17 Oct
2026
The words "mental ward" scare a lot of people. For some, they bring up shame, or old movies, or a fear of being labeled. At seventeen, I spent time in a hospital mental ward. I walked out with something I did not expect: a deeper sense of how thankful I should be.
In 2004, my seizures were coming again and again. On my first day back at school, I had a seizure and was taken to the hospital. At the time, I had been moving from place to place, sleeping on different sofas and sometimes outside, and my mother was treating me as if she despised me. Stress had been tied to my seizures since I was a boy, and that spring there was plenty of it.
As I was about to be released, my mother told the doctor things about me that were not true. The doctor believed her, and I was admitted to the hospital's mental ward.
The staff did what good professionals do. They watched me and observed my actions for several hours, and they found out that what she had said was not true.
Even so, they could not just let me go. I was still a minor, and they needed a guardian to sign me out. I called my mother and pleaded with her to come to the hospital for me. She refused.
If a child is in immediate danger, call 911. In the U.S., the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline is 1-800-422-4453.
The only other person who could sign me out was her ex-husband, the man I once called Father. I called him and told him what I needed. He came, signed me out, and I went to live with him for a while.
Those hours in the mental ward changed how I saw my own life. In my memoir Neglected But Undefeated, I wrote, "Being in that mental ward opened my eyes, though, to how thankful I should be for the knowledge, wisdom, and understanding that I have."
And then I wrote something honest: "A lucky guy, is how I began to look at myself for a few hours." Only a few hours. My life was still hard, the seizures kept coming, and the months ahead would bring more trouble. But even a few hours of gratitude in a place like that mattered. It reminded me to be thankful for what I still had.
I won't share anything about anyone else who was there. Their stories are theirs. What I will say is that everyone in a place like that deserves respect, both the people living with mental illness and the people who care for them.
That was not my first experience with mental health professionals, and it was not my last. When I was ten, after my first seizure, doctors put me on medication for anxiety and depression, and after a while I felt more relaxed. As a teenager, I worked with a therapist and a psychiatrist who stood up for me, encouraged me to believe in myself and kept reminding me that my brothers needed me. Years later, my psychiatrist, psychologist, therapist and counselors were part of the reason I wrote my book at all. They told me I needed to let it all out to move toward a better life.
So when I hear people talk about mental health care as something to be ashamed of, I think about the people who helped keep me alive.
If you are struggling right now, please reach out. If you are thinking about suicide, call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, U.S.).
Being in a mental health unit, or having someone you love there, can be frightening. Here are a few things to hold on to:
I still think about that phrase, "the knowledge, wisdom, and understanding that I have." It is easy to focus on everything you lack. Sometimes it takes a hard place to show you what you still have.
My full story is in Neglected But Undefeated, which you can find on my Books page. If someone you love is going through a mental health crisis, call them today and let them know you are not ashamed of them.
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