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Activity In Psychiatric Hospital

 

At one point earlier in my twenties, I worked as part of the behavioral staff within an inpatient psychiatric hospital providing both acute and residential care to children and teenagers. It was a fairly new hospital, only a couple of decades old, and had never served as anything but a psychiatric facility. For years it had also housed both adult acute and adult residential units, but about a year prior to my employment, the company shut down those units and moved the adults elsewhere.

The experience that most stands out to me took place in a shut down adult unit. Given the layout of the facility, the only way to the medical offices or the little kid unit was to walk all the way down the long hall that once housed a small portion of the adults. The hall was dark, cluttered by storage and some damaged wall decor, and all of the bedrooms were locked and empty. After every cluster of bedrooms, there stood a set of steel double doors that could only be opened by scanning your badge. This was to lessen the chance of any flight risk client truly going rogue.

It was early on in my time there, and I was on my way to the little kid unit to talk to their nurses station. After I'd buzzed through a couple of double doors in the abandoned adult wing, I came through another set and found a young, slight built child staring at me from the end of a longer hall, just before the last set of double doors that would finally open to a nurses station and brightly lit, colorful children's day room. She startled me, and when I saw her I knew she probably wasn't a rogue patient, if that makes sense to you. But, not wanting to be catch the mental chaos that comes with a psychiatric hospital, I chalked it up to the spooky unit and asked her where the adults were, if they knew she wasn't in the day room. She quickly turned to her left, laughed, and ran into a bedroom.

I approached the room and, as I'd said earlier, it was locked. Just like the rest of them. That solidified in my mind what was going on, but before I could leave the unit with a face that read "Eek! Poltergeist!" I had to make triple sure that she wasn't in there. I opened it and, just as I suspected, there was no one. No furniture, no storage, no child. An empty room. I check its bathroom. Nobody.

I switched channels on my hand held. "This is flowersgrowback. I think I saw a little girl, curly hair, on the 600 unit. New client maybe, she isn't familiar. I haven't been able to find her again. Are all of the kids accounted for down here?"

Immediately the nurses from the closest station and two male coworkers were scouring the unit. All of the children were exactly where they needed to be, but if there was a random child in the building, she needed to be found. After a long while, the search was abandoned and I became the "new client." Funny, right?

One of the nurses who'd been there for over a decade pulled me to the side. I expected a lecture. I was embarrassed to have rang a false alarm. But instead she explained to me that although no one had died in the hospital, that eventually every female employee would run into a little girl with curly hair. She could be anywhere in the hospital, and seems to giggle and run off like she's playing with you. She'd seen her more than once and was a little confused as to why the girl would be there, but basically the nurse understood that I wasn't insane.

Once word got around that I'd seen "that little girl," some other staff that had been there longer started pulling me to the side and whispering to me their belief in my story and sharing with me their own.

Outside of the little girl, it wasn't unusual to hear or feel left over or residual energy. Someone small and invisible pulling on your pants leg. Little footsteps running down the hall at you full speed. You turn around, hear the running getting closer, but you're the only one in the hallway. Laughter, squealing, tiny voices in empty play rooms and the vacant cafeteria. I once heard balls bouncing in the gym in the middle of the night. Thinking there must be staff playing "therapeutic" basketball with an upset teenager, I opened up the door and it was pitch black but I could still hear the balls and the feet. I turned on the light and it all went silent.

No one has died there. Now, that doesn't mean that none of the clients haven't died away from the hospital, unfortunately. So maybe that's something. A lot of kids, adults, teenagers who came to the hospital knew it as the only safe place in the entire world. Sometimes when they were scared, they'd even walk to the hospital on their own in the rain or at night, whenever their home was too much. I'm sure there's also a lot of residual energy. It's highly chaotic. Lots of violence, self injury, etc. Goes on.

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Comments about this paranormal experience

The following comments are submitted by users of this site and are not official positions by yourghoststories.com. Please read our guidelines and the previous posts before posting. The author, flowersgrowback, has the following expectation about your feedback: I will participate in the discussion and I need help with what I have experienced.

Desertmoon (4 stories) (23 posts)
 
7 years ago (2017-01-22)
Flowersgrowback - really interesting experience, especially that it involved a child. Working in several hospitals it's really amazing how many different patients staying in one particular room would ask about hearing children, either in their room or in the rooms adjacent to theirs when no children were present at all (I worked nights and often after visiting hours). One of our techs reported hearing a baby cry in another of the rooms on our floor. The strange thing is that this was not a pediatric but an adult floor. I never heard or saw anything but have no explanation as to why some of our patients seemed to hear kids on the unit. It's interesting your child appeared in the adult section. I wonder where else on the floor she was seen by other staff.
Macknorton (5 stories) (646 posts)
 
8 years ago (2016-04-14)
Hi DandK

The whole science of spirit communication is largely unknown, but I believe it's to do with vibrations; matter is a slower, denser vibration whilst spirit is much higher and finer, which is why most of us can't see it.

Regarding Silver Birch, I would start by reading one of his books. I know Psychic Press publish them, but others may also. These can be bought online in either classic book form or e-books. Trust me, you won't be disappointed!

Regards

Mack
DandK (11 stories) (344 posts)
 
8 years ago (2016-04-14)
Macknorton, I agree a bit with your statement: "I think a lot of problems we have in terms of communication from "the other side" is that the actual process of spirits and people attuning themselves to each other is (usually) a very difficult and extremely delicate matter.

I think the analogy of communicating with people who have passed over is akin to trying to tune into a faint radio station and it's a matter of a micro-shift on the tuning band-wave to get the correct fuzzy distorted frequency (or vibration) is a good one."

It seems like there is something to that, but it also seems like there is a bit more. Like there is a window that they can see us through, but that they have more of the power to break through that than we do?

I've tried to investigate your reference to Silver Birch and got a bit overwhelmed. Do you have a recommended starting point?
ms_st0308 (6 stories) (66 posts)
 
8 years ago (2016-04-06)
I enjoyed this story, because I also work in a psychiatric facility in Alabama.

I think I can answer the question about the photos. We do take photos of our patients upon admission, but only as a second means of identification and the photos are kept in the patient's chart on the unit. Once the patient has been discharged, all of that chart information is then transferred to our medical records department where the records/charts are locked up in a secure area. After about a year, our records are transferred to a secure storage facility. And after 10 years, the records are destroyed entirely if the patient hasn't been back.

So that could account for why there wasn't any way to research and find any record of the little girl being there previously or to back up anyone else who may or may not have remembered her being there. And if it was anything like us, we sometimes don't remember some of the "better" kids, if you know what I mean. The pretty trying ones are usually the most memorable!
flowersgrowback (5 stories) (22 posts)
+2
8 years ago (2016-03-15)
Hi, SDS. I worked there for a couple of years, but am there no longer. The people who'd worked there the longest, 10-15 years, didn't remember her. The hospital had been in operation for a few years longer than they'd been there, to my understanding. There weren't any photographs of the clients taken, or I sincerely hope there weren't. It's against confidentiality laws to photograph the clients or take any photos in the hospital at all really. Thanks for your questions:)
sds (14 stories) (1436 posts)
 
8 years ago (2016-03-13)
Hello flowersgrowback, thanks for sharing your experience and it is really great that you guys do a lot of service. Kudos to you.

The sighting of the little girl, her giggling and vanishing, would have definitely had its effect on you. By the way, I want to ask you. How long has your hospital been in operation? Whether you would have the patients photographed? If so, youu can try to find out if she was once treated at the hospital. If you can, why can't you ask some of the seniors if they remember that girl being at the hospital anytime during their career.

Your sharing of experience started an excellent exchange of information from DanK, Randy, Mack. Thanks to them also.

Regards and respects to every one.

SDS
Macknorton (5 stories) (646 posts)
 
8 years ago (2016-03-11)
Hi Randy & DandK. I think a lot of problems we have in terms of communication from "the other side" is that the actual process of spirits and people attuning themselves to each other is (usually) a very difficult and extremely delicate matter.

I think the analogy of communicating with people who have passed over is akin to trying to tune into a faint radio station and it's a matter of a micro-shift on the tuning band-wave to get the correct fuzzy distorted frequency (or vibration) is a good one.

However, obviously mediums who are gifted with that skill are able to pass on accurate information to varying degrees due to their own mediumistic development and abilities.

I'm sure we've all seen mediums who pass on seemingly uninteresting and banal information but if you put yourself in those in spirits shoes, and you had 5-10 second window of opportunity to get a message through, you'd probably say something like "I love you, I'm ok, and I'm around you watching over you"

On the flip side of that, there are some amazing channeling examples where there's a concerted effort (co-operative) whereby a vast amount of information regarding the spirit world is passed on. Now whether you believe that to be genuine spirit communication or not is up to whether the messages appeal to the individuals reason and judgement.

One excellent (and I believe 100% genuine) example of this is the spirit who called himself "Silver Birch". There are many books published by Psychic Press with his teachings. I highly recommend them for anyone interested in their own spirituality, life on the "other side", and particularly: "Why are we here?"

It was a life-changing moment for me personally reading those teachings, as it really struck a chord, deep inside of me that I could relate to.

Regards

Mack
RANDYM (2 stories) (266 posts)
 
8 years ago (2016-03-11)
DanK

I agree that we don't have the mental capacity to understand all.
Plus I think if we knew too much it would mute the point of living the human experience and how we deal with our trials and tribulations.

Not sure about any other dimension but we have been told that "time" is a human concept of putting things in order and that once we cross over it really doesn't have any meaning. Or at least not the same as it does to us in the here and now.

Sorry about your husband

Randy
DandK (11 stories) (344 posts)
 
8 years ago (2016-03-11)
RandyM, Thank you for the fascinating explanation. What you say makes sense. I knew someone a couple of decades ago that also went off to work on a similar project. I haven't seen him since he left.

I've always been curious about the reason we (the living) were not allowed to know some things. I've heard through my father's experience that they claim that they are very busy, but no details are ever given.

My own thoughts are that we just don't have the mental capacity to understand.

As far as EVPs go, I've recorded one in my previous home right after I bought it that sounded like a man and woman having a conversation. Not to be confused with an EVP that I recorded in the home I'm living in now that I recorded before moving into it also (I mentioned this particular case in another story's comments). In the EVP of the conversation, it sounds like the woman says "ok, you can have him, but just leave her alone." My husband died of an accident in this house while I was out of the country six months later. I didn't remember this EVP until a couple of years ago (several years after recording it) and wondered if there was a relationship. I still have this recording.

Does any of your evidence point towards the spirits being of four instead of three dimensions, where they can move through time like we can through space?

Thanks again for the thought provoking information.
DandK
RANDYM (2 stories) (266 posts)
-1
8 years ago (2016-03-10)
OK DandK

I'll tell you as much as I can without compromising too much.

5 years ago I became part of a research team. That team had already been working on a project for 9 years before my joining. We are NOT ghost hunters and do NOT do any paranormal investigations as the project we have is all free time consuming and we also have no interest.
The project takes place at a former medical facility that has been closed many years and is now privately owned. NOBODY other than our team is allowed there. It is covered with video and audio equipment for our research.
The original objective was to get evidence of "life after death"
I can only say that now that objective has changed. "Life after death" is no longer even a question. It is accepted fact for us. I can't go into details but can only say that of those we speak with we have been able to verify all aspects of their life on earth through historical records.
Therefore the research objective has changed to trying to learn all we can about what life is like after we die and cross over to the other side.
We do our work through EVP, but not the TV type "one or two word EVP" We get full sentence and short paragraph EVP answers to the questions we ask.
I will tell you that there is a whole lot of information that is "simply not for the living to know" so we have to take what we can get.
As you know there are many paranormal TV show, books, and way too many "paranormal experts" around giving out "information"
As for myself and my other team members it only makes sense to us to "go to the source" for information. The way we see it is that someone who has died and crossed over is the very best equipped to explain to us what life is like after we leave this world.

I really wish I could say more but I hope this brief explanation helps you to see why I made that statement.

Thanks
Randy
RANDYM (2 stories) (266 posts)
 
8 years ago (2016-03-10)
Mack

No apologies necessary at all
The way I see it all input is a good thing 😁

Randy
DandK (11 stories) (344 posts)
+1
8 years ago (2016-03-10)
RandyM, I am highly interested in a further explanation, if you wouldn't mind.
Thank you, DandK
RANDYM (2 stories) (266 posts)
-1
8 years ago (2016-03-10)
WishNot

"Once a person crosses over to the other side of death they can return to any place that they can remember from their life."
No its not something I have read

It is something I know as fact.
If you want me to explain further I can

Thanks
Randy
Macknorton (5 stories) (646 posts)
-1
8 years ago (2016-03-10)
Hi Wish-Not

Not wanting to hi-jack your conversation with Randy, but my understanding is in spirit, it's a world of thought. So when you think: "I want to go to..." then you are there pretty much instantly.

It makes sense and when you think about it, it's exactly the same principle here on Earth, except we have the problem of matter, gravity, and having to haul our electrified-meat carcasses around everywhere.

Imagine this scenario: you want to go but some bread as your local store down the road. It takes a while to get your wallet, keys, shoes on (maybe pants as well) then off you go, hauling your carcass down the street, battling gravity to the shop. But, eventually, job done.

Your thought was "get to the shop"; you made that your reality, except you were encumbered greatly, and it took time. In spirit, "get to the shop" would be almost instant because you are not encumbered by gravity, or matter. Still the same result, but much faster.

Hope that helps? (sorry Randy for hijacking that one)

Regards

Mack
Wish-Not (16 stories) (534 posts)
+1
8 years ago (2016-03-10)
I am curious Randy

"Once a person crosses over to the other side of death they can return to any place that they can remember from their life."

Is this something that you read? Is this true for every person that has crossed over?

I'm just curious
flowersgrowback (5 stories) (22 posts)
 
8 years ago (2016-03-10)
Thanks you guys! Sorry about all of the typos and funny sounding sentences. I was trying to type it all out very quickly while my computer was dying.

DandK, I'm not sure how far back the sightings go. Several years at least, though, because some of my former coworkers (who had been there a good while) would tell me about stories they had when they first started. A lot of our female clients were afraid of men, as I'm sure you can understand, so perhaps she's more so avoiding the men than targeting the women for a specific reason. That's only my own thought though. A lot of my coworkers didn't enjoy discussing it, especially in depth.

A lot of my coworkers (and even myself) tried to do our best to shake it all off and not think about it. It's a high stress job with 12-14 hour shifts. The environment will take a toll on you if you don't learn to shut out a lot of the chaos. Basically, it was a place that could make you lose and question your own sanity, so we didn't try to speculate much.

Thank you everyone for reading it and giving me feedback:)
spiritwaiting (42 stories) (843 posts)
 
8 years ago (2016-03-10)
Flowersgrowback,
From your account, it does seem like a safe haven for the since passed spirits to come back, and feel safe again.
Like you said,it's a place where they feel safe, and maybe they feel the love you all put into your work there, so they come back wanting to feel the love once again.

Thank you for sharing, I enjoyed reading this.
Anything to help children, feel loved and safe is a great thing ❤.

Sincerely
Spiritwaiting
RANDYM (2 stories) (266 posts)
-1
8 years ago (2016-03-10)
Flowersgrowback,

Loved the story.
What could happen is the little girl may have passed somewhere else but comes back to the place that she remembers.
Once a person crosses over to the other side of death they can return to any place that they can remember from their life. Maybe she was happy there and enjoyed playing with the staff.
Thanks again as I really liked it
Randy
DandK (11 stories) (344 posts)
 
8 years ago (2016-03-09)
Flowersgrowback, this was a great story! Thanks for posting it. I could really see the little girl and the unused section hallway.

I'm curious how far back these sightings other people have had go? Also does anyone have a theory about why this little girl is there and showing herself to the female staff?

Thanks, DandK

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