Attending Counselors

You will come to know several people at the hospital quite intimately. These folks will be there when you are crying, they will be there when you can't sleep, and they'll be there to discuss your progress at the morning meetings. They are the attending counselors, and you'll need them more than you know.

When I first got admitted to the hospital back in 1992 at the tender age of sixteen, I was put on suicide watch. I hadn't attempted suicide, but that was the designation I was given due to the state of my mental health. When you're on suicide watch, you have a counselor with you twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, no matter what you're doing. I thought this was a silly idea, until I ran into a couple nights where I couldn't sleep and I was relatively scared to be in a hospital for the first time. The counselor was there to talk me through it and provide the support that I needed.

You won't have the same attending counselor all the time. It's a job like any other and they have to go home at some point. But if you're in a good hospital, all the counselors will be extremely helpful and even though you'll have some favorites, everybody will take good care of you.

One of the number one things to remember with counselors is that they are people too. Several of the patients I spent time with treated the counselors like servants. I always found this practice to be ridiculous. If those patients ever knew how many extra hospitalization days they were probably buying themselves, I doubt they would have acted like that.

My advice is to treat the counselors like friends. They are there to hear your problems and they want to help you so make it easy on them! Not only will you get out of the hospital faster, but you will enjoy your stay more because you will get a reputation as a well behaved patient. Just be kind, polite, and you will be on your way home in no time.