Mclean

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prophetbirds

Well-Known Member
#1
I'm at McLean Psychiatric Hospital in MA right now in the adolescent depression/BPD program and it's so wonderful. I really recommend it to anyone who has the means to go there. Really. A great inpatient, and a great day program as well. Are there anymore McLean people on here?
 

solutions

Well-Known Member
#3
*high five* Former McLean resident in AB2, bipolar and schizophrenia unit, stayed for seven days. Good program, although I caused trouble one time when I was pissed off at one of the staff and showed it by self-harming. I also impersonated a staff member when dialing the operator so I could dial an outside line without restrictions, but they caught on at one point and I couldn't do it anymore. But I got along with almost everyone. My chart flatters me by saying that I was "dressed neatly" (I wore a collared shirt and straight-legged khakis every day, I wanted to look nice while I was there), but then says that I had a blunted and depressed affect. So apparently I looked and sounded depressed and had a restricted range of emotion. Oh, well. I'm sure it would be different if I was there now.

Enjoy yourself, most of the staff there are very considerate.

Hey, wait, you're there now? How are you accessing the internet? They had all internet devices banned when I was there. I had to lie about my Nook and Sony PSP, and they found out about the PSP while I was there. I had to convince them to let me keep it, which they did, so long as I promised not to use it to connect to the internet.
 
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prophetbirds

Well-Known Member
#4
I'm not doing a residential because they didn't have any beds left (although my program is basically the same thing but I don't sleep there) so I have access to my laptop. And from what I hear from the kids who are on the residential unit, once you gain a certain level you can have privilages such as TV and internet. But I don't know, I'm in East House 3 (adolecent self harm and suicidal ideation) so maybe the rules are different. And I'm sorry they didn't help you as much as they are helping me. Why did you only end up staying for seven days? For us you have to get a court order to stay for less than a month.
 

solutions

Well-Known Member
#5
Huh? I thought seven days was pretty standard. The people I knew there were usually discharged after about that time. I mean, it's by its nature a short-term unit. There's the Appleton program, which is more residential and long-term. But the short-term unit is the one I stayed at.

As for reaching level 2 status as a patient there, it doesn't have anything to do with TV or internet. You always have TV, you never have internet. Really, all it's for is letting you outside, supervised. It gets cramped in there, so it's nice to go for a walk around the grounds once in a while. All you have to do to get level 2 is be good for a couple of days, then they'll give it to you.

I'm totally confused about your situation. It sounds like you're an outpatient since you don't sleep there, but you're still in one of the houses during the daytime? I didn't know they did things like that.
 

worlds edge

Well-Known Member
#6
I went there for an evaluation for ECT, and really wasn't all that impressed with the little bit of the place I saw. The psychiatrist who was interviewing me and I were actually kicked out of a private room and were forced to finish the evaluation in what was basically a full waiting room. Confidentiality? LOL.

The fact that the P-Doc hit the roof and started yelling at someone behind a glass window who looked like they didn't give a crap raised my confidence in him, but did very little to give me confidence in the institution as a whole.

His decision was that ECT was not the right path, though both the social worker and psychiatrist I was seeing thought it was. Which is just as well since there's no way I could have done it on an outpatient basis. And inpatient was (and is) off the table given my current insurance.

The other thing that was kind of creepy, and I'd personality consider a breach of confidentiality: I personally saw two people who had gotten the zapperoo treatment that morning wheeled out through the same waiting rooms you entered the place through, full of people, some seemingly with no idea what they were doing there, and nobody around offering any guidance. But as to the two patients: suppose somebody who knew them saw them? It just didn't seem to be the sort of place that cared about confidentiality.

Since I can't say what these two were like going in, I can't offer any comparison to what I saw when they came out. But from what I saw they both looked like they'd had their eggs scrambled, if you know what I mean, and both came out in wheelchairs pushed by an aide that it very much looked like they needed. Maybe they'd been like that due to some condition and not to the ECT, I honestly have no idea. But it wasn't exactly a confidence raiser, either.

That was the kind of creepy part...and how the fuck I'd have been able to do something like that on an outpatient basis I have no clue. Even if I'd had someone willing to drive me in and take me home several times a week (at least during the initial phase, the number of treatments per week got reduced as time went on.) ... but it never happened so that never became an issue.

Anyway, my final impression of the place was that it was sloppily run, didn't give a hoot about the spirit of HIPAA (maybe they were technically okay, but I can't see how) and that confidentiality was something you could forget if admitted.

I was going to ask the psychiatrist if they had autographed pictures of James Taylor, Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton (same link as Plath) somewhere but didn't have the balls. And I"m glad I didn't, since he actually seemed like a good guy. Just one working at a rather poorly run institution.
 

prophetbirds

Well-Known Member
#7
@worlds edge: Wow, that sounds horrible. I'm sorry to hear that they aren't as organized and pristine as I thought.
And back at Rocketpop, yeah, I'm just staying during the day at East House, and then my dad drives me back to a dumpy apartment we're renting for the month. And you're absolutely right, I verified with my friends in inpatient, they all get TV in level 2, but at some point, they get their phones and sneak onto the wifi from there.
 
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