Hospital admissions for mental health.

Mental health units often get called things like nut huts or looney bins, so I wanted to share my experience and why I’m desperately trying to get back into one.

First, I think choosing a facility with a good reputation is important. I was admitted between February and April after being diagnosed with PTSD, Major Depressive Disorder and Generalised Anxiety Disorder following my husband’s death. I’m (now) also the sole parent to three autistic children still living at home, so life is… a lot.

I expected to stay for three weeks. I ended up there for five, only leaving because the person caring for my kids had to return to work.

The first few days were about settling in, meeting the team, changing my medications safely, and identifying some physical health issues that were easily treated. Over the following weeks I worked with a psychiatrist, psychologist, social worker, exercise physiologist and allied health staff.

There were group programs, gym sessions, art therapy, walks and coffee outings, but participation was always my choice. Nobody forced me to do anything. I was simply encouraged to use what helped.

The biggest gift wasn’t just the therapy. It was the respite. I didn’t have to make a hundred decisions every day or put everyone else’s needs before my own. I could sleep, focus on getting well, and finally have permission to be the one being cared for.

The other patients were an unexpected source of support too. We all arrived with different stories, but we looked out for one another. Sometimes that meant sitting together in silence, sometimes laughing, sometimes quietly letting someone know a loud conversation or slamming door was affecting another patient. They even shielded me from a conversation about a fatal crash because they knew my husband had recently been killed. That kind of compassion can’t be prescribed.

The support from both staff and patients was incredible. Right now, I’m struggling again. 8 days ago the man who killed my husband pleaded not guilty despite the crash being on camera. 2 days later was my husband’s first birthday since his death. In 2 days it will be the first anniversary of losing him. My 20yo is in hospital for his second mental health admission, my 16yo has just been referred for one, and life feels like it’s fallen apart and getting smooshed into the ground by an unyielding boot.

That’s why I’m trying to go back. Not because I’ve failed, or didn’t get the help I desperately needed first time around, but because I know how much that environment could help me again. It gave me professional support, space to breathe, and friendships with people who genuinely understood what it meant to be struggling.

So if you’re ever considering an inpatient mental health stay, and you can access a good facility, don’t let the stigma stop you. Give yourself the opportunity to be looked after for a while.

My only real disappointment? I never got to say I’d been thrown into a padded cell wearing a straitjacket.