Warning: This post deals with mentions of mental health issues and suicide, and could be triggering for some readers.
I took a three-week break from my corporate career to admit myself to a psych hospital.
I honestly wasn’t sure if a psychiatric hospital was going to be a bleak, depressing, prison-like experience or a quasi-hotel full of colourful characters playing off each other to create an environment ripe for the setting of an indie rom-com.
But, after a rock bottom incident gave me cause to reflect on my life and how it might play out if I didn’t do something differently, I signed up anyway.
How to talk to people with anxiety, a guide:
Physical pain and mental anguish combined with the challenges of securing frequent appointments with specialists meant that I had to decide between waiting months for treatment or consider an admission for immediate daily care.
Being the anxious, perfectionist, overachieving person that I am, I naively decided to see this as an opportunity to fast-track months of recovery into a bite sized package. I risked my corporate job, I took a leave of absence and I outsourced my cat – tick, tick, tick!
Top Comments
Next time just book yourself in for a spa retreat *eyeroll*
I think a few people have missed the point that this is a private, voluntary mental health unit. You can self admit or your medical professional can recommend you stay there. I'm very pleased you've written this piece as too often people think mental health units are awful, scary places like you see on movies and that you're kept in the same, locked in space as the severely mentally ill or insane. That's not true. A family member of mine recently stayed in a private mental health clinic for some ongoing treatment. It was a really nice facility and almost exactly as the writer described. They had leave passes for the weekends, visitors could order a meal to eat with the patient, group living rooms and large kitchen. It's a really great facility and we need more of them in the community.
You're missing the point: those types of units and that style of care is literally out of the reach of most Australians. Unless you can fork out the money for private insurance and provider gaps, you're stuck in the public system which is woefully under-funded across the board. There's no such thing as swanning in for an elective mental health inpatient tune-up for the vast majority of people reading here. Indeed, even those with serious, life threatening issues are being turned away from acute facilities that are NOT as pleasant as the one described here.
see above
We absolutely do need more facilities like this... but facilities like this that can be accessed by the general public, not just privately insured patients. I say this as a privately insured patient. It’s been an absolute godsend to be able to recover in a privately insured setting.
I’ve been “recovering” for 12 years. I doubt I would have made it this far in the public system. Every time I’m admitted for treatment (preventative), I can’t help but think of the unlucky person who would benefit hugely from my fortune within the private health sector. Just because someone can’t afford private health insurance shouldn’t dictate the level and quality of support that they receive.