So a few weeks ago I had the opportunity to spend some time in the psychiatric ward of the Rouge Hill Ajax Hospital. I thought I would share the experience with the three people on here that read my blog...
A warning: its pretty long....
I was at first very excited to be there, because it meant that I could have my pants back, which had been confiscated some time ago, along with my shoes and wallet. Granted my pants were kind of disgusting and blood encrusted, but having had to spend the night pantless I was thrilled at the prospect of being reunited with them.
Sarah was there with me as I was shown my room, and before I could even get a tour of my new home, my brother showed up. He had called the hospital a number of times during the night, but I had ignored that, hoping if he couldn't get ahold of me, he wouldn't come to the hospital. No such luck. Not that I have a problem with my broher, it was just an embarassing situation and I didn't want anyone to see me there...
Anyway I sat around with Sarah and my brother for a while, avoiding any topics of conversation pertaining to suicide, mental health or the fact that I was currently imprisoned in the psychiatric ward of a hospital.
On that topic....It is quite a strange experience to be held against one's will, even in as moderate a situation as the one I was in. I knew I should be there, If they had given me the option of leaving or staying I would have stayed, but it was still so strange to know that if I tried to walk out I would be forcibly restrained.
Anyway, eventually my brother left and I was moved into a private room. There was someone already living in the private room, but they were kicked out so I could move in. There was only one privaste room on the ward and he was only there through seniority, wheras I was actually paying for a private room (I'll explain that one later).
I would have felt bad, but I'm just not that nice a person, not to mention the thought of having a roommate was pretty terrifying. Even if I were a nice person, my feelings of guilt would have dissipated as soon as I saw the guy that I was displacing. I don't know why, but I instantly hated him. And not in that psychpathological antisocial way I hate pretty much everybody, I really hated this guy. I would even go so far as to say that I considered him my nemesis for the extent of my stay.
Once alone in my new room (Sarah had gone home to get a few hours sleep) I looked in the closet to find an unopened pack of cigarettes. Perhaps a welcome gift from my nemesis? I don't smoke, and had absolutely no reason to keep them (except to use as currency, but I would soon find out that cigarettes were not the currency they used there...) but i decided I would keep them anyway. After all, that evil mustache-man had it coming. Did I mention he had a mustache? Yeah, he had a HUGE one, like a "My Name is Earl / Smokey and the Bandit" mustache.
So I sat in my extremely sterile room for a few hours. At some point a nurse came in to clean and dress my wrists. She would, of course, have to have a cute young intern with her, further contributing to the embarassment of the situation.
Eventually 'Earl' came into my room (there were doors, but they didn't actually close- there was some sort of privacy code that dealt with hanging washclothes over the open door, but no one ever explained it to me) and asked if the orderlies had left anything of his behind when they moved his stuff out of the room. Of course, I lied. I could tell he wanted to look through the closet, but I got the sense that that would be a violation of some rule, and so he eventually left.
Hours passed, I was starting to think maybe this wouldn't be so bad, so long as I could just sit in this empty room and stare at the walls for hours, but, unfortunately, dinner soon came. They had let me get away with hiding in my room during lunch, but they were making me eat dinner, and in the room designated for eating, along with everyone else.
This was the first time I had really seen most of the other...uh...guests? Mostly they were just old ladies and men, who seemed very lonely. They didn't seem like they needed to be in this ward (it was the next to highest security level ward, second only to the ward where everyone is tied to their beds all day every day) but I discovered that most of them were here because they had asked to be committed. They discussed amongst themselves when they would be leaving, when they would be coming back, etc. This ward was kind of like their second home. There were 3 meals a day, ping pong and a 5 hour CSI marathon every night. And a perpetually rotating circle of friends to interact with. For them this was better than home. Some of them even had families waiting at home, but regarded their times here as vacations. Some of them seemed to be living below the poverty line as well, so the psych ward was actually an improvement to their quality of living. I suppose in a way its taking advantage of our standardized health care, but they weren't taking many more tax dollars than they would have been if they were collecting welfare and living in some slum somewhere, and in the hospital they were getting any medication they needed for free, which they wouldn't be on the outside.
Anyway...
I said earlier that the currency there was not cigarettes. It was, I discovered, food and cutlary. Everyone's meal came with their name on it, but out of the 20 or so patients there, not one meal was actually correct. Each one came with a list of what it was supposed to have, but no one's meal actually matched the list. Plus, Some patients had dietary concerns which meant they got even worse food than anyone else. And not everone was cleared for full cutlary access, some people had to try and eat without a knife, and some people were only given spoons.
So, it went something like this....(i didn't figure all of this out my first day, but I ended up having to have quite a few meals in there during the course of my stay...)
Stage one bartering: Forks aned Knives- Those without had to try and barter for them if they wanted to be able to eat properly. Dinner was completely unsupervised, so there wasn't much point in denying the dangerous patients their knives in the first place, but they did. If worse came to worse a person could do without cutlary, so a knife or fork wasn't usually worth much more than another piece of cutlary, or maybe something from the stage two section.
Stage two Bartering: Hot Drinks and Soup- Everyone was supposed to get coffee or tea. It was random which one you actually got (if you got any) so bartering at this stage consisted mostly of exchanging tea and coffee for one another if you got the one you didn't want. Every meal came with soup, but it was just a very weak chicken broth and not worth very much. If you didn't like tea or coffee you might trade for an extra serving of soup, even if you didn't want it, just because it was all it was worth.
Stage three Bartering: Main Course Everybody got a main course. It was pretty much the whole meal, and the tray would be almost empty if they'd forgotten it. Its for this reason that it isn't higher on the bargaining list; because everyone has it, it is simply a matter of preference rather than necessity. Bartering at this level would consist of trading your bland "main course for dietary concerns" for someone else's almost equally bland "regular main course." Likely you would have to toss in a few stage one and stage two items unless the exchangee disliked the meal they had been given and had been foolish enough to voice this opinion before bartering began.
Stage four Bartering: Extras- The other stuff that filled up your plate. Random stuff like outmeal, bread, an egg, maybe some real soup with actual stuff in it. You could get anything at any time, and this was usually the best stuff in the meal, so it was highly tradable. Some people might get two, or even three extras and someone else might get non.
Stage five Bartering: Fruit and Non-perishables This was the stuff that everone really wanted. It was forbidden to take any food out of the kitchen, but things like apples, bananas, crackers, cookies in a sealed bag and anything that could be hidden for later were in high demand. It was worth the risk of getting it confiscated for the opportunity to have something to eat at night, or in-between meals. Especially if a person wasn't hungry at meal time, they might trade their entire meal for some non-perishables that they could eat later when they were hungry.
Stage six Bartering: Juice- tiny sealed containers of juice, proabably only about 150 ml in each. On average I would say less than 20% of the trays actually came with one, even though they were all supposed to. These could be saved indefinitely, and outside of tea, coffee and tap water, this was the only thing a person had to drink unless they could get something brought in from the outside. The univrsality of its need, its longevity, and its general scarcity all combined to make Juice the #1 trading item.
Well, that was actually a lot more detail than I was planning on putting into that. But i'm sure it was riveting to read, right?
I'll write the rest of it in another post I think, this is getting pretty long.... You'll have to come back in order to find out the answers to questions like "what makes 'Earl' so evil?", "What steps did he take to try and reclaim his cigarettes?" And "how did I get a private room?"
A warning: its pretty long....
I was at first very excited to be there, because it meant that I could have my pants back, which had been confiscated some time ago, along with my shoes and wallet. Granted my pants were kind of disgusting and blood encrusted, but having had to spend the night pantless I was thrilled at the prospect of being reunited with them.
Sarah was there with me as I was shown my room, and before I could even get a tour of my new home, my brother showed up. He had called the hospital a number of times during the night, but I had ignored that, hoping if he couldn't get ahold of me, he wouldn't come to the hospital. No such luck. Not that I have a problem with my broher, it was just an embarassing situation and I didn't want anyone to see me there...
Anyway I sat around with Sarah and my brother for a while, avoiding any topics of conversation pertaining to suicide, mental health or the fact that I was currently imprisoned in the psychiatric ward of a hospital.
On that topic....It is quite a strange experience to be held against one's will, even in as moderate a situation as the one I was in. I knew I should be there, If they had given me the option of leaving or staying I would have stayed, but it was still so strange to know that if I tried to walk out I would be forcibly restrained.
Anyway, eventually my brother left and I was moved into a private room. There was someone already living in the private room, but they were kicked out so I could move in. There was only one privaste room on the ward and he was only there through seniority, wheras I was actually paying for a private room (I'll explain that one later).
I would have felt bad, but I'm just not that nice a person, not to mention the thought of having a roommate was pretty terrifying. Even if I were a nice person, my feelings of guilt would have dissipated as soon as I saw the guy that I was displacing. I don't know why, but I instantly hated him. And not in that psychpathological antisocial way I hate pretty much everybody, I really hated this guy. I would even go so far as to say that I considered him my nemesis for the extent of my stay.
Once alone in my new room (Sarah had gone home to get a few hours sleep) I looked in the closet to find an unopened pack of cigarettes. Perhaps a welcome gift from my nemesis? I don't smoke, and had absolutely no reason to keep them (except to use as currency, but I would soon find out that cigarettes were not the currency they used there...) but i decided I would keep them anyway. After all, that evil mustache-man had it coming. Did I mention he had a mustache? Yeah, he had a HUGE one, like a "My Name is Earl / Smokey and the Bandit" mustache.
So I sat in my extremely sterile room for a few hours. At some point a nurse came in to clean and dress my wrists. She would, of course, have to have a cute young intern with her, further contributing to the embarassment of the situation.
Eventually 'Earl' came into my room (there were doors, but they didn't actually close- there was some sort of privacy code that dealt with hanging washclothes over the open door, but no one ever explained it to me) and asked if the orderlies had left anything of his behind when they moved his stuff out of the room. Of course, I lied. I could tell he wanted to look through the closet, but I got the sense that that would be a violation of some rule, and so he eventually left.
Hours passed, I was starting to think maybe this wouldn't be so bad, so long as I could just sit in this empty room and stare at the walls for hours, but, unfortunately, dinner soon came. They had let me get away with hiding in my room during lunch, but they were making me eat dinner, and in the room designated for eating, along with everyone else.
This was the first time I had really seen most of the other...uh...guests? Mostly they were just old ladies and men, who seemed very lonely. They didn't seem like they needed to be in this ward (it was the next to highest security level ward, second only to the ward where everyone is tied to their beds all day every day) but I discovered that most of them were here because they had asked to be committed. They discussed amongst themselves when they would be leaving, when they would be coming back, etc. This ward was kind of like their second home. There were 3 meals a day, ping pong and a 5 hour CSI marathon every night. And a perpetually rotating circle of friends to interact with. For them this was better than home. Some of them even had families waiting at home, but regarded their times here as vacations. Some of them seemed to be living below the poverty line as well, so the psych ward was actually an improvement to their quality of living. I suppose in a way its taking advantage of our standardized health care, but they weren't taking many more tax dollars than they would have been if they were collecting welfare and living in some slum somewhere, and in the hospital they were getting any medication they needed for free, which they wouldn't be on the outside.
Anyway...
I said earlier that the currency there was not cigarettes. It was, I discovered, food and cutlary. Everyone's meal came with their name on it, but out of the 20 or so patients there, not one meal was actually correct. Each one came with a list of what it was supposed to have, but no one's meal actually matched the list. Plus, Some patients had dietary concerns which meant they got even worse food than anyone else. And not everone was cleared for full cutlary access, some people had to try and eat without a knife, and some people were only given spoons.
So, it went something like this....(i didn't figure all of this out my first day, but I ended up having to have quite a few meals in there during the course of my stay...)
Stage one bartering: Forks aned Knives- Those without had to try and barter for them if they wanted to be able to eat properly. Dinner was completely unsupervised, so there wasn't much point in denying the dangerous patients their knives in the first place, but they did. If worse came to worse a person could do without cutlary, so a knife or fork wasn't usually worth much more than another piece of cutlary, or maybe something from the stage two section.
Stage two Bartering: Hot Drinks and Soup- Everyone was supposed to get coffee or tea. It was random which one you actually got (if you got any) so bartering at this stage consisted mostly of exchanging tea and coffee for one another if you got the one you didn't want. Every meal came with soup, but it was just a very weak chicken broth and not worth very much. If you didn't like tea or coffee you might trade for an extra serving of soup, even if you didn't want it, just because it was all it was worth.
Stage three Bartering: Main Course Everybody got a main course. It was pretty much the whole meal, and the tray would be almost empty if they'd forgotten it. Its for this reason that it isn't higher on the bargaining list; because everyone has it, it is simply a matter of preference rather than necessity. Bartering at this level would consist of trading your bland "main course for dietary concerns" for someone else's almost equally bland "regular main course." Likely you would have to toss in a few stage one and stage two items unless the exchangee disliked the meal they had been given and had been foolish enough to voice this opinion before bartering began.
Stage four Bartering: Extras- The other stuff that filled up your plate. Random stuff like outmeal, bread, an egg, maybe some real soup with actual stuff in it. You could get anything at any time, and this was usually the best stuff in the meal, so it was highly tradable. Some people might get two, or even three extras and someone else might get non.
Stage five Bartering: Fruit and Non-perishables This was the stuff that everone really wanted. It was forbidden to take any food out of the kitchen, but things like apples, bananas, crackers, cookies in a sealed bag and anything that could be hidden for later were in high demand. It was worth the risk of getting it confiscated for the opportunity to have something to eat at night, or in-between meals. Especially if a person wasn't hungry at meal time, they might trade their entire meal for some non-perishables that they could eat later when they were hungry.
Stage six Bartering: Juice- tiny sealed containers of juice, proabably only about 150 ml in each. On average I would say less than 20% of the trays actually came with one, even though they were all supposed to. These could be saved indefinitely, and outside of tea, coffee and tap water, this was the only thing a person had to drink unless they could get something brought in from the outside. The univrsality of its need, its longevity, and its general scarcity all combined to make Juice the #1 trading item.
Well, that was actually a lot more detail than I was planning on putting into that. But i'm sure it was riveting to read, right?
I'll write the rest of it in another post I think, this is getting pretty long.... You'll have to come back in order to find out the answers to questions like "what makes 'Earl' so evil?", "What steps did he take to try and reclaim his cigarettes?" And "how did I get a private room?"
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A fish!