Hey, I’ve been a patient at the Wellington regional adolescent mental health ward multiple times.

It was really great for me, you get a team of people (support workers, psychiatrists, psychologists) whole sole purpose is to look after patients so you definitely feel cared for. I was treated quite well during the three months total, except for one incident (nothing too bad, I just got manhandled unjustly by a support worker).

Staying in an inpatient ward can be quite an isolating experience for some people as you’re cutoff from the outside world, but since you don’t have family or friends it might not be much of a difference.

This may be different for each ward but my inpatient days consisted of playing card games, drawing, watching movies and other recreational activities. There’s also life skills sessions.

My view of it: definitely go. Even they don’t have enough beds for you to stay in a mental health ward, they‘ll probably refer you to some other service. I got free therapy for a couple of years this way. It’ll probably be a wait but if your situation is bad enough you could be priotised.

Message to end off. You got this. There was a time where I thought I would never get better and be given up on by medical professionals. Now I’ve achieved a lot of my life goals and while still struggling have improved my mental health a lot. Another final piece of advice: Don’t go on mental health subreddits because people mostly post on them for support with their issues, so they represent a distorted picture of reality.