I Always Wondered What A Psychiatric Hospital Was Like, And There I Was

Editor’s note: KUOW has omitted Fallon’s last name to protect the teen’s privacy.

When I was in middle school, I was like any other nerdy teen. I was in honors classes. I was getting straight As. I remember seeing my friends at the library every day. We would talk about Japanese anime and videogames and other stuff we liked.

Things were going OK. But I just wasn't the same as everyone else.

In high school I started getting really depressed. I didn't want to do anything anymore. I listened to Pink Floyd's The Wall on repeat. I was just in my own little world.

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My mom Sheila knew something was wrong.

"You were somebody completely different," she said. "You just weren't you anymore."Lots of teens have depression or anxiety. But not many people talk about psychotic disorders in teens and what that struggle is like.Things were sometimes bad at home. There were a lot of arguments and a lot of bad vibes. I wasn't sleeping much during that time. Once I went to school without sleeping at all.I was diagnosed with psychosis at age 16. Psychosis is a brain disorder and describes someone who has lost touch with reality.It was my sophomore year when my first psychotic episode hit me.I was having delusions, which are thoughts and ideas that aren't real. Like, I was scared my dad was gonna kill me. I tried jumping out the window, running out the door. I did everything I could to escape the situation.My mom realized that I really needed help. She called the crisis line. Apparently I made the call with her, but I don't remember.The crisis line told my parents to take me to the emergency room at UW Medical Center. When we got there, they put me in the psych ward and things got worse. I thought the police were interrogating my family because they were plotting to kill me. I thought "they" were taking me to prison and across the ocean.That time was really stressful for my mom. She wishes she could have told me that she didn't blame me for any of it. "I felt like it was my job to protect you and I didn't," she told me. "I'm sorry."They took me to Fairfax, an inpatient psychiatric hospital in Kirkland. I remember being put on a stretcher in an ambulance. The lady in the ambulance was really nice – she took off the straps from my wrists so I could scratch my itchy nose.At Fairfax, they took my picture and wheeled me to the unit. The room had three beds and a desk. Everything was bolted to the floor. I made up one of the beds. There were two other people in the room and they were joking around.

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It still hadn't hit me where I was. I'd always wondered what a psychiatric hospital would be like, and there I was. It was not at all how I thought it would be.

It was very structured there. We'd line up and take pills every morning.

You'd have to write your name on a board and wait in line to take a shower. It was a tiny little shower and you had to keep pressing the button to make the water run. There was group therapy and art. There was time to get exercise; we'd usually play volleyball.

Every day we talked to our psychiatrist and wrote down a goal. We had to make our beds every morning. Not only that, but we had to ask for our personal items at the nurse's station every time we wanted to use them, like a comb or lotion.

A few days after being admitted to Fairfax, my doctors put me on a new medication. That's when things started to change.

Within days my thoughts cleared. I started looking back on my thoughts, realizing, "OK, that's not right. None of that was real."

Through it all, my grandma, grandpa, mom and dad came to see me every day. They were all there for me, but it was surreal to see them for an hour and then have them leave.

I asked my grandma how she felt about me being in the hospital. She said she felt worried because it was my first time ever being away from home.

I remember when I told my family the news that I would be leaving the hospital soon. They were really happy.

The key to bouncing back was getting help early. People say that's important to keep the illness from getting worse, but few recognize the signs early on.

My mom said that if a friend or family member tells you there's something wrong and they don't feel right, "take them seriously."

"Because the sooner you get them help the better," she said.

I was at Fairfax for two weeks. The day I left, I put all my stuff in a big plastic bag. They opened the big doors and I walked out.

My family picked me up. We drove home, and it felt like it took forever.

I knew I was better. When I went to my room, I saw that my family had switched around the bed and put in a new bookshelf. It was really nice. It looked different, and I felt different and new. And I felt so happy that I didn't have to be locked in anywhere.

A couple weeks after I returned from Fairfax, life started to feel more normal.

I went back to school. No one knew where I'd been, but when I said I had stayed at a psychiatric hospital, they were accepting and cool with it. It still weighed heavily on my family, though. It didn't just affect me, but them too.

It's been a little over a year since I left Fairfax. I still take medication every morning to prevent another psychotic episode, and it keeps me from getting overly emotional during the day.

I have a ton of questions I still think about. No one can tell me if what happened is part of something bigger or not. I don't know if this is something I'm going to live with the rest of my life. I don't know if it will happen again.

It's scary to live with these unanswered questions, but I know my family and I are prepared.

"There's no right or wrong way to handle something like that," my mom told me. "You just have to go through it. And it's made us both very strong."

Fallon shared this story so other young people with mental illness know they are not alone. If you or someone you know needs to talk to someone, call the Crisis Link at 866-427-4747 or, for teens only, chat online at 866teenlink.org.

RadioActive Youth Media is KUOW's program for youth age 16 to 20ish. Listen to RadioActive stories, subscribe to the RadioActive podcast and stay in touch on Facebook and Twitter.