my psych ward experience in SGH ward 46A

hello zesties 🍋

its world mental health day & im back w/ another post of my own experience with my mental health! my prev post for suicide awareness day is here, you can read about my experience being escorted by police to the IMH ED. as usual, doing this for myself to try to overcome the fear of being labelled, as well as to help others who are going through similar mental health experiences to not feel so alone 🌷i believe in speaking out & normalising our experiences to help break the stigma 🫰 and as usual, this took me a LOT of courage cos i dont go around announcing this 🤣 so pls be nice!

would be apt to announce — tw: suicidal ideation

i would like to say that everything that i’m writing about is more than a year ago (this specific one was in 2022), i’m doing SO much better now so dont worry ♥️

that day i was warded, i overdosed (w suicidal intent) & went to SGH ED at an ungodly 1am… after i got triaged & went through pretty fast (bc life threatening ma)! in case you wanna know what happens, they make you drink a huge ass cup of charcoal & i almost puked it out… i asked what if i puked it out and they said they’ll make u drink another cup so i j shotted the whole thing in d end… the dr in charge also asked abt my medical history & what triggered that episode, and he wasn’t very nice, iirc he laughed at me and i felt rly rly bad about myself and the whole episode (i unds he’s emergency trained and not psychiatric specialised but lesson on EMPATHY for future doctors)

i also did not tell my parents cos i was kinda scared of their reaction until my phone was almost confiscated so they kind of had a heart attack when i texted them & then the doctors called them… 🥲🥲🥲

as soon as i entered the ward, they did a strip search to make sure that i had ntg dangerous on me and no cuts/bruises. and then i was just lying on the bed the rest of the day, attached to a drip and feeling miserable 🙂✌️

for 46a (aka the psych ward), electronic devices are not allowed, so they confiscated my phone :( but you can use it if the doctor approves & you remove the camera from your phone! for me, i had work to do using my phone (had to update my candidates & my managers to take over for me). so my mother requested for me to use for 5min & the nurse had to supervise me as i used my phone in front of her.

i was also on suicide watch, hence i couldnt even use the toilet unsupervised 🙃 had to call a nurse before i left my bed to do ANYTHING at all while 🥲 being a not so obedient patient i wld try to sneak to the toilet by myself (n then hv nurses running over n panicking — im sorry oops)

there was no activities at all for me to do besides colouring and sudoku and crosswords… i actually finished all of them cos i was SO bored that the nurses printed more for me 💜

my parents & bf visited with stuff for me, but they ALL had to be screened first and most of them weren’t allowed to reach me… my bf gave a crocheted sunflower & they de-stringed it before giving it to me 🤣 the stuffed toys werent allowed in, even the miffy my dad bought from the hospital shop (so it was still in its original package) i saw a girl playing jigsaws & i was inspired so my bf gave me a jigsaw but it was rejected bc i was under suicide watch… think its bc the edges are sharp… 🥹

most of the time it was just me and another girl (the jigsaw girl) so i befriended her & had really wholesome convos w her that DID NOT involve our mental health (we r more than our illnesses yar) but unfortunately ive drifted from her already! hope shes doing well now :-) and also the nurses relented 1 night and let us play her jigsaw tgt (monitored)

also theres really strict curfews! so wakeup at like 8am and theres bfast and stuff and then the lights are off by 9-10pm (but the night we played jigsaws i was up till alm 1 hehehehe) and then i always get woken up at night to take blood pressure & then draw blood as well, or by the other patients getting checks. it was really impossible to sleep well at night; im someone who sleeps as soon as my head touches the pillow and there i took HOURS to fall asleep and kept getting woken up 🥲

but also there was like 1 psychiatrist and no other staff besides the nurses who were attending to us so it was really nothing for me cos the psychiatrist was an ED specialist and i wasnt thr for an ED…

the thing is that sgh’s psych ward is mainly for ED patients so i was insanely triggered while i was there (i have rly bad r/s w food & it’s on my imh dr’s memo 💀) and i went home with a full blown disordered eating episode so that was NOT fun…

also the day before i left, i had an interview w the med students (so VERY intrusive) but i unds its just part of their curriculum but i felt SO inferior it was crazyyyy… bc im literally talking to people MY AGE in medicine school and im here in the psych ward 😔✌️ they were also a grp of like 5-6 students and writing everything i said down… so it was quite intimidating… then my psychward friend had the same interview and we were complaining about it for a solid hour… but then we played uno and forgot about it cos teehee we r just girls 👧🏻

also i was supposed to be transferred to imh once i was certified medically fit but thank GOODNESS i had an upcoming appt so i could just be discharged from sgh instead! and then i went home & they gave me 2 additional days MC ~

to sum up my experience: boring, but nevertheless necessary for my own safety. i also did not get grippy socks. unlike what people on tiktok think, it was not a grippy socks vacay; it deffo did not feel like a vacation it felt like a prison cell 🥰

but anyway hope that provided more insight into psych wards in singapore — specifically my experience in SGH’s psych ward! stay SAFE everybody & lets all start talking about our mental health experiences & NORMALISE IT! break the stigma this mental health awareness month <3

#mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #mentalhealthawarenessmonth #RealTalk #SocialDiscussion