By Hannah Merchant

The stigma around mental illness is still prevalent, but the stigma around psychiatric hospitals is even more so. When I was 17, I had my first admission and stayed for four months. When I was 18, I was in the hospital again for around the same time. After my second episode, I vowed that I would never be admitted to the hospital again. 

I was wrong. At 26, I had my third psychotic episode after stopping the medication that I had been on for ten years. This time it was around April 2020, just after covid was announced and lockdowns took effect. I was admitted to the hospital involuntarily. I was also diagnosed with schizophrenia. I was hospitalised for only a month. However, because of covid, my experience was profoundly different to those in my past.

I was brought in by three police officers after my roommates and brother noticed that I was demonstrating some strange behaviour. Schizophrenia is a wretched disease. It creates an alternate reality in which the person who is experiencing it lives in it. For me, that reality was one in which the world was going to implode from the crust of the earth, and somehow, I had the responsibility of saving it. 

When I arrived at the hospital, I didn’t know where I was. I was traumatised. I thought I was in jail. There were nurses and doctors in face coverings, all asking, “What’s going on, Hannah?” I was brought to an observation floor. There was a foam mattress and a metal toilet in my room. The common area had a broken exercise bike, a TV, and various tables with cushioned chairs. 

I refused to watch television because I thought it would brainwash me. I could barely sit still. I also believed that all my favourite musical artists were watching me through the cameras in the unit. I did my best to communicate with them in secret, flashing hand signals to the cameras. Over the next three days, I would spend my time staring out the window, singing to myself and scribbling poetry all over blank sheets of paper. I was fed three meals per day and had various doctors and nurses check in on me. 

On the third day, I was transferred to the main psychiatric unit with other patients. It became evident that there were new covid rules in place. As patients, we were made to eat every meal alone in our rooms. We were not permitted to leave, and no one other than hospital staff was allowed to enter. This meant no visitors. We were made to sit six feet apart. We were not allowed to play card games. The cafeteria was also closed, which meant anytime we wanted anything as little as a glass of water, we had to ask one of the nurses for it. At times, if they were busy, our requests were denied. Even those for a glass of water. 

I was brought in with the clothes on my back and the shoes on my feet. Nothing more and nothing less. This meant that I didn’t have my phone, although many of the other patients did. This absence completely disconnected me from the outside world. My only contact was when my family would call the nurses’ line and ask to speak with me. 

As there were no visitors allowed, my family couldn’t bring any of my personal belongings to me. I slowly began to understand what having raw and authentic needs meant. I didn’t have a hairbrush. I didn’t have soap or shampoo or my pyjamas. I had to depend on the hospital’s supply of goods, which was not plentiful. I was lucky to get a toothbrush and toothpaste and a janky little purple comb. 

The worst thing was when I started my period, and I had to ask a nurse for a tampon every few hours. Previous to this experience, I hadn’t realised just how important personal care tools were. Instead, they were just something that I was privileged enough to have always had. This point was further driven home when I was made to switch rooms. I left my precious purple comb in the shower of my previous room, and just like that it was gone. My hair started to form large knots. I tried to take them out in the shower, but it was a losing battle. Eventually, they became too big to try. 

My dignity was stripped from me. I was at the mercy of the nurses, and because I was very obviously experiencing psychotic behaviour, I often got overlooked. I wouldn’t ask for anything unless I had to – I timed out my questions throughout the day to avoid feeling like I was burdening them. I also often was very hungry. My stomach would grumble, and I felt the strain and pain of hunger. I would eat my meals in record time but had to wait until the next meal to eat anything at all. 

My saving grace was making friends. Making friends in a hospital setting is always sort of a funny thing. There is a commonality between everyone; no one patient is superior to another, and often we would congregate together to see what we could get away with. Without these friends, my experience would have been very grim and painful. In all honesty, I don’t know how I made friends because my first few days at the hospital were filled with chasing my delusions and having panic attacks. But these folks saw through that. Eventually, the community table would open, and we would sit and draw or write together. The evening nurses would let us get away with playing cards and would bring us extra snacks. We joked about drinking Coronas at the bar once we got out. One friend even let me borrow her hairbrush. Another combed out the mats in my hair. 

I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on my experience of being in the hospital during covid. At first, I was enraged. I thought about how unbelievable it is that when you’re suffering from a devastating mental illness that you can be treated as less than a human being. My most very basic needs were at the hands of an overworked care team, some of which were judging me for being in that very space. 

These days though, my experience reminds me that the power is never in the institution but rather among friends who care for each other amid the chaos. If we want to see a change in the mental health system, we have to start by befriending the ones who are in that system experiencing it. We need to be asking them questions and listening to their answers. My experience didn’t have to be quite so difficult. Hospitals are meant to heal, not cause harm. But it is an unfortunate reality that sometimes, just by osmosis, they can do both.