A Day in a Psychiatric Hospital
It’s not as “crazy” as you think
I’ve gone to the psychiatric hospital four times now. Once in 2016. Twice in 2018. The most recent, early 2019. It has been over a year since I last went, but I will never forget the experience of entering that familiar unit.
Before I proceed, I will give a caveat. This is all based on my experiences, and I have only gone to the same hospital every time I was admitted. At this specific hospital, let us call it Bright Woods, this is what a typical day looked like.
The day always started with breakfast at 7 a.m. The nurses would go around entering the patient’s rooms to remind them that breakfast was ready. Most people ate, but some stayed in their rooms. I always ate. The food was not amazing, but it was decent, and they gave us a good portion size.
Every morning after eating, we would have to fill out a menu for what we wanted to eat the next day — breakfast, lunch, and dinner — even if we were being discharged that same day. Our first day at the hospital, they usually just chose our food for us since we were not around the day before to choose our own meals. The nurses usually checked our vitals and handed out the first round of medication around this time as well.
