffness to the point where you can't stand up. And those were only the side effects I personally experienced.

Delusions are pretty confusing, too. One Friday night I came home and instantly knew my boyfriend had been replaced by an alien doppelganger. He looked the same ... but somehow off. I knew it was impossible and screwed up and wrong. That's one of the things about mental illness they don't show you: You can know what you're thinking is abnormal as you're thinking it. Here's the other thing about mental illness: That doesn't help one fucking bit.

If you suddenly hear a voice telling you that your neighbor is Satan, you don't go "Well, golly gee, time to kill him with a screwdriver, I guess." You'll fight it and disbelieve it, until you start seeing Satan in everything your neighbor does. By the time you confront him, you have tons of evidence. The evidence doesn't make sense to anyone else, but your brain makes it make sense to you. So when your neighbor ignores your hello, it's clearly because he's Satan and not because he didn't hear you.

And my alien delusion? How would I disprove that? My boyfriend would say he wasn't an alien, but that's exactly what an alien would say. Eventually, I got over it ... by ignoring it. My thought process went something like this: "If he is an alien and I blow his cover, he might beam me up to the mothership right now and whisk me away. If he's not an alien, he'll get upset that we're having this argument again. If I act normal until the alien leaves, I'll be fine."

The only way to fight your delusions is to ignore them. Not that this is a comfortable thing, since my brain is now convinced that I've had sex with an alien.

Hymn Herself has written a novella about her time spent inpatient in McLean Hospital. It's called House Full of Insects, and you'll buy it if you're cool.

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