Alyssa Marrero

Review of Carrier Clinic

I ve gone to Carrier 5 times in the adolescent uni...

I ve gone to Carrier 5 times in the adolescent unit & every time I had a great experience. If you want the help & are willing to cooperate & put in the work, Carrier will help you. They do not drug anyone up. They legally cannot. Even in the adolescent unit, you are allowed to refuse your meds at any point so if you were drugged up there it s because you willingly allowed it. They were pretty lenient, didn t force you to get up & participate in things if you were tired or just not up to it. There was no bed time , just a time you had to be in your room for the night. During that time you could sleep, stay awake and talk to your roommate, whatever as long as you were quiet. They had several groups a day that focused on helping with serious issues. The food was pretty decent but if you didn t want to eat the lunch (on weekends) or dinner, your visitor could bring you a meal during visiting hours. In the adolescent unit they had a gym, a game room with a foosball table an Xbox with a Kinect & movies, a library, an art room, an iPod to play music in the unit. There was lots to do when you had down time. Carrier is one of the best, if not the best, psychiatric hospital you can find in NJ. That is speaking from personal experience with hospitals besides Carrier. I would absolutely recommend Carrier to anyone struggling with mental health & feels they need this level of care. BUT if you expect to go in there & come out a week later fixed, you are going to be disappointed. This is to stabilize, not to cure. They stabilize you enough to go home and continue with long term treatment in the outside world. If you want a long term facility, consider residential treatment & not a psychiatric hospital.

Also, I went to Carrier for the first time at the exact same time as someone who wrote a very bad review on here, which just shows you it s all about perception & how much work you put in. She had a horrible experience & I had a great one & we were there at the exact same time, experiencing the same thing but we both perceived it completely different.