By 16-years-old, I had been self-harming for at least two years. I was a cutter. I would do it anywhere I could hide it; my arms, my legs, my thighs. I still have remnants of those scars to this day; those places don’t tan.

Needless to say, I was seeing a therapist and I was taking medicine, but I was still severely depressed.

One day at a therapy appointment, I told my therapist that I could understand why people would want out of life. So, she called my mom and told her I needed to be hospitalized. I had driven myself to therapy that day so I had to leave my car at the office and my mom drove me to the hospital.

During intake was when it got real for me. I was about to be locked up in a hospital for an indefinite period of time. Because of my anxiety, I hated to be away from my house.

I was angry because I didn’t want to be admitted so I walked outside to smoke a cigarette. At this time, my parents didn’t know I smoked, but my mom found out when we got upstairs to the unit. I called my dad hoping that he would come pick me up and take me home. He said whatever was going on was best for me. This made me even more mad. The one time that I really needed him and I felt like he was throwing me to the wolves.

By the time I walked back in, I was mad at the world. I raised my voice to the intake officer and I screamed and told my mom I hated her. (This is the only time in my life I’ve ever said that and I regret that so much.)

Because of this outburst of mine, I was then labeled as having an anger problem even though I was super depressed and I was just angry about being admitted. And this also required me to be escorted to the psychiatric until by not one but two security guards. Yay me!

What I found out later was the most of the kids in the unit were scared of me because of my escorts. They eventually realized I was no one to be afraid of.

For the first night, I was in the suicide watch room right across from the nurse’s station. I was told that if I didn’t stop crying they would keep me longer and wouldn’t let me have phone calls. Now, looking back, I know how wrong this was to say to a teenager suffering from severe depression. But at that time it scared me to pieces.

I was in the room by myself until early morning when another girl came in. She was really combative and when she came in, she woke me up. Very little sleep was had on that first night. We would find out that she was really the one to be afraid of as this was not her first stay and she was violent to people.

On day two, I was moved into another room with two girls down the hall. We talked quite a bit since there wasn’t much else to do. One of them was artistic and would draw us as we sat there talking. She was really good!

In therapy, they told us what they wanted to hear in order for us to get out of the hospital so I played the game. In one week I was out of the hospital but nothing had changed with me. I was still depressed and anxious but I was out of the hospital. At this time I learned that I couldn’t be truthful to my therapist at the time because if I was, I would end up back in the psych unit. It’s really sad but I lied about how I was feeling so my medicine was never changed to help me more. Just another bump in the road of life for me.

Like Adam Sandler sang in Billy Madison, “Back to school, back to school to show my dad (mom) I’m not a fool.”

It was my senior year. A time when I was supposed to be thinking about prom, colleges, and the big world ahead of me. Instead, I was lost in my depression and negative thoughts. Maybe drowning in my depression and thoughts would be a better representation.

My teachers knew why I had been out of school because the school had to be notified and the teachers had to put my school work together so my mom could bring it to the hospital. Yes, you still have to do school work in the psych unit. There’s no reprieve from that.

One teacher took it upon herself to tell a student that didn’t like me that I was in the psychiatric ward. So when I got back to school, her and all of her friends (she was super popular) started calling me crazy.

I was mortified and even more depressed. My only reprieve was Spanish class every day with an amazing teacher that I will never forget. She, of course, knew what was going on and would let me sleep in her class because she knew that when it came to my work, everything would be good. Bless her heart for her understanding and kindness because I didn’t get it from any of my peers.

I told my mom that I wanted to drop out so we went to talk to my guidance counselor to see what my options were.

We explained the situation to my guidance counselor who called the teacher into her office. The teacher, of course, denied it but I knew better. I called the teacher a liar and the guidance counselor got upset with me and had the nerve to tell me to apologize. “Absolutely not because I’m telling the truth,” I stated firmly.

When that was all over, we found a school online that was accredited. I did the ninth through twelfth grade over again and what I did was better than when I was in school. I also finished all four years of work before what would have been my graduating class graduated that year.

Have you spent time in a psych unit? Did you have a good or bad experience?