Yes, you can attend groups and exercise, but why not make the most of being legally unaccountable?
Here’s some monumentally bad ideas for when you’re incarcerated on the psych ward:
Create prison nicknames for everyone
If you’re in there a while, there’s not much to do and imagining you’re actually in a prison helps.
Coming up with poor taste nicknames for the other patients and staff such as ‘legs’ and ‘new build’ will keep you amused.
One of my favourites was feminising the male staff’s names — for instance Ola becomes Olita or calling people after their accent, such as ‘West Country’ and ‘London’.
Some patients would go the complete other way and just rename the staff something normal like Jamie, which gets very confusing for the new patients when each staff member has 1/2/3 different names.
Do some graffiti
Usually there is an unofficial designated graffiti area in the hospital, which tends to be in the smoking area. Buy some tippex and have at it!
For bonus points you can draw on the walls of your own room if you have one. I drew the number 2 repeatedly over my windows in nail polish, which really added to the serial killer aesthetic I had going on in there.
Apparently the hospital only gets painted every two years so I apologise to the subsequent patients on that one.
Get laid
I pulled a girl in one hospital, we had a few kisses at my door and it was all lovely. Then I saw her screaming at a member of staff and thought hmm, maybe she’s not the one for me.
Yes, we are all sexually frustrated. Get a sex toy, or phone a fuckbuddy. It’s not worth fucking people in the psych ward, although I did meet someone from the male ward and had sex in the bushes outside. We both had leave which I assume is the same as having mental capacity.
I asked him to wear a condom and he announced that he had a morning after pill in his wallet, which is admirable as I couldn’t even bring in antihistamines.
Make a group chat
Very important for things like checking the coast is clear for smoking/doing drugs in your room, and sending nudes to the other patients.
Also for getting in trouble when the other patients read out your messages encouraging them to do graffiti.
The psychiatrist picked me up on this one, at which point I’d made everyone in the group an admin and there was nothing they could do about it.
Smoke in your room
There’s a logic behind the thought process that if you’re gonna be locked up anyway, might as well do whatever. Smoking inside is pretty easy to get away with but you’re fooling nobody.
I have also been known to smoke in the psych ward library, and in front of the nurses base.
The non-smoking patients will be pissed off with you, and you’ll get your lighter or leave taken away, depending on how lax the particular ward is.
Do drugs
I get it. You’re bored, and it’s Friday. If you’re gonna do it, dont offer it to the other patients or you’ll get a proper bollocking.
Our ward was convinced that people were bringing drugs in through takeaway deliveries and would search through the kebabs with the hospital gloves, which added an odd latexy flavour to the chips.
Moral of the story: don’t get sectioned.
Jojo Chinaski is a comedian with Bipolar Affective disorder. She shouldn’t drink coffee, but if you’d like to buy her one she might write more articles.
She is under the handle @jojochinaski everywhere. However, she doesn’t recommend looking through her timeline right now as she just got out of hospital.