I was locked up in a psych ward

Here’s how it changed me

Jul 18, 2024

Sritanya is Thailand’s best known hospital for the mentally ill. Yet this fame has nothing to do with its (mostly absent) quality of care, and everything to do with the abundance of “crazy” jokes demeaning its patients.

See that wild-haired loony? Looks like she escaped from Sritanya!

He’s such a nutter. I don’t know how he’s not locked up in Sritanya!

You should see someone or you’ll end up at Sritanya! Ha Ha.

Sritanya is where my father sent me in January 2015 when I lost my mind.

In less than two months, I quit a job I was happy with before decrying my “evil” former colleagues on social media, bought an apartment in the middle of nowhere to escape from my parents, gave up living there after a week, eschewed food in favour of soft drinks and alcohol, lost a tonne of weight, started smoking heavily, partied most nights, filmed myself singing in dozens of videos which I then posted to my Facebook “fanpage,” did get discovered by a DJ, manoeuvred myself into more than a few compromising situations, volunteered to be an accent coach for a play despite having zero facility for accents, ran a red light because the car radio told me I was part of a motorcade.

Everyone but me was aware something was off, seriously off. But no one knew quite what to do and for a few blissful months I indulged in one reckless act after another.

Until the final straw: I told my family and friends I was going to the UK to reunite with a former lover who had asked me to marry him (he hadn’t). I then began making preparations for my visa and flight (business class).

This, my father decided, would not do. Me travelling alone to the UK was out of the question.

So, unbeknownst to me, calls were made. And on one otherwise unremarkable day, with the help of a well-meaning ploy which I readily fell for having lost all capacity for logic, I found myself strapped to a bed in Sritanya’s special women’s ward.

What a wake-up call.

Waking from mania

My one-and-a-half-month stint in that psych ward was the best thing that ever happened to me.

First because it cured me of my madness. On top of being heavily sedated (vitamins, they said), on the day of my admission I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder Type I—the severe variant involving full-blown mania where you’re completely untethered to reality, like I was—and swiftly put on medication.

Having always refused to take antidepressants for repeated depressive episodes while at university in London, this time—for the first time—I wasn’t given a choice. Every morning and night I lined up with the other patients to receive and, in one practised gulp, swallow whatever cocktail of medication our doctors had deemed appropriate for each of our ailments, which ranged from mild anxiety and depression to Bipolar Disorder and Schizophrenia.

And, loath as I was to admit a faulty brain, the pills worked. In less than a week I was once again lucid and cognisant of the shit I was in.

I woke from mania to find myself in the worst possible nightmare: being behind bars.

Forever changed

Being locked up changes you.

Every afternoon after visitation hours which I’d spend with my mother in the front lawn gazebo, I’d be ushered back into the ward and the metal door would shut behind me.

Hearing the click of that lock is the worst feeling in the world.

The hollowness, the complete loss of hope, your soul shattering into a million pieces—what you feel the second you lose your freedom is not like any emotion you experience over the course of everyday life. It’s a level of suckage you can’t possibly comprehend unless you’ve lived it, and I hope you never do.

Hearing that click every single day for a month and a half gave me a resolve that nothing will ever shake: I am never getting locked up again.

As life goals go, this might seem unambitious. But this single determination has wonderful, far-reaching implications.

Not being locked up again means religiously taking care of my mental health. It means taking my medication every morning and night, eating well, not drinking to excess, going to the gym, unconditionally loving my partner, nurturing my relationships with friends, finding time to read and go on long walks, meditating, saying “no” to unimportant things, not taking on too much at work, making time for creative pursuits like this newsletter.

And that’s not all.

Being behind bars also works wonders in the perspective department. It made me realise that most things in life are, at the end of the day, not that big of a deal.

Four years ago, I quit a well-loved, well-paid job so I could move to Vietnam to be with my partner of two years. And numerous friends and acquaintances have since expressed awe at what they say must have been a torturous decision. How brave of you! How did you know it was the right move?

And to everyone, I say: It was a no-brainer. I wanted to be with my partner. It wasn’t viable for him to move, so I did. The decision didn’t require me to be brave. And in fact I didn’t know the move was right—I couldn’t have. But this didn’t matter. If our relationship combusted the second we stepped foot into our apartment, I’d simply move back and find a new job.

To me, the only high-stakes decision—the only one worth fussing over—is one that could land me behind bars. And, as it turns out, 99% of decisions in life don’t fall into that category.

Should I apply for this job I probably won’t get? Should I start a newsletter not knowing if anyone will read it? Should I ask my favourite author to be my mentor? Should I tell the brown-eyed stranger I met at the bar that I’m attracted to him?

On none of these occasions was “getting locked up” a potential outcome, so I didn’t think twice. And now I have a job I could never have dreamt of, this newsletter read by hundreds of kindred spirits, a New York Times bestselling author for a mentor, and a brown-eyed partner who makes every second of my life a delight.

And had any of the outcomes been different, it wouldn’t have been a big deal.

Because I’d still have my freedom. The freedom to decide what time to get up in the morning, to choose what beans to brew for my morning coffee, to walk to my gym, to work in my favourite café, to live my life however I choose.

When my father committed me to that psych ward, he wasn’t—as he feared—scarring me for life. He was giving me the gift of a lifetime.

What do you think?

My time in Sritanya was unpleasant and at times disturbing. I wouldn’t wish my experience on anyone, but I am forever grateful it was gifted to me. Take away that month and a half and I may never have gained the resolve to live well and—for lack of a better word—courage to always shoot for the moon.

Have you had an experience that forever changed you?

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