I was in the acute teen section for a bit over a week. Here are my thoughts.
They use quite coercive measures to get you to stay there, threatening that your insurance will not cover anything if you leave against medical advice. I was glad I did not have to interact with that person again during my time there.
Most of the techs are pretty great. Quite a few have been through the same things we have. When you arrive they claim that you will have a one-on-one session with your psychiatrist and therapist every day, but you most likely will not. I saw mine around two times I think. They changed my meds, which has so far seemed to help, so I guess it was effective.
A nurse and a therapist would visit once a day. In the group therapy you would normally do a craft or learn coping strategies. The nurse would talk about a variety of topics, but mainly focused on addiction. I benefited a lot from the group therapy; it is comforting to not feel alone.
I was in a room with two other people, but most people only had to share with one. Showers are at night. They don\'t give you much time and the showers are really hot. After showers was med cart. I believe lights out was around 9:00, but most of the techs would let us talk for a bit if we couldn\'t sleep. We had to keep our door open all night, and it was really bright in the hallway. They checked on us every 15 minutes and did a room sweep every hour or so. My first night really sucked but I got used to it after a while. You have to make your bed every morning. After that is med cart again, and if people were being too loud we were sometimes late to breakfast.
The food is decent enough. It was honestly quite similar to my school lunch. You have two options for every meal of the day, and the menu cycles every week. If you don\'t want anything you can also request a pbj sandwich. It was not bad while I was there, but I can imagine it gets quite monotonous for the people in the long-term unit. One thing I did not like was that they claim to be lgbtq+ friendly yet would not allow trans people to sit with their preferred gender.
During the rest of the day we pretty much just alternated between the day room and the classroom. We normally watched movies, played games, or just chatted. I did so many word searches I hate them now. They had a workbook for us to work on about good coping skills and whatnot, but they didn\'t make us use it much. We also had periodic snacks throughout the day, though they don\'t give you any spoons so you sort of have to make do with the lid for some stuff.
They are also very big on the no touching rule, for obvious reasons. It sucks, but I understand why they have it. There are two phone times throughout the day, one after lunch and the other after dinner. You get fifteen minutes in total, and can choose to divide it up how you see fit. You can only call people on your approved list.
All in all, it\'s not amazing but not horrible either. The acute unit is basically just a glorified babysitting service to keep you alive and somewhat stabilize you. In the end, I think the most effective way this place prevents suicide is by making you never want to return to it.
