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Terrified Of Going Inpatient (again)

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I've been inpatient at a psychiatric hospital 3 times. Usually my psychiatrist is the one who puts me in there, & I'm seeing her today. Recently I've been struggling with cutting, & severe panic attacks with psychotic features, as well as some new repressed memories. I can't go inpatient again. I just got out in late January. If I go inpatient again, it will only further separate me from the few true friends I have, & I will get even more behind in school. I'm terrified. I don't really have a question, but any words of advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
I can relate to your fear. The more you can tell your psychiatrist what you were going to do to keep yourself safe and functioning as best as you can, hopefully they will backdown from trying to push you to go inpatient.

I'm not sure what country you're in, but if you're in the United States, there are a couple of specialized inpatient centers that handle trauma and PTSD much much much more effectively than a general inpatient unit.

I share your same concerns about going to a general inpatient unit. Even my therapist says they are not terribly therapeutic, all they do is basically keep you alive. If that's what is needed to help you be stabilized and safe, it's best to do that as scary as it is.

But I also really really hear you that there are significant drawbacks to going indication especially for somebody with PTSD and somebody was trying to build a support network. It does tend to cut people off from outside support networks and their life.

If you are in the United States there are a couple of inpatient treatment centers that really handle trauma well and when I went to one, it really changed my life. It is dramatically different than a general inpatient unit. Dramatically so. They helped me so much. They really respected my fears about being impatient, and did things to help me feel safe and to give me choices about medication and treatment. It became a safe place to work with memories that were really destabilizing for me on an outpatient basis. I'm deeply grateful that I went and I'm very surprised that I had such a good experience. I made more progress in the very short time that I was there then I had made in the previous year. I was able to return to therapy and my life and engage life and therapy in a much more effective manner.

(If you want more information on these types of specialized inpatient facilities, just send me a PM and I can give you more information on the facilities that I looked into and the one I went to.)

If your psychiatrist gets stuck on wanting to send you to be inpatient, one thing you could do is to ask if you could take some time to look into one of these specialized inpatient centers. That might help the psychiatrist calm down a little bit. It will also give you time to make a choice.

Otherwise, I would recommend doing everything you can to ground and that might help keep the panic attacks at bay and help keep the psychotic features part of the panic not happening so much. Telling a psychiatrist things he will be doing to ground might help as well.

I could be totally off base on all of us, please take it all with a grain of salt. I hope it goes well for you today and that you and the doctor are able to partner together to come up with a plan that works for you to keep you safe and doing as well as possible to this really difficult time. Struggling with the new memories really really sucks. My heart goes out to you.
 
@Justmehere thank you so much for your comment. Unfortunately there are very few psychiatric hospitals that service adolescents under 18, otherwise I would definitely look into the specialized ones you were speaking of.

My appointment with my psychiatrist went okay. If I can keep myself stable until the next time I see her then she said I don't have to go inpatient. Thanks again! :)
 
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