“Psych Ward Employees, What Did A Patient Do That Left You Speechless?” (32 Answers)

It takes a specific type of person to work in an intense environment like a psychiatric institution. One must have empathy, understanding, and crisis intervention skills to effectively deal with people with varying degrees of mental conditions.

Not everyone is equipped for such a job, and those who are shared their experiences in a Reddit thread from years ago. Their stories were a mix of fascinating, shocking, and poignant, giving a glimpse into what life is like inside these facilities.

These anecdotes come from diverse perspectives, including those of security personnel, nurses, pharmacists, and counselors, among others.

Discover more in “Psych Ward Employees, What Did A Patient Do That Left You Speechless?” (46 Answers)

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#1

We had a gero psych floor. Crazy old people.

One night while passing through a little old lady popped her head out her doorway and said to me

“I could sure use the company of a good looking young man tonight!”

“sorry I’m not that good looking.”

Quick as snot on a doorknob she said “That’s ok, I can’t see too well”

I didn’t join her, but her charisma was on point.

#2

Probably the saddest was a resident I had a Long time ago. This gentleman was a ww 2 vet with alzheimers and dementia, probably once or twice a month he would relive some battle he was in. He would litterally RUN up the hallway and grab you and yell at you to get down behind the sandbags. He would then tell you take take his thomson because it was too heavy for him he would just use his pistol. Then he would get up and run back down the hallway… This guy was OLD and seeing him run fullsprint like that up and down the hallway during one of his episodes was surreal.

I cant imagine having to constantly relive the worst moments of your life where you witnessed and survived the unspeakable horrors of war….

#3

Going to go a different route here as all of the stories seem to focus on the shocking and negative/challenging behaviours.

I’m not a nurse but am a support worker.

We currently have a patient who, when he was admitted, was extremely aggressive (not physically) and impatient, he was unable to wait for anything for longer than 2 seconds, barely spoke to anybody unless it was on a needs basis and wouldn’t/couldn’t do anything for himself.

Fast forward 6 weeks and he has stopped me in my tracks multiple times. The first time he said please when he asked for something, the first time he agreed to make his breakfast himself, the first time he asked how I was when he saw me and probably the most rewarding of all was when he smiled at me and said good morning.

#4

I was a CNA for about 4 years and the saddest ever was my client/resident constantly thought I was her daughter. She went to Harvard and was an extremely brilliant lady in her time. She was non verbal but every time I walked into her room she would exclaim “Elizabeth you came”. I loved this lady so much, she would only eat when I fed her she was extremely combative with everyone but me. I ended up quitting my job there but visited her every single day. To the point that her family kind of accepted me as their family. I finally found out that Elizabeth took her own life at 21 and the fact that she thought I was her gave her extreme joy. I never corrected her and I like to think I gave her peace when she passed holding my hand. She was an amazing lady and I miss her to this day.

#5

Had a catatonic guy who could play the piano like a pro, classic, jazz, ragtime, but otherwise just sat in his chair and stared.

#6

One of our patients escaped the ward and managed to hitchhike all the way to Sydney (about 900km).

#7

When I was in nursing school I had a clinical in the state funded psyc ward downtown. I was assigned to sit with this one girl to “monitor” her behavior. She spent about thirty minutes doing nothing but eating pudding cups with a plastic spoon. She ate like 6 of them in half an hour. Then out of nowhere she very calmly licked her spoon completely clean and pulled her shirt sleeve up before shoving the entire spoon into an incision in her arm near her bicep… then very calmly said, “Ohps.”

The nurses that worked there didn’t believe me. They kept saying I was making it up and that I couldn’t have seen what I saw.

Only later on, like four hours later (it was a 12 hr clinical), the orderly notice the girl had some blood on her shirt. He took her into her room to change her clothes and noticed that an incision on her arm had dehisced and had been bleeding.

Then eventually agreed to send her to the hospital for testing.

The X-ray showed the entire spoon, sucked into the fat of her upper arm, through an incision where they’d removed a birth control implant in the week before…

Apparently the girl had slowly been picking at the sutures and opening it bit by bit until it was deep enough to fit an entire plastic spoon….

The girl admitted that the “ohps” was because it had gotten sucked in and couldn’t be pulled out, not because she’s stuck a spoon in her arm….

Totally bizarre.

#8

Was interviewing a guy in psych ward and he was complaining about how he couldn’t have any “white out”, a liquid eraser for typewriters becasue he was on s*****e watch. Claimed it was stupid becasue if he wanted to k**l himself, as he pointed out, he could use the drawstring from the blinds to hang himself or he could use his pencil to s**b himself or use a typewriter metal bar to off himself. I agreed it was silly to hold back the small bottle of liquid white out. When I relayed the convo to my instructor about how silly it seemed due to him having several other ways, she replied that he proved to me that he had been considering ways to k**l himself and that’s why he was able to come up with so many so quickly. He never did get his white out.

#9

Psych ward counselor here. Early in my career I had a teenage girl with s******l ideations and severe depression. The year before, on thanksgiving, her dad pulled a gun from under the dinner table and blew his brains out in front of everyone. I normally form a response pretty quickly, even a “wow,” but when she told me I got quiet, leaned back, exhaled, and had to gather my thoughts.

#10

Not a nurse, but I was a patient in a psych ward. The ward was sectioned into two sides based on case severity. I was on the less severe side. One night, an incredibly tall, somewhat muscular man escaped his room on the severe side, got through a door that was supposed to be locked, got into the less severe side, and into my room. I woke up, sat up, and saw him standing in my doorway. He asked in a shakey voice if I was alright. I hesitantly said yes, to which he responded by getting a look of terrified horror and screamed “I knew it! You can see them too! Don’t let them get you!” before he was dragged away screaming by security.

#11

When I was a student doing a placement in a max. security unit a serial r*pist was getting meds, made a silly joke, the nurse said “Oh, stop that” his response was “I’ve heard that before”.

#12

My ex and I saw a marriage counselor who did part of her psychiatry residency at a hospital for people with severe mental conditions. Apparently, the grounds had a lovely, enclosed greenhouse. One day, one of their schizophrenic patients was sitting on a bench, smoking a cigarette, as a heron frantically flew around. It had found its way in and not being able to escape it was smashing into the large panes of glass. The man just sat there watching. Finally, my counselor asked him if the bird was bothering him and he kind of sighed and said, “Thank god, I thought I was the only one seeing that.”.

#13

I watched a guy try to remove ” rats ” from his [behind]. Stated that his ex-girlfriend summoned them there. He ended up tearing his rectal walls to shreds.

#14

I visited a prison for a warden job and went to see the constant surveillance guys (for their own safety etc). There was a fella there who had used a razor to slice his stomach open and started pulling chunks of himself out for fun, he also started using the hole, which wouldn’t heal as a hiding place, a towel was found stuffed in there which his body had started fusing too. Apparently he was quite nice but the whole thing wasnt for me and I didn’t go ahead with applying.
Edit: for those posting /r/thathappened I suggest reading this topic and doing research on what seriously ill patients can do to themselves if you think I’d make this up.

#15

Not a nurse, pharmacist.

Had one of our Clozapine patients miss a monthly meeting to discuss their medication. Called around, found out she was in the ICU having eaten two of her own fingers then visited her mother for coffee, still bleeding.

Had a friend tell me of another patient, made a cut in his thigh and reopened it regularly until the whole thing was a scar tissue cavern, by some miracle avoiding infection. Started using his “meat pocket” to hold pens and coins and anything he could collect in his ward. Nobody knew until a paperclip pierced the side and he finally wound up with an infection that took him to ICU where they found his stash.

#16

Not a nurse but I used to be a security guard in a hospital and we had a patient who self harmed and cut a hole into themselves around their belly button and then stuck a bunch of paper clips and buttons and things like that into it.

#17

My sister was actually sectioned earlier this year for her eating disorder (she shouldn’t have been but that’s a story for another time) and she was right next to the PICU (psychiatric intensive care unit), one of the nights she heard multiple screams coming specifically from that ward. One of the patients had bit a chunk out of a nurses leg as they were trying to detain them, they then started eating said chunk. It’s crazy to think these types of things happen

Edit (sorry guys, I typed psychiatric instead of paediatric ! She was only 15 so it was PICU, I just had a bit of a brain confusion).

#18

We had a psych patient on our floor that wasn’t really “crazy” crazy, just really confused and unpleasant in general.

One night I was mixing his drink with some thickener, and per usual he started yelling about me poisoning him. I explained what it was and that we’re all here to help him, not hurt him, and he responds with, “I’m just going to die.” His vitals were fine, he was alert, no red flags, and like I said, he was always pretty unpleasant so I didn’t think much of it.

Sure as s**t, he coded an hour later and we never got him back.

Edit: coded is slang for “code blue” which is what they call over intercom/pagers when someone’s stopped breathing, or their heart has stopped.

#19

I’m not a nurse but was a patient once. Giant dude got upset one dude changed the channel from a football game he was watching and smashed his skull with his fists. Not fully, but enough that when they brought him back a few days later he started seizing and had to be removed again. Didn’t see him again.

Also, there was one lady who was straight out of the movies. Walking around preaching the end of days loudly and sweating like crazy.

#20

Not me, but someone I knew was in a ward with a girl who wanted to be a vampire and drank blood from her own tampons.

It’s as atrocious as it sounds. She was around 16 and schizophrenic.

#21

Not me, but a friend is a behavioral consultant for a psyche ward and once told me a story about a patient that casually approached another patient and proceeded to pin him against the wall and bite his eyelid off.

#22

We had an older black lady who would walk up and down the ward *constantly* mumbling. It never stopped. I think she would get something like Thorazine to calm her down but she would fight it and her eyes would be all droopy and she’d slow down but she kept going. Nobody understood a word she said and she was there for at least over 6 months. She was punched out once by a patient while he was on the phone because she kept walking by ranting. He just lost it.

Anyway I’m up there doing a patrol one day (I was security) and shes ranting and walking up and down the ward as usual and they call her to come get her meal. She sits down and opens her tray and stops ranting and states clear as day: *”I didn’t order no diabetic tray B***H.*”

Every last person turned to her and all of our mouths were wide open. That was the only thing she ever said clearly.

#23

I’ve posted this before, but here goes:

>I’m a trans man (female to male) and pass very well–almost none of my coworkers or patients know I’m trans. Sometimes I have to stop taking testosterone for a while; however, the physical effects of T are mostly permanent (and the ones are aren’t permanent take months to years to to wear off), so any changes during these periods are subtle behavioral stuff.
>
>Had a severely psychotic patient come in during the tail-end of a year-long break from T. Interacted with him a few times, we did okay together. Get assigned to another part of the building, don’t see him for a few weeks, start taking T again during this period.
>
>I had just taken my second dose of T when we crossed paths again. He immediately perked up with a big smile, “[NorthernHackberry], you became a man again!” Could have knocked me over with a feather. Has never said anything remotely like that to me before or since, except that he’s hung up on comparing facial hair.

#24

I’m a patient at a mental health private hospital at the moment and one patient that was here brought everyone that had helped him on his journey to get better a rose on his last day and it was the nicest thing that has happened to me here.

#25

Not a nurse, but I worked in a group home for teens and one ended up in a psych ward. She was a sweet 15yo girl who had been there for about three weeks – plans for the future, would be staying with a relative she liked in a week, had friends, and had no history of issues whatsoever (aside from her mom kicking her out of the house for having a boyfriend, which she was understandably upset about). She went from sane to broken overnight.

It was about 1am when I found her awake during checks, sitting on her bed and looking upset. She had become convinced she was pregnant, in spite of tests saying otherwise. Then the “baby” had been “changed” by “chemicals.” She was terrified of the “baby” inside her and the “chemicals” everywhere “changing” everything. We couldn’t seem to get her to realize she wasn’t pregnant, couldn’t be pregnant. And she would go on rants about “chemicals” but it’s hard to exactly what she was talking about – cleaners? Pollution? Medication (which she wasn’t on)? She talked about “chemicals” getting in things the way some people talk about the devil. All strange, but still just borderline alarming.

Then the clock started talking to her and telling her what to do, some of which involved burning herself and knocking her head against the wall. This is when we called authorities. She then basically became incoherent, in a word salad way, and was unresponsive to us, even when we got between her and the wall she was thumping. It was like we weren’t there to her.

When she was hauled away, about four hours after initial weird statements about how she was suddenly pregnant, she was in a kind of manic but also oddly passive state – again, like we weren’t there – and was unable to walk. She had to be carried out on a stretcher. She was mentally somewhere else entirely…

It was terrifying watching her self collapse so quickly and completely.

#26

My sister has been a psychiatric nurse for around 10 years or so and has told me all sorts of stories about her times. She is physically assaulted on an almost daily basis, has been threatened with everything you can imagine.

People have thrown, smeared or ingested pretty much every bodily fluid available on the wards.

She has just finished a degree re-training as a teacher because she no longer enjoys the profession.

*edit –

Man didn’t expect this to blow up. Just to answer some of the points people have raised.

She knows teaching a stressful career also we have family in education so they’ve pre-warned her on the pitfalls.

People suggesting changing nursing fields, she did consider it but then this training came up. In Scotland (maybe the entire UK idk) if you have certain degrees you can re-train for a teaching degree for free while you work. So it gave her a semi-easy out and freed her from night shifts and stuff with her own kids.

#27

Not a Nurse but a former Patient (On many occasions) who helped out … since i am suprisingly stable even if very weird and uncanny at times. And this one time a co-patient apariently came in with so many fleas, its amazing. Turns out he didnt wash his hair for the last few months so besides being oily and heck it was also full of fleas. When asked for why he didnt wash the hair he reasoned that he didnt want to drown the fleas.

I mean it is solid reasoning but kinda stupid. Because you dont wanna have fleas.

#28

All of her personalities claimed they got better after the treatment.

In their own, individual, distinct voices.

#29

My sister-in-law is finishing her nursing degree, and they had to spend a couple days working at some psych wards. She told me a story about these 2 guys there that were schizophrenic and violent. One was the skinny little white guy and the other was a medium build black guy. The black guy kept telling her that he wasn’t crazy, that he was actually the owner of the ward and just stayed there for fun. He also told her he had a record label. So then she goes and meets the white guy. According to him, he was an up-and-coming rapper who was such a threat to Eminem’s career that the deep state had him locked away, and that the psych ward owner was his new record label. Fun times.

#30

Had a guy come in with pictures of families pasted on his feet because “he wanted to be close to them”.

#31

Nursing student here also not my story, a friend of mine that is a nurse in a psychiatric hospital.
Some context: some of the patients were outside sitting in the benches and walking around and She was walking with some othe patient. There was a patient standing by a door, dude is like 200kg (450ibs ?).
Actual story: A skinny guy was smoking and just mindind his own business when out of the blue he starts running and just Spears the 200kg guy into the door like a steel and glass door and then just walks out of there like he dos nothing.
Big dude got a broken skull a deslocated sholder and some minor injuries skinny dude got nothing. I dont know what triggered the dude to throw himself at a dude 3/4 Times larger than him.

Note: English is not my native language so sorry for grammar and spelling mistakes.

#32

Pharmacist here. Had a patient getting discharged from the ER when they found out 2 police officers were waiting outside to take them in on an outstanding warrant. Patient grabbed the doctors coffee mug, smashed it on a desk and then tried to slit their own throat with the broken mug. Caused lacerations needing stitches but luckily nothing serious.

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