About a year and a half ago I tried to commit suicide. Well, thought about it anyway. After admitting it to the school counselor, I was admitted into a mental institution as an out patient. To deal with the stress of the first day I wrote this, I didn't even know I still had it: Waiting to be Assessed Assessed (verb, past tense)- Determined in terms of importance, size, or value. So we go in to the hospital at about 1:30pm to be assessed. (Being assessed means that people will interview me and determines how severe my mental stability is.) So, after 'checking in' and 'filling out paper work, I get to go through a metal detector! I take off my Class Ring, my Cell Phone, and my DS. She puts it all in a locker and freaking locks the thing saying "these things aren't aloud in the waiting room." So I'm looking at her thinking "What the fucking hell?" So she takes my things and thank god I am able to keep my book. (I'm currently reading Diablo: The Sin Wars, Book One: Birthright) and I sit in one of the chairs while my mom fills out paper work waiting for us to be taken to the OTHER waiting room. Now they have CNN on the TV, so I'm currently watching a program about that tape of Paris Hilton screaming how she hates gays and apparently she is a racist. I lol'd. I hear a kidl tell her mom 'I need to use the bath room'. I don't know why that's the first thing I pick up, it just is. Now, across me is a tall black guy sitting in a chair. The guy has a mustache and is RIPPED so immediately I start drooling on myself... until his daughter walks into he room and they leave. I was sad, but that's not the bestestest part of the story yet, so I'll continue. So anyway, the mom of the kid who went to use the bathroom walks through the metal detector. Suddenly, out of the blue, the kid (who is a girl, by the way) storms into the room yelling, "MOMMY! MOMMY! I WENT ALL BY MYSELF!" Now, I found this a little because I mean the kid had to be at least 11. But I brushed it off as me and my mom (my dad was not yet present) and we go to the OTHER waiting room. This is where the fun begins. I walk into the room and there are 7 seats and a chair. (By seats I mean larger couch things that are meant to seat 2 people) I'll list the people in the order I noticed them: A girl (my age, 17) sitting with her mom. There dad was sitting across from them. Some kid who looked to be 18. Latino, wearing a chain with a cross on it. He was ugly, really ugly. (No offense to latino's) That kid (The 11 year old girl, Who I will refer to from now on as Caz, for the sake of story telling) and her mom One old guy and his even older (the women was ancient looking) mother. Another old guy (Who apparently has anger management issues) and HIS ancient mother. Another old guy who was sitting alone in the chair (he looked so lonely D Me and my mother take a seat together and I open my book. The 17 year old girl (Who I will deem 'Deb' for the sake of this story') asked what book I'm reading. I tell her, she turns away and talks to her mom. There is a milk carton (sitting unopened) in a table that is in the middle of the room. Deb's dad asks if she's going to drink it. Deb says it's not hers. Deb's dad says for her to hand it to him (the carton was unopened) Deb picks up the carton, but then she tells her dad "But it's warm." He asks "What's the expiration date?" She replies, "February 17th" He says for her to hand it to him. But she says it's old. This continues back and forth for about 25 minutes. Now, I'm sitting here trying not to laugh at them when all of a sudden Caz tackles the snack machine that is up against the wall shoulder first and starts pushing all the buttons on it going, "Why won't it work?!" Once she realized she wasn't going to get anything out of it she immediately runs over to the soda machine and pushes all the buttons on it (without inserting any money.) It is at this moment I realize that this girl is not right in the head. After not receiving anything from those poor defenseless vending machines she gives up, comes over to the table in the middle of the room, tears out 2 pages from a random magazine, and folds them into paper airplanes. She dubs these airplanes "U.S. Up" and "U.S. Down." She then proceeds to test fly these airplanes by throwing them into walls. They must have been crash tests. Both planes did remarkably well before she proceeded to rip them up in a sudden burst of rage. There were no survivors.
I've been to one of those types of hospitals myself, not as a patient but as a visitor for a family member. I must say, what you described is basically dead on, at least for the one I visited, minus the 11 year old kid. People in that place vary so much, from the suicidal goth punk kids, to the kids that look like they come from the perfect family. If there is one good thing that comes from those places, other than possibly saving a life, is the sudden understanding that you have on the subject of suicides.
Major ups for posting this and Im glad you got over it. A couple people very close to me didnt get over there problems...
Mental institutions and hospitals scare the fuck out of me, its the thought that people can legally have the power to change what you think, harm you, restrain you, take away everything you love and generally "kill you" (which I define as forever robbing you of any sort of individualism). Any resistance to their judgement would lead to a worse outcome. That to me is fucking scary. I never want to go inside one, I don't trust strangers enough to let them have that power over me, especially orderlies... I mean, how much training do orderlies get anyway?