#i wasnt like crying bc i was diagnosed with ASD it was more just crying cause i cry all the time now and it was a cathartic session

[electoons]

my psychiatrist was trying to explain that a lot of my depression and anxiety probably stems from my trying to force myself into a (neurotypical/allistic) mold that i wasn't made for and that it's nothing to be ashamed of and she listed elon musk and bill gates as my fellow autists and that made me cry harder

[stuntchica]

i just keep getting so angry about hospital so im going to try and write down everything bad i can remember them doing to try and get it all out

when they first came to my house dr d completely waved off what i said abt not remembering childhood & being disturbed by that. he asked me to name a childhood toy & after i could he said ‘see, you can remember’ even though id literally seen that toy that morning & was remembering from,, you know,, my whole life not just my childhood

despite the fact that i was not a danger to myself or anyone else, dr d decided after seeing me for 20 minutes that i had to go into hospital. he said i could either come informally myself or he would have me sectioned

i was not told how long i would be there for. we were told to bring an overnight bag so i expected it to just be overnight. when i got there i was told that i’d be there for at least 2 weeks

when they first gave me the menu to order off i wasnt told that there was a Rule that i had to finish everything so i ordered the thing i thought id like the most even tho i knew there was stuff i wouldnt like with it

when the food arrived (pizza, peas & chips) i ate everything except the cheese on the pizza bc it was cheddar & thats a Bad Food(tm) & i was really proud of myself bc it was more than i’d had in one sitting for weeks. the exact words the nurse with me said were ‘this counts as a failure’

when the snack time came around no one told me the full list of options (weeks later i found out that chocolate was available) so i picked a yogurt. after opening it i realised it had bits in it but i was too scared to ask for a different one bc i didnt like any of the other flavours. i ate as much as i could but i rlly couldnt stand the bits. the nurse with me told me it was another failure but another nurse in the room, thankfully, replaced her & understood what had happened

i dont remember what happened on the rest of the first day bc my abandonment fear kicked in and i got really panicked when my parents had to leave

i dont remember the rest in chronological order, but lets see

the room i was put into had a leaky toilet. it would leak all night long and due to how the bathroom was the leak echoed. it sounded like a waterfall. every time they came to fix it it would break again later that day. my shower was also broken and wouldnt turn on

i had to have a blood test on a friday but they didnt send the bloods off straight away so i had to have another one the next monday. keep in mind that i have an intense fear of needles

dr d compared me going on the internet to drug addicts waiting in line for heroine, even after i explained that it was the only way i had to avoid isolating myself & tried to explain what i actually do there

i couldnt eat a meal and was told ‘if you dont start eating we’ll have to make you’ despite the fact that i was eating when i could & if i couldnt finish a meal i was eating chocolate that was in my room. also despite the fact i was an informal patient so that was literally not possible

dr d spent hours trying to convince & guilt me into agreeing to take medication, despite the fact that was the one thing i’d always said no to (fun fact! i literally cant swallow medication. no one took me seriously when i said that either). eventually tho the psychologist spoke to him abt it & he stopped

the first 2 weeks i was there i saw no therapists. at all. because it was the easter holidays and they were away. there was nothing to do all day except watch tv, colour, & play cards. despite the fact that we were all so bored we were not taken out of the hospital or allowed access to our phones

in fact, for the entire 2 months i was there i was only taken out by staff twice. both those times happened in the same day. and were to the same place. a costa that was in the main hospital. does it even count as going out if youre just taken to a different part of the same building?

i had to stay there for 2 months while actively suicidal patients were allowed to leave before their 2 week assessments were over

even my camhs psychologist admitted that she didnt expect them to keep me for more than 2 weeks

the hospital psychologist admitted that she had no idea why dr d was insisting i stay for so long

i was told i was going to be put on a meal plan. i told them that would make me lose weight bc it would further limit how much i could eat. they didnt listen to me and blamed me when i did, in fact, lose weight

for the first month i was there no one did anything about my weight. i had to keep telling them that was my main problem and i needed help with it. after their ‘help’ hindered more than anything i regretted bringing it up

one night we found a piece of paper saying ‘i have a knife and im going to use it to self harm or kill someone’. when we all got, understandably, scared the nurses patronised us and got annoyed with us

a nurse yelled at my friend for ‘not being polite’

my friend managed to run away from the hospital twice. there were warning signs that the rest of the patients picked up on. she nearly killed herself both times

my friend found a razorblade on a seat. she was so shocked to see it there she said out loud ‘there’s a razorblade’. she said later that she regretted alerting everyone to it bc the nurses obviously took it away. we still dont know how it got there

one girl brought in a pair of scissors. no one had thought to check her bag. luckily she didnt intend to use them for anything other than arts & crafts (& cutting her hair, which is how i found out about the scissors & told her to hand them in. yeah, they didnt even notice she had scissors until i pointed them out)

one girl stole a syringe from the medical room and used it to take the supplement out of her nose tube. they didnt notice for weeks.

one week i gained some of weight. when i was happy dr d said ‘thats not really enough to be happy about’. the next week a lost less weight than i had gained. he spent half an hour telling me about how much of a failure i was

dr d tried very hard to have me diagnosed with atypical anorexia despite me consistently saying ‘i want to gain weight because i know im unhealthily underweight’ and the fact that the reason i was admitted to camhs was bc i went to the doctor for help to gain weight

my parents came to collect me to go out every day at 1:30pm. one day by 3:30pm they still werent there. i was scared something had happened because i had no phone to text them using. eventually i was told that the staff had called them to tell them not to come, and no one had told me. i had a panic attack because theyd gone behind my back and this meant i wouldnt be able to text my fp all day. the next day when i saw dr d he said ‘youre nearly 18 isnt it a bit childish to get upset over not seeing your parents for just one day?’

an ot that i saw said that i ‘put on an american accent and smiled when it was pointed out’. what really happened was she asked if i had an american accent and i smiled out of awkwardness and said ‘i speak to american people so maybe i picked it up??’ bc i didnt want her to feel awkward. if she had asked me i would have told her that i wasnt trying to put on any kind of accent

we were allowed to watch the babadook and mama but the second we suggested a film about psychosis we were told no

me and my friend got yelled at for what was on tv once

they called the police on patients, multiple times, when it was clear that no one would have reacted violently if they’d just done their jobs right

my friend cried because she knew after she left hospital she would have a criminal record. she had punched a nurse by accident while having a panic attack

i was told i could go home & was being discharged. i emptied out my room and spent a great 2 weeks at home. then we were called and i was told i had to go back for a night

dr d always had an idea in his head of what was wrong with me, and if i said anything that went against it he’d tell me that i was either lying or in denial

dr d told me off for not looking at him and said it wasnt polite

dr d told me off for crying

dr d told me off for not feeling safe with my eyes closed

dr d told another patient that she was probably not autistic bc she understood what ‘pull your socks up’ meant

despite me saying that i wanted to be assessed for asd nothing happened. they told me that they would consider me to be ‘informally autistic’ but that meant literally nothing

nurses thought that they could get me to eat by sitting next to me and guilting me

very few nurses noticed that i ate chocolate after meals because i was aware of the fact that i wasnt eating much & i wanted to change that

i had to eat chocolate after meals bc no one listened to me when i explained my food issues and that was the only way to make sure i was eating

there was what was basically a riot. i wasnt there when it happened but its easy to see how people got that upset and angry

the day after the riot everyone was punished, even those of us who hadnt even been at the hospital

my friend was shut in the ‘rumpus room’ (padded room). its illegal to do that

it took a month before someone told me i was allowed to discharge myself

i spent two months in a psychiatric hospital. it was never explained why i was there in a way i could understand. dr d literally said ‘my colleagues ask why you’re still here’ yet he didn’t discharge me. if i hadn’t turned 18 im sure i would still be there. i wasnt diagnosed with anything. it made my mental health worse

this isnt even everything because my memory of then is very patchy