Beyond the Haunted Asylum

Mental Hospitals in Horror vs. Real Life

Asylums and mental hospitals are some of the most common settings in horror media. There are asylum-themed horror movies, books, analog horror projects, Halloween decorations, and costumes. However, these depictions of mental hospitals and asylums are often inaccurate and stigmatizing to those living with mental illness.

As someone who has been in inpatient psych treatment multiple times, I feel that it is important for me to shed light on the reality of mental hospitals debunk some of the myths around mental hospitals and asylums that are perpetuated in the horror genre, and lift some of the stigmas around those with mental illness who have been in of need inpatient treatment.

First off, I feel I should explain why I'm so comfortable talking about my experience with the inpatient mental health care system despite the stigma. I was not raised to be ashamed of my mental illness or needing help, My mother made a lot of mistakes during my treatment but one of the things she did well was making sure I never felt lesser for having a mental illness.

When  I received my first diagnosis at eleven years old,  she sat me down and explained to me that my brain was sick, that it wasn't my fault or anything I should feel bad about, and that this was no different than any chronic physical illness. Because of this, the social stigma around having a mental illness has never impacted me as severely. 

Many, if not most mentally ill people are not so lucky. We have made great strides in easing the stigma around mental illness in the past decade, but we still have a long way to go. Many people feel ashamed or lesser for having a mental illness or needing inpatient care. The way mental hospitals and asylums are portrayed in horror does play a role in that. That is why it is important to dispel myths and educate people about what inpatient mental health care is really like.

First, some disclaimers. I grew up in the US and exclusively went to American mental hospitals. I know the mental healthcare system can vary greatly from country to country and I can only speak on this from an American perspective. I was also a minor when I  went through the bulk of my hospitalizations so I have the most familiarity with pediatric psych wards. Adult psych wards can have some pretty profound differences. The treatment and procedures can vary greatly even from hospital to hospital, so all I can speak on is my own experiences.

The first thing I should make clear is that aslyums, as they existed in the past and are portrayed in so many pieces of horror media, do not exist anymore.The process of closing asylums and replacing them with more modern, more humane models models of mental health care, a process known as deinstaltionization, begun in the late twentieth century and ended in 2015. As it stands in 2024, there are no operational mental asylums in the United States.

This is for good reason too. The Asylums of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were truly horrible places, not because they were particularly scary or dangerous to those outside the asylum, but because the patients there were subjected to archaic, cruel, humiliating, and abusive methods of "treatment".

In past decades, we did not know as much about mental illness as we do today and stigma was running rampant. Abusive methods including electroshock therapy, ice baths, isolation, and lobotomies were the main methods of "treatment". These practices are barbaric and it is very much a positive thing that these asylums no longer exist.

That is not to say abuse never happens in a modern mental hospital, Back when I was being treated in pediatric psych wards a decade ago a controversial restraint method that has been known to break bones and even kill patients in some cases was still in use. This restraint method has thankfully since been completely banned, but it really shows that we still have a long way to go in terms of how we treat the mentally ill.

In horror movies, we often see mental patients behaving in extremely violent or otherwise behaving in ways that are meant to scare and shock the audience, This couldn't be further from the truth. Statistically, mentally ill people are much more likely to be victims of violent crime rather than prepotraiters

. In the rare cases where mentally ill people do commit a violent crime, it often gets over-sensationalized by the media and is replicated in fictionalized depictions in horror media, which causes harm to the way people view mentally ill people as a whole.

In my personal experience, by far the most common reason people end up in mental hospitals is attempting suicide.

Throughout the dozen or so mental hospital stays I went through as a teenager, I've seen hundreds of kids come into treatment for attempting suicide. By far the most common reason these kids had for trying to take their own lives is the bullying they were going through in school Many are left with both physical and mental scars they will have to carry with them for the rest of their lives. Some were as young as ten or eleven.

I think this really shines a light on how serious the bullying epidemic here in the US is. It's why I don't take any form of bullying lightly. I've seen firsthand the pain that bullying can cause and the devastating or even lethal consequences it can have.

Real-life psych hospitals are not the drab, stuffy, creepy places you see in horror movies. Patients aren't kept locked in their rooms all the time or shackled all day, A typical day in the inpatient psych treatment includes various therapeutic classes, regular meals and snacks, some kind of exercise or art therapy activity, and recreational time where we watch a movie or play a board game. Patients are kept very busy, We were most definitely not locked up or restrained in our rooms all day.

This doesn't mean things in the mental hospital were perfect or that the patients are never mistreated there. 

Something I personally struggled with when I was in treatment was the wake-up times. We were supposed to wake up at seven am sharp every single day with no exceptions, If we did not comply with this the staff would threaten to take our beds away and force us to sleep on the floor. My particular mental illness sometimes keeps me awake for three or four days straight, so when I come down from an episode I need to get a ton of sleep. The staff at the hospital would not allow this, however, and I had no choice but to wake up at 7 am even when my health was severely deteriorating from lack of sleep.

. I wish I could say everyone who works in these hospitals are kind, loving  people who genuninely care about the people they've been tasked to help , and to be  fair I have encountered some truly amazing staff  during my time in treatment, but unforcantly that is not the case for everyone who works in  the mental health feild.

Going off of my own experiences and what I've heard from others who have been in the same position as me, mental health care workers can sometimes be cold, mean, impatient, and even mocking. I've heard of patients being put in restraints for having panic attacks or even just crying. I've heard of patients being accused of attention-seeking or being manipulative for asking for help when they genuinely need it. I've heard of mental health staff making fun of patients both to their faces and to other staff while the patient is still in earshot. Though I didn't experience anything nearly as horrible as some of my fellow patients, I do have an extremely clear memory of being screamed at by a staff member for not making my bed correctly.

I don't want to discount all the amazing mental health care workers who have helped me throughout my time in treatment. I've met some truly amazing people during my time at the hospital. They comforted me when I cried and offered me new ways to cope with my emotions that I still use today. These are the people who save lives. Though they can't erase the trauma that the more abusive mental health staff members cause, their contribution to the well-being of their patients shouldn't go unmentioned.

Mental hospitals have come a long way since the asylums of the past decades. We no longer symbolism patients or lock them away in straight jackets we see so often in horror movies. But we still have a long way to go. 

Sometimes people need to go to the mental hospital, whether that be for their safety of to get urgent treatment, That is okay, That is nothing to be ashamed of. But even as far as we have progressed in terms of mental health care, the stigma and mistreatment regarding the mentally ill is still a massive problem in our society.

I would like to close out this article with a request: be kind to each other. You never know what someone else is going through or what battles they are fighting in their heads. Even in the darkest moments of my life, I was able to build support and friendships with my fellow patients through nothing but empathy and kindness, something we sorely need more of in this day and age.

Call a friend you haven't seen in a while and see how they're doing, Reach out to one of your muturals on social media who is struggling. Give a family member a hug. Spread kindness wherever you can because when all is said and done that is all we have.

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