Unless you absolutely need to seek help due to sel...

Unless you absolutely need to seek help due to self harm I suggest seeking a local psychiatrist instead of going into the inpatient. I recently had a fun 8 night stay on the mood disorder young adult unit. There are staff who are extremely dedicated( the ones who went or are going to school) then there are staff they hire off the street with absolutely no history in working with behavioral health who roll their eyes at you when you ask for anything. In order for you do get water you have to ask so I hope you can see how this becomes an issue. Between the inattentive staff there are ones who like to act like uber-police and report you for the dumbest things just to over use their power. During my stay my room was located near an individual with low functioning autism and would have incidents when they became violent. To watch 8 grown men attempt to take down someone that small is just utterly pathetic. Then they tranquilize you and put you on this board that I can only describe as a torture device they strap you to and place you on your bed. Then sit an individual outside your room. I've seen a Psych order for a patients room to be locked during group hours because the Psych felt the patient wasn't taking her treatment seriously when in all reality she is going through an extreme medication change which can do this.The food is absolutely disgusting. My first night there I was handed a refrigerated chicken sandwhich thought it was cold just due to me not getting in until late. Well, the next morning the "Eggs" were colder than room temperature. So Trying to not get food poisoning I switched to a vegetarian diet but they still managed to almost poison me with some bad hummus. If it wasn't for the option of allowing me to add ensure to my menu my diet would have consisted of just juice a different fruit each meal. From what I understand sheppard pratt is suppose to be practically the pinnacle of mental health facilities in this country and if it is it is a sad fact that we as a nation are not taking proper care of our mental ill. I can only imagine if I had a disorder that landed me in the psychotic unit how I would have been treated.