Anything you'd like to know about my 10 years working in a mental hospital?

Kellycastro, no one is allowed to smack, shove or manhandle patients if they're unruly; it's a situation ripe for lawsuits. However, if a patient is causing harm to themselves or attacking another patient or staff, they have to be restrained in some way. All staff have to take an annual class that teaches how to restrain a dangerous patient and also teaches self-defense if attacked. A situation involving restraint is often referred to as a take down. It's done very quickly and efficiently. There is a hospital police station at the hospital and they respond to calls for help very quickly. I have had to participate in a few take downs over the years. I have also had to defend myself against various kinds of attacks here and there and have gotten hurt with minor injuries a couple of times. Most violence is patient fighting patient. Over my 10 years, there were some deaths of patients and staff. In fact, when I got the job I was replacing a teacher who'd been killed by adolescent students on her first day at work. All staff wear alarm belts and help comes quickly.

cherokeepatti, in many cases, it is just not possible to know what causes someone's mental illness. Sometimes it is very obvious; if a patient comes from a family with a great many seriously mentally ill people, some conclusions can be drawn as to a genetic component. If a patient has been extremely mistreated for an extended period of time, obviously stress or post traumatic stress is involved. And some kids come from homes that are horrible beyond the imagination of most people so that no one could come out of that situation undamaged. But...a lot of the time, the cause is a mystery and one can speculate but nothing is clear or obvious.

GjOf3, due to fear of lawsuits, the staff are rarely abusive with patients nowadays. Some staff people are not kind and respectful with patients but most are. Remember, patients can sue but staff cannot. And when patients are sent to a state mental hospital in my state, they're automatically assigned a free attorney. In my 10 years, I know that one staff person got fired for exploiting patients (he tried to seduce some of the adolescent girls).

As for sex among patients.....among civil commitment patients who had grounds privileges, affairs, often volatile ones, were very common.

Among forensic patients (prison side of hospital) the men were separated from the women, as in any prison, and patients were supervised carefully so there was very little sex except the occasional gay,affair between roommates which was not entirely forbidden but often discouraged.

Among the adolescents I taught for 5 years...YOWIE!!! it was a constant job to keep them from having sex any way anywhere they could get away with it. They hid in corners, behind bookshelves, attempted constantly to sneak into restrooms together...it was a tiring job to supervise them. All their love affairs, whether they managed to have sex or not, were very short and intense and nearly always led to violent hatred in a day or two. Yes, with the teens it WAS a problem!

Since most autistic patients are treated outside hospitals nowadays, I did not have any autistic students. Some severely autistic patients were in the hospital but were rarely able to attend school; I did notice that some of them had savant abilities. Psychiatrists have told me that they have dealt with gifted autistic people and some autistic people are highly intelligent, talented people.

cherokeepatti, your mother would not be the first person to be misdiagnosed; psychiatry and psychology are not exact sciences. But if she could function in the military for any significant length of time, she almost certainly would not have been full blown autistic though there are people considered borderline or mildly autistic.

I believe my mother was autistic, she was very gifted too...went into the military and was an aid-de-camp for a general, got malaria and had a high fever that did nervous system damage. They diagnosed her as schizophrenic but i didn't think she was that.

Yeah...what was the most common reason for the people going mental...stresses in life or genetic or what? How many of the patients that you knew were gifted or very talented in some way?

Cherokeepatti, I don't have a statistic but many patients I dealt with were gifted, many were outright geniuses. I was not a Special Ed. teacher; I was a General Ed. teacher so all the patients with learning disabilities were not in my classes. That might explain why I had so many gifted patients.

I believe she was mildly autistic and her brother too. First time I watched Rainman when it came out in the theater I kept thinking they were autistic (milder than Rainman though).

What kind of mistreatment did you see?
Did you have problems with inmates having sexual relations with other inmates

@gmg. Thanks awesome answer and should make for some interesting reading

I've worked in a couple too. It's just a job. Can't take it home with you or you are done

Do you think that some of the gifted students might have been autistic?

Betting there is a lot of stories to be told about that.

Do they have locking clothing ?

Sounds very interesting