Mental hospital workers talk about their most terrible patients: “Do you know what insanity is?”
Even despite the fact that over the past few decades, psychiatry has made significant strides forward and has learned to cope with a variety of mental illnesses quite successfully, and such terrible methods of treatment as electric shock and lobotomy have long become something of a legacy of a barbaric past, there are still in psychiatric hospitals there is something that gives you goosebumps involuntarily. Agree, a white ward with soft walls is, perhaps, the very last place where the vast majority of us would like to be.
And someone, if not people who every day are forced to come to work in the "loophole", do not know the answer to the question of what all the same such madness. So, today we decided to collect for our readers a small selection of stories from mental hospital workers who talk about their most terrible, frightening and completely insane patients.
Possessed?
“We had one young girl in the department, let it be Jane, who suffered from several rather severe disorders at once. The very first night in our hospital, an orderly found Jane in a pool of blood during a night round. She managed with her own fingernails to rip thick strips of skin from her face and almost completely skin her leg. After that, we took measures, and she was under constant surveillance. She had one strange trick, every night before going to bed she went around her ward and baptized every corner several times.
“One night, Jane got so pissed that we even had to call security. When they finally tied her up, I went to her room to talk, and asked: “Jane, honey, why did you attack the orderlies, did something upset you today?” She laughed, looked me straight in the eyes and said: "What makes you think you're talking to Jane, you piece of meat?". Brr, still takes horror.
"Let's be my mom!"
“I worked in a psychiatric hospital as a pharmacist. We then had one guy to whom I gave out medicines. I didn't know who he was or how he got here, but he was always very nice and sweet. He ran out into the hallway to say hello to me, called me "Mrs. Jones" or "Ma'am", always smiled sweetly and tried to start a conversation. We managed to make friends, and sometimes I even quietly brought him chocolates and various little things from the shop in the foyer.
“Once the nurses noticed me chatting with him in the corridor, and when I was leaving, one of them took my elbow, took me aside and asked: “Are you completely crazy? Shall I put you in the next room?” At first I did not appreciate such a violent reaction, but the girls quickly remembered that I was new and did not know all the local nuances. They told me that the guy with whom I communicate so nicely has been lying here for more than 15 years.
“When he was in first grade, he fell in love with his young art teacher, and although he had a quite prosperous family, he regularly asked her to take him in and become his mother. Ultimately, a six-year-old kid stabbed his mother to death in her sleep, only so his teacher could finally adopt him. In general, all female employees are strictly forbidden to communicate with him and establish close relationships.
"She loved photographs"
“My sister is the head physician in a psychiatric hospital. Recently, a girl was brought to them, who cut her arms, legs and stomach and put more than twenty photographs of her family inside the wounds.
biological threat
“We had one man in a psychiatric hospital. In addition to schizophrenia, he had HIV. Voices in his head told him that all of us orderlies wanted to kill him, rape him, or do something worse to him, so every time we entered the ward, he bit his lip and spat infected blood at us. The authorities forbade anyone to approach him without a mask and a protective suit.”
Lord of the Flies
“My father is a psychiatrist. He recalled that he once had a patient who, during an appointment, spoke at length and in detail about how he had sex with flies.
More blood
“The creepiest patient I remember the most was a girl of about 27 who thought she was a vampire. In itself, such nonsense is quite common, but she was put away to us after she killed two of her children in order to drink their blood, and already in the hospital she managed to cut the throat of one careless orderly.
"Daddy, I'm ready"
“Social services handed over one girl to us. She had just turned 14 and had been regularly raped by her father for more than half of her life. We had to change her into a hospital gown, but she did not react either to me or to other nurses, she was silent all the time and looked at one point. Then I tried to take off her clothes myself, and then she silently looked at me, undressed herself very slowly, got on all fours, turned around and said: “Start, daddy, I’m ready!”. It was the creepiest scene I've ever seen."
Psychiatric clinics are not a particularly attractive place, even without horror stories. Usually people are afraid of abandoned clinics, because the spirits of those people who were once within their walls can live there. However, as practice shows, existing psychiatric hospitals are much more dangerous than abandoned ones.
Unexpected end of shift
This story took place in one of the American clinics. The woman who worked there as a nurse was completing her usual chores in order to go home as soon as possible. There seemed to be no sign of trouble. But as she walked around the corridor for the last time, she noticed that the door to one of the chambers was half open. She cautiously approached the ward and in the middle of the room saw ... the severed legs of one of the cleaners. In the other corner of the room sat a patient suffering from a serious mental disorder. In her hands were the eyes of the victim.
Subsequently, it turned out that the patient had long planned to commit her crime, as she did not like this employee. Various jokes were constantly circulating about their mutual hostility, but no one could have imagined that the matter would end so terribly and tragically. As for the nurse, she was not afraid and quickly pressed the button to call the emergency team. The killer patient was transferred to more intensive treatment and, of course, kept under lock and key for the rest of her days.
Hidden grief turned into horror
Another story happened to a patient in a London clinic. It was a young girl named Jane who ended up in a psychiatric clinic due to a miscarriage. She was unmarried, but together with her lover, they really wanted a child. But, as the doctors said, this event was just a trigger. In fact, a mental disorder lay dormant in her for many years. When the tragedy happened, the lady fell into a state of acute psychosis, so it was decided to hospitalize her.
Neither exhortations nor work with a psychotherapist helped Jane. Even the most advanced medicines did not work on her, her grief was so strong. In the end, a doctor was found who was able to choose the right drug for her, and the girl calmed down a bit. The whole clinic breathed a sigh of relief - after all, one of the most problematic patients felt better and better every day.
But ... not everything turned out to be so cloudless. And even vice versa. One fine day, when one of the clinic staff entered her room, he saw a terrible sight. The patient was lying in a pool of blood on her own bed. Her throat was torn, and pieces of skin were torn from her neck. It turned out that she did it with her own hands with the help of an overgrown nail.
baby killer
A 12-year-old patient was admitted to one of the psychiatric clinics in Boston. He was very polite and helpful to all the staff. "Hello", "Thank you", "Please" - everyone around was only surprised at how cute teenagers can still be.
But after the head doctor of the clinic gathered all the staff to tell them something about this patient, the excitement quickly stopped. In reality, this child was a homicidal maniac. At school, he was also very polite. He was especially courteous to one of the teachers who taught mathematics. Gradually, he became her favorite, his marks in mathematics began to improve. After all, as often happens, bad students study even worse, and good students do better only for the reason that the teaching staff begins to treat them in a certain way.
What did the young killer want?
What led to the fact that a 12-year-old boy was imprisoned in the walls of a psychiatric clinic? The fact is that one night he killed his own mother. The little maniac stabbed her several times. His motivation? He just wanted the math teacher to be his mom.
Terrible night shift
This incident happened to a nurse during a night shift in one of the hospitals in the Czech Republic, which specialized in the treatment of patients with Alzheimer's disease. The nurse did her evening rounds to make sure all the patients were there. In one of the wards, she noticed that one patient, unlike the others, was not going to sleep. She sat in day clothes right on the bed, and her eyes were fixed on one point. “Would you like to lie down?” the clinic employee asked her as calmly as possible. "No, thank you. They are already coming for you," the patient replied, slowly looking away from the wall to the nurse. "I will miss you very much when you are gone."
“I thought I would just die of fear,” the nurse said. - That night, I barely waited for the end of duty to finally go home. Of course, I couldn't close my eyes for a minute."
Unusual patient
Over time, most medical professionals get used to all sorts of extraordinary cases, but this patient was remembered by an employee named Gillian Craig for a long time. One day, during her shift, a new patient was admitted to the hospital. He did not remember any information about himself at all, but in appearance he looked more like a homeless person. He did not have a passport or any documents. He ended up in the clinic because of his violent behavior. The policemen, who drew attention to him at one of the stations, transferred him to a psychiatric hospital. But this patient still remembered one fact about himself. He constantly told Gillian the same thing: that he was an ex-pilot, they were experimenting on him at a secret air force base.
Brad turned out to be a reality
One day, Gillian decided to discuss these strange stories with a colleague. The conversation was overheard by another employee. After a while, he approached Gillian and took her aside to talk in private. It turned out that this secret base, which the patient is talking about, is not at all a figment of the imagination. "She really exists," the employee told Gillian. - But this is a top secret organization. All entrances and exits from it are closed. A person cannot know anything about it if he has never been there. Please, if you value your life, forget about these stories and do not make a fuss if the patient begins to pester you with his talk again.
An old woman who communicates with the dead
One of the patients of the Canadian clinic frightened the nurses by communicating with the dead at night. During the day, she was an exemplary patient. If an outsider saw this sweet and in all respects pleasant old woman, he would be very surprised by the fact that she is a patient in a psychiatric clinic.
What did this lady do at night that turned her into a real nightmare for those nurses who happened to look after her? The fact is that this inhabitant of a mental hospital communicated with the dead. And this communication from the outside seemed not just nonsense.
Her words drove the unfortunate employees crazy. Here is what one of the nurses recalls: “She constantly talks about the fact that there is someone in her room. For example, she can ask if we are going to feed this little girl who is standing behind me. what will we do with the boy sitting at her head, because he was left without parents. By the way, the old woman herself constantly emphasizes the moment that all her ghostly guests have long been dead. In addition to children, her frequent visitors are a man who worked for many years in our area as a plumber, and some taciturn lady."
“One evening I went to Miss P. in the evening to give her medicine,” says another nurse. “She sharply pulled me up, since all her dead people are now sleeping, and I can wake them up. Miss P. herself was sitting quietly and without moving, but after a while she nevertheless went to bed.
There are psychiatrists who still transcend the code of ethics and reveal the stories of their patients. This is not good, but thanks to them, we can look into the heads of people whose minds have either been damaged, or, on the contrary, have seen the whole truth.
It seemed to the patient that he was being watched from the TV, listened to through the telephone, and then the received information was publicly transmitted through the same means of communication. Also, the enemies pour spirits on his car from the inside, irradiate the apartment, and his passport and map are marked with special signs, according to which special services are monitoring him. The diagnosis was unequivocal - schizophrenia.
A patient was presented for a forensic psychiatric examination, against whom the prosecutor's office opened a criminal case on the fact of vandalism.
What's the matter: about six months ago, against the background of a relative lull in psychosymptoms, a man suddenly had voices in his head. Against the background of the action of haloperidol, the voices of the dead were heard very indistinctly. And then the citizens of the deceased and threw an idea: let's, they say, telephone the cemetery! The patient rushed to fulfill the special order cheerfully, with a twinkle, and in a short time the city lost a couple of dozens of working street phones, and a couple of dozens of not quite living subscribers connected to the afterlife telephone network, respectively.
A necromancer telephone operator was caught tritely: the cemetery watchman, who decided at the wrong time to make a detour of the property, stumbled upon a suspicious type who was burying a telephone receiver in a hole next to the grave.
Male, 47 years old, schizophrenic. He told how he communicated with the devil: he simply appeared in the room in the form of a dark-haired man with horns. He did not feel hostility from him, therefore he considered himself the official representative of the devil in the kingdom of people.
The same patient complained about the neighbors, allegedly they irradiated him through the wall. 
Once a rather aggressive and arrogant young man entered the department. Demonstrated complete fearlessness, because he believed that he was the reincarnation of Bruce Lee.
Guy 30 years old, schizophrenic. He began to be attracted to boys and realized that he was a sinner and would burn in hell for it. Then follow the schizophrenic logic: he took a knife and went to the outskirts of the city, deciding that if he attacked someone, then evil men would run to the screams of the victim and stone him to death, which would automatically make him a martyr. And martyrs always go to heaven. But for some reason, passers-by did not stone him, but simply called the police. “When we were still on an internship, we were told about an interesting topic on which one of the employees wrote a PhD thesis. The fact is that patients with delusional disorders, by definition, have no criticism of the content of their delusions. At the same time, they can quite adequately perceive what is not directly related to this plot. The essence of the technique described in the dissertation was that the doctor, in a confidential conversation, told the patient about a certain patient who ... followed by a description of delirium, identical in content to what the patient had. Then the doctor asked the interlocutor to express his opinion on this issue. The vast majority of responses went something like this:
- Well, this Ivan Petrovich of yours is a fool! Such nonsense carries! I'm serious about…”
A woman of an interesting type entered, which can only be found in literary works: pretentiously dressed, a lot of makeup, expressive speech. And all because she appeared from the birthday, more precisely, from the ten thousandth anniversary of the Queen of Cats. 
Somehow, a man bursts into the clinic, holding a large sports bag in his hands, madness in his eyes, and yells: “Help, cure me!” Doctors open the bag, and it is full of papers with the results of procedures a la MRI, gastroscopy, ECG, some 30 colonoscopies! He feels pain in the body acutely and sincerely does not understand why he is told that he is healthy. And all his life he runs around doctors, in particular, surgeons. They cut him - they find nothing - they sew him up. The patient turned out to be a hypochondriac, and his pains are phantom.
It happened once: a man came in with a persecution mania. The conviction that they are following him, they want to rob him, and other manic fictions and hallucinations on this topic.
I stayed in the hospital and received treatment. He went out - it turned out that his house had really been robbed. 
“My wife was once called for a consultation in pulmonology. And there: it seemed - how, from where, the granny is God's dandelion, and then - once - cockroaches appeared in the most brazen way on her snow-white hospital sheet. So she began to make quite fair claims against the medical staff - they say, don’t catch mice at all.
In the department, on the way to the ward, the nurse re-told how it all happened, and added:
- She's better now. Here, look.
A perfectly happy old woman sat in a hospital bed. With an enthusiastic look, she looked around her bed and, literally radiating joy, gently stroked the sheet with her palm. The nurse explained in an undertone:
- I came up, shook the sheet and said that there were no more cockroaches, but how many flowers they poured on her at the request of the manager! Since then, he has been enjoying it. Maybe not prescribe anything to her - it’s good for a person ... "
In 2009, I was in the hospital. The chamber was for six people. Two rows of beds with a passage in the middle. I got an old-style bed with an uncomfortable failed mesh (you lie like in a hammock). Guards of beds from metal rods. We hung towels on them (although this was not allowed). The uncomfortable bed made my legs stick out a little into the aisle. I wake up in the middle of the night from the fact that someone softly tapped on my leg. It flashed through my head that I was either snoring or my legs were in the way. I looked - there was no one in the aisle, nor at my bed. Everybody sleeps. I thought that the woman from the bed opposite bent over and I couldn’t see her because of the shield.
This story happened to me a few months ago, but to this day I cannot find a sensible explanation for it, and the memories of what happened inspire terrible fear in me.
Night duty in a regular city hospital. On the clock around midnight. I was called from the laboratory of the emergency department to the intensive care unit to take a blood test from a seriously ill patient. Armed with the necessary tools, I go up to the sixth floor. When I reach the right place, I exhale tiredly. The elevator, as always, did not work, so we had to walk, and it turns out to be very difficult to climb with a heavy suitcase.
Having collected the necessary tests, I leave the block and head along the long corridor to the exit from this terrible place. Why creepy?
Today, Friday, July 13th, I decided to write a couple of real mystical stories from the life of my family.
I will tell you an incident that happened one autumn in the mid-70s with my grandmother (my mother's mother) in a hospital in a young provincial town in the Volga region.
It all started with the fact that my grandmother (she was 45 years old at that time) had inflammation on her leg, called erysipelas. Temperature - under 40, unbearable pain in the leg. And already, late in the evening, it was already dark, grandfather took my grandmother to the hospital. The hospital was new, literally just rebuilt. At the hospital, she was placed in the infectious diseases department. Her relative (the wife of my husband's brother, my grandfather) worked as a nurse in this department.
My great-grandmother was admitted to the hospital with a hernia. She was a village person, she endured pain to the last, she thought that this would pass. So far it hasn't taken too much.
And so, after the operation, she was placed in the ward, it was strictly forbidden to drink water. And at first she dreamed that she was lying on her bunk, and some people were nailing her blanket to the ground with stakes. When she woke up, she looked, and at the door stood a woman of about forty, full-faced, in a pink sweater, and looked at her. And this woman has no legs, as if dissolved in the air. My great-grandmother hid under the covers, lies. It's scary to look out, but it's interesting. She looked out several times, but the woman was still standing.
One day, returning from work, I saw a very strange woman. It was an old woman, she looked about 70-75 years old, maybe older, it was always difficult for me to determine the age. The first thing that caught my eye was that she walked leaning on two sticks, but these were not standard canes, it seems that they were made from thin tree trunks, from which small branches and leaves were simply broken off. The old woman was dressed in an old wadded coat and dirty, torn shoes. She called out to me, although I was walking on the opposite side of the street. I approached because I thought maybe she got lost and wanted to ask for directions. The old woman began to say that she was very ill, her legs were sore and it was hard for her to walk, and the operation was very expensive.
