Post #13 Inside Psychiatric Wards – 4 Challenges When Friendships Last Outside Hospitalization

You have a lot of time in psychiatric wards and it was worthwhile for me to connect with other patients. I could have opted to stay in my room all day, but eventually I knew I would meet people in the dining room, the shared recreation room/living room, or just by walking up and down the hallway for exercise. You’re not prohibited from talking to anyone nor are you prohibited from discussing any topics. You can make friends while in the psych unit and, in my experience, it was wonderful to talk to people who I felt could understand me.

It’s actually a beautiful bond to have friends with whom you’ve shared a very personal experience during a mutually vulnerable time in your lives. You can spend many hours and many days with your friends and get to know them on a deeper level simply because of the definition of where you are – in a psychiatric ward. With that comes questions that may not come up anywhere else: Why are you here? What condition do you have? What did you do?

It’s understandable to want to keep these friendships when you get out of the psych ward. I did for some time. Sadly, these relationships couldn’t last. These four challenges come from personal experiences with my own friendships that started at the hospital.

1. It’s challenging to maintain with the friendship due to your own ongoing problems.

I think you’re never fully recovered when you’re discharged from the hospital; your mood is most likely more stable and you’re not a danger to yourself or others. You still have a lot more to work on, and you simply may not have the bandwidth to sustain a new friendship as you normally would.

2. It’s challenging when your friend’s mental illness becomes unmanageable for you.

There are many types of patients grouped together in the psychiatric ward. Everyone comes in with a different mental illness, different trauma, varying levels of severity, and the unique way this person needs help. Maintaining a friendship outside the psych ward, it’s possible they may come to you when their symptoms are heightened and you don’t know how to help. This is distressing in and of itself, but you also may not be able to support them while you’re dealing with symptoms of your own at the same time.

3. It’s challenging to talk about attempted suicide.

Not everyone in a psych ward goes far enough to try and end their lives, but chances are likely you will encounter someone who attempted to. When the topic comes up of, “how did you do it,” which it sometimes does, it may be heartbreaking and difficult to hear. Their answers always remained in my memory. In my darkest moments, I used to say that you go to psych wards to learn ways how NOT to kill yourself if you want to succeed. This is not how I feel now, because psychiatric units give our lives the stillness, contemplation and help we so desperately need. Still, there are some things I know now that I wish I didn’t.

4. It’s challenging to be a therapist for your friend.

Your friend may inadvertently use you as a therapist and anything can go wrong. You especially can’t be a therapist to a friend who is at risk of hurting themselves or others. They may unknowingly put you in a scenario that may inflict trauma because you’re desperate to alleviate their distress and don’t know how. Their behavior may trigger you in ways that you don’t anticipate, which compromises your own mental health or recovery.