Psychiactric Hospital - an eye opener

I was taken by ambulance to the hospital in Atlanta.  Around 2 hours on an ambulance gurney where you aren't laying flat and your tailbone is being jarred with each bump.  It felt like forever!

I arrived at the hospital around 2AM.  It felt so uncanny being unloaded from the ambulance in the dark at a strange place.  I was so scared.

Once I was inside I was given some papers to fill out and was left to sit and wait.

In nothing but my hospital gown, and bare feet.  So tired.

Sat there for 2 hours.

Then I was walked through the long empty hospital halls.

Do you know what it feels like to walk at 4 in the morning through a mental hospital halls?  Wearing only a hospital gown, no purse, no ID, no anything.  If I had collapsed and died right there I would have no identification for them to ID me by!  Each door they opened had to be unlocked and then locked being us.

It definitely felt like a prison.

I finally was taken to a room where I was told to take off my gown.

Oooookaaaaayyyyy.  All I had on was my gown.  And they want me to take THAT off????

It was so degrading to stand there butt naked, stripped of every belonging, before a stranger as she marked on a drawing every little scar and bruise on my body.

I thought, "I have hit rock bottom. There is nothing worse than this.  This is what prison feels like.  This is my punishment for what I did."

I was taken  to a room that I would share with another person.  The beds are wooden slabs with a 3" plastic-covered foam on top.  You might as well sleep on the floor it was that hard and uncomfortable.  The plastic makes you sweat and I have night sweats so that was extra bad for me.

Get this:  The room doors are required to be left wide open at night and the hall lights are NOT dimmed.  Every 15 minutes a woman comes to your room and shines a flashlight in your face to make sure you are still breathing.

This was my first night.  I was in the middle of a nightmare.