Two different times at different psych hospitals I was at, they had autistic kids who were 100%, completely out of touch with reality. At the first facility the kid was like 16, pretty big and would attack the nurses all the time. This one lady got really bad scratches on her face, I felt bad for her! But it happene dall the time and we'd hear these crazy struggles. Screaming, scuffling, shit being knocked over, and eventually they'd get him on the ground and a shot of thorazine in him. Then he'd go to the isolation room in the psych hospital and we wouldnt see him for a couple days. Then he'd be out, and it would happen again. I mean I don't know wtf you do with a kid like that, but it seemed like a weird place for him to end up. I can't imagine what he thought was going on from his perspective...
At the second place they seemed even less prepared. The kid was also autistic or retarded or something, just out of touch with reality completely. Their isolation room was under construction when this kid got brought in, and so he was always trying to break it down. All day long we'd hear these bangs and there'd be splinters int he hallway, and he'd hurt himself on the splinters since the room had open wood beams because of the remodeling. So eventually they had to tie him down to a chair. They didnt even have a real bed or straps or anything. So they just tied him down to this chair, sitting upright. And he would just sit there screaming and we would try not to look in the small window when walking by just out of pure horror. Again, I am not expert on retards or autistics, but it seemed like a waste of life to me, and its just got to make shit worse in their own heads.
I always felt like I was treated "fair" enough at psych hospitals, at least relative to private program I was at, but some kids really got the short end of the stick. They have nowhere else to go and end up caged like an animal being watched over by people who fear them. Theres got to be something better.
