It is no exaggeration to say the times I’ve spent in psych wards have been some of the most life-changing experiences I’ve ever had. I love psych wards. Granted, each time I’ve stayed in one I’ve been manic and prone to bouts of euphoria, and intense feelings of love for life, and humanity, and really just existence in general, such that the negative aspects of the situation seem to fall to the wayside. But even now, as I sit here in relative euthymia, the sentiment holds true.

Mental and behavioral disorders have always carried a stigma in human society, and for as long as we’ve had institutions equipped to treat them, entering such an institution has carried a stigma as well. It’s the loony bin. The funny farm. The nut house. What I think, though, is that the stigma is rooted in a problem of what people know about psych wards, and how they perceive them. That in itself is a huge issue to tackle, and one two-page blog post probably isn’t going to change much in the grand scheme of things. But you have to start somewhere. So here I wanted to share some of my own experiences in psych wards, and what they mean to me, and give a glimpse of some of the things you can see while you’re there.

A psych ward is a place where you might sit, reveling calmly in your mania, when you see an old man, a veteran, brought in by wheelchair so deep in the throes of depression that he has been completely incapable of maintaining his physical appearance. He has gray and unkempt hair down to his shoulders, his beard scraggly and tangled, and he is unable to lift his gaze from the floor while muttering to himself non-stop as if trying to make sense of the pain and suffering and confusion that you see completely consumes him. But despite his abject condition upon arrival, as his time there passes you begin to see the effect of the care he is receiving, at first in subtle ways, the frequency of his muttering, the expression on his face. You know it was care and support he desperately needed, and it was good because he ended up in the right place. And all that leads up to the third day when the barber arrives to give him his first haircut in what must be months, and before your very eyes, as the strands fall to the ground, you see his back straighten ever so slightly, his muttering has stopped completely, and he is finally able to lift his stare from the floor to see you sitting across the room. The color is returning to his face, the sharpness is returning to his eye, and you have to smile and nod while inside the only thing you want to do is dance and sing and cheer at what you have just witnessed. But you wait, and when the barber is finished you catch the man’s eye, then cross the room and introduce yourself, and you ask how he is feeling.

“Better,” he says. “Better.”

And a psych ward is a place where on the first nite you’re admitted you could be paired in a room with a sleeping man under 24 hour observation because he has shown violent tendencies in the past. And you think to yourself that what you have just learned about him is not going to help your paranoia or your trouble sleeping, but you try as hard as you can to tell yourself that the staff wouldn’t have him in contact with other patients if he were truly dangerous. You still can’t sleep because of the mania, but that means that the next morning, you get the chance to watch him as he wakes up and gets out of bed, and you smile because you see that he has the body language and the mannerisms almost of a cartoon bear coming out of hibernation, and you know in your heart of hearts instantly that he poses no threat to you, and you introduce yourself and learn his name is Herman and he says, “Alright, we’re roommates, that means we gotta look out for each other.” You agree, and you ask if he wants to eat breakfast together.

And later when you are pacing the halls trying to calm the storm in your mind, you pass by the public phone as it rings and you pick it and it’s a woman asking to speak to Herman, and you say without really thinking, “Yeah, he’s a friend of mine. Let me go get him real quick, hold on.” And you find him in your room and you let him know he has a call and he leaves and you lay down in your bed to try to nap knowing full well the mania isn’t going to allow it yet. And after a time Herman returns, and while still standing in the doorway he looks you in the eye asks, “Did you tell my mom that I was your friend?”

“That was your mom on the phone? Yeah, I guess I did.”

He pauses. “Thank you.”

And you realize from the tone of his voice and the expression on his face that what you said somewhat absentmindedly, but with nonetheless sincerity turned out to be something that both he and his mom needed to hear and know. You don’t know what brought Herman to this place, and you don’t know about his past, but you know that in the period that you have known him he has shown you nothing but kindness. You see good in him. That moment you shared at that place and that time meant something. For both of you.

And, if you’re truly lucky, you might just get to meet someone like Patrick. Psych wards are places that provide treatment in different forms to people with severe enough symptoms that they need round the clock observation and support. And while that treatment includes seeing a psychiatrist and structured group therapy, every ward I’ve ever stayed in schedules unstructured time for patients to have some agency in how best to go about carrying out their treatment plan. But while the treatment you receive directly from the staff is important, in my experience, the most therapeutic aspect of my stays in psych wards has been talking with the other patients. Patrick was another patient I met when we were both experiencing severe manic episodes.

Something interesting happened when our two manias collided, I think largely because they mirrored each other so closely. We both had delusions of grandeur, euphoria, and nearly uncontrollable flights of ideas that made sleep all but impossible to sleep. And we were both people who liked to talk. But the wonderful thing about our encounter was that the more we interacted, the more we both realized that listening to each other felt just as cathartic and therapeutic as speaking ourselves. We had the deepest and most meaningful conversations about life, and bipolar disorder, and just whatever popped into our minds really. Because when you’re manic, your mind tends to ascribe the deepest meaning to even the most mundane of subjects, and that’s part of the reason sleep is so difficult. You don’t want to let go of it because it feels so good. As it became a joke between the two of us: what was the biggest most meaningful thing our mania could conceive with the simplest of phrases. And as we we went longer without sleep, one night it slowly started devolving into nonsense that we couldn’t help but find utterly hilarious.

“I am the most amazing person you have ever met in my life.”

“I know about time and I know how to filter water.”

“Kilroy has seen the face of God. It is a robotic mask.”

And we stopped, and we smiled, and we nodded, because we knew that while we both were having the time of our lives, it was starting to get a little out of hand, and if we continued, those types of interactions could stand in the way of our treatment. First and foremost, we were in a psych ward because we were unwell, and we needed to be there to get better. So we parted ways and returned to our rooms and finally, we were able to sleep. With our words and with our friendship and by just spending time together, we healed each other. And we healed ourselves. By healing each other. While healing ourselves. And it could not have happened in any other place than in a psych ward. Peace.



I’m a lumberjack, and I’m okay.

I sleep all night and I work all day.

(He’s a lumberjack, and he’s okay.

He sleeps all night and he works all day.)

I cut down trees. I eat my lunch.

I go to the lavatory.

On Wednesdays I go shoppin’

And have buttered scones for tea.

“The Lumberjack Song” -Monty Python