Thanks for that thoughtful quote Sijeunessesavait
My most recent admission, which was four months last year was very much around me having bizarre thoughts and being actively suicidal rather than SI so I don't think it had much impact on that. My admissions in 2012 were about SI, the biggest trigger for me being admitted was concerns that I would accidentally kill myself with my SI, I can escalate quite quickly when I am unwell.
I think what surprised me most the first time I was admitted was that if you were really focused on hurting yourself you still could. I think I thought that being in hospital would magically make me safe and it didn't. I thought I would have scheduled time to talk about things and actually unless you ask for 1:1 time you don't get it.
By my second admission I was a lot more focused on recovery and used my time to let myself heal and put some distance between my last SI.
Seeing some of the things I saw in hospital made me determined not to let my life be taken over with MH problems. I saw women who were older than me blaming everyone around them for their disrupted life and not taking any ownership of it, and I realised that I had to make the choice to recover. I didn't want to look back on the next ten years and have another decade of MH problems.
It has not been easy and I still feel frustrated when I talk to a MH professional and say I am thinking/going to hurt myself and they say Ok and it's your choice. I still wish they would step in sometimes but I know that it has to be me that does it.
I think hospital did help me but I had to be quite assertive to make the most of it. I did feel like people with psychosis were treated differently to people with a personality disorder.