Unknown userMember
Traumatic Hospital Experience
Hi All,
I am new to the forums. Hi 🙂
I have recently been diagnosed with 'schizophrenia'. I joined the forum to connect with peers as I have sometimes found a benefit to hearing from others.
I was diagnosed during a recent hospitalisation. I found the hospital visit extremely traumatic, it actually made me worse. As I'm recovering after leaving hospital, I'm now getting better insight into what I experienced, the purpose of this thread was to ask what experience others had of hospital in a psychiatric ward.
I've submit a formal complaint to the institution involved for investigation but I was wanting to hear other experiences to try and gauge whether it's normal and common.
My complaints centred on 3 themes - Admission & Expectations, Diagnosis & Treatment, and lastly Staff Culture.
Admission & Expectations
There was a gap in my admission where no one communicated to me what was happening and why I was going into hospital. It felt like I'd been lured or tricked into going into hospital with a family member, and before I knew I had been locked inside.
I now recognise and accept I had been unwell and should have been in hospital for a period. My condition did complicate admission and assessment because I had a delusion I couldn't talk about my symptoms for a fear of some consequence.
I recognise it would have been a hard conversation and that observations were causing family members distress. Whilst I was in no way physically aggressive, I wasn't receptive to healthcare and was getting let's say grumpy when approached to discuss it. The result was that neither the family member, nor a doctor had the hard conversation to say "due to our observations of <x>, whilst you are saying you are not a threat to hurt yourself or someone else, we would like to keep you in hospital for a period to monitor your health and address treatment". This initiated a feeling of distrust in the institution (and heightened the delusion that I couldn't talk about my symptoms).
Has anyone else had a similar experience on admission (no one told you why you were going into hospital)?
Diagnosis & Treatment
As mentioned due to my condition (I wasn't talking about my symptoms), I don't know how doctors came to a diagnosis.
After leaving hospital, I have done some research and I do broadly accept the 'schizophrenia' diagnosis as there is enough in my symptoms to support it. However I do have a feeling there could be other conditions occurring simultaneously.
I was diagnosed with 'Psychosis' 20 years ago. I've had opinions (which includes some medical professionals), Autism Spectrum Disorder and/or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder could be occurring simultaneously with 'Schizophrenia', noting the comorbidity between these conditions. And a contrary diagnosis of 'Schizoaffective Disorder' from a psychiatrist.
How important do you think the label(s) are? Do others think it's relevant to treatment? Is it enough to accept broadly it's some condition under the 'psychotic' family of disorders? Or do others believe you need an exact diagnosis?
Similar to my admission, there was no hard conversation with the doctors to say something like "you're not talking about your symptoms, which is making our job hard, but due to observing <x>, we suspect you have 'schizophrenia', we're going to commence treatment with <y> antipsychotic medication, you can expect <a> positive effects of the medication, and <b> negative effects of the medication, we expect it will take <y> period of time to see a result".
The doctors developed a belief that old medications I have taken for a significant period of time weren't working. I had deteriorated whilst taking those medications. They commenced a range of new medications. I was considered unresponsive to the medications because nothing changed on those new medications. It wasn't clear to me what change they were expecting to see.
I stopped taking the medications they prescribed in hospital and went back on the old medications. This was done in consultation with a doctor. Whilst I'm continuing medication, I credit the start of my recovery with other contributing factors - I overcame the barrier to talking about symptoms (this helped challenge the symptoms as not being real eg. voices I was hearing were not real), a passing of time (over time the symptoms slowly subsided) and evidence (through a natural course of events, I gained growing evidence in my head that delusions were not real). I had a deterioration while on old medications, no new medications changed anything, and I'm now recovering back on the old medications which were being used when I deteriorated.
Staff Culture
I think there was an intangible aspect which pointed to a staff culture issue at the institution. I had a stay at another hospital voluntarily and it had been totally different. I don't know if this was normal.
Doctors - I developed a belief (right or wrong) they weren't serious about my healthcare and were trying to prescribe me the worst medication with the worse side effect. I already have an ingrained distrust of doctors and psychiatrists due to my experiences over the years, I have always had a better experience with psychologists and therapy.
Nurses - Experience with nurses varied. Some were good and valuable assets to the healthcare system.
Security - They used what I perceived to be unacceptable tactics when dealing with incidents. This was not conducive to a recovery or a healthcare environment.
Overall, whilst I'll reiterate there was some staff who were very good, and I recognise some staff may be lowly paid (eg. nurses or food serving staff), there was intangible aspect that seemed to permeate through all the staff.
Have others had any similar experiences with doctors? Have others found psychologists better than psychiatrists? What has been your experience with psychiatrists? Has anyone stayed in a psychiatric ward and observed an issue related to staff?
I have submit a formal complaint to the institution for investigation. I don't know if this is normal. I don't know if I have unreasonable expectations of what to expect in relation to mental healthcare or an experience in a psychiatric ward where you are an involuntary patient. There could be some onus on me to taper my expectations and also communicate (ie. I need to explain my symptoms if I expect to get better). I have found some benefit to hearing others' experiences. Thanks in advance for any contributions.
