Earlier on today a friend of mine was admitted into a psychiatric ward, in a not necessarily first world country. His first impressions of it were them forcing him to have narcotics, which they claimed were mere vitamins, and now he is seemingly not himself. It seems like he has been misled through every stage of this, and I genuinely feel scared for him, even though he is safe.
All these feelings were heightened after a read an article about 23 people being cramped into one room in their country, with the hospital in disrepair, leading to a murder of 5 people by an insane patient.
I’m so scared, even though my friend has assured that these feelings are irrational. I mean, they shouldn’t even be in hospital, as they only were saying that they were suicidal in rage…
I’m so scared for them, but I don’t know why?
Hey @ljet11. I’m sorry to see that you’re struggling with your friend’s current situation. I think it’s normal to be a bit scared for your friend. You can’t visit them to get the whole picture of what’s actually going on, and it’s hard not to be able to see that they’re ok.
Even if they didn’t mean whatever it is they said, sometimes the best place to be in that circumstance is in a hospital where there’s specialized care. The professionals will be able to find if it was just a spur of the moment reaction and decide on the best course of action. Sometimes meds do cause people to act differently. Sometimes that’s a good thing, sometimes it’s not. The doctors at the facility should know what the changes are and whether they should stay on whatever medication was started.
The thing about looking online for information is that it can be hard to find the good things about the places you’re looking into, especially psych wards. Psych wards tend to have really bad reputations. We tend to think the worst of them because of knowing the history of them and because of exaggeration in movies and tv shows. You’re going to find a lot of negative things. On almost anything, you can find the worst reviews and the worst stories. Truthfully, those stories could come from any country and any hospital. It’s not just the country your friend is in. You saw an article about 23 people cramped into a room, but that could have been years ago. And even if it was recent, that doesn’t mean the place they’re in practices the same way. I think you only have a part of the picture on what’s actually going on, and it’s not helpful to make a decision on a situation like this when there are boundaries keeping you from seeing the whole picture.
Yes, it is natural to be scared for them. I’m not sure what you can do to get through this except maybe keep reminding yourself that your friend is safe. Keep communication open as much as possible. Ask them what is happening in their day to day, including meals and activities, not just with treatment. You’ll both get through this.
The article was from 2019, and from a very similar location to their home town.
Having a day to think on it, I would say that themselves not even knowing why they are in hospital, nor what any of the drugs are, is the most scary part. This is probably so scary for me because I have PTSD from tons of lies in the past, so any decieving them about what is going on triggers me.
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