Our experience in a mental health residential care facility

Posted on 2026-04-14 by [lily]

Summary

Residential care is extremely extremely extremely valuable for those who need it.

But who needs it?

In my opinion anyone who

What is treatment like?

A good residential provides the following

Note: they will likely take your phone and electronics during the day, giving them back later in the evening after program ends

An typical schedule for my program was

A summary of my history

I'll keep this brief.

I have been depressed on and off for the last 9 years. Anxious my entire life. I struggle with trauma from my upbringing, autism, the fact that growing up queer in our society is inherently traumatic, and all the maladaptive behaviors that I picked up as survival mechanisms during my teenage years and early 20s. I struggle with maladaptive substance use and love fantasies.

Over the years I've been suicidal consistently at least once a year. The worst before this year being last year, when I was hospitalized for 10 days.

The days before

In the days leading up to my intake to residential, I was deeply depressed and suicidal. I was making plans and writing letters.

It was bad.

I was miserable and wanted to end my life to relieve myself from the pain that existing brought me. I was on the edge, and was ready to give up.

But in the moments before (or maybe after) giving up, my headmates stepped in and saved us, making the phone calls to a place that would be able to take us.

We spent that morning at work, sitting with HR and making phone calls. By noon we had a flight booked (this was covered by the residential program). By 6pm Cedar was on a plane across the country.

At the airport, my anxious self woke back up and co-fronted with Cedar while waiting for our pickup from the airport. I (Lily) was convinced I had just been part of an elaborate human trafficking scheme and this was the last time anyone was going to ever hear from me.

Thankfully that wasn't the case, and about an hour later we were sitting in the front office of the house, filling out forms and signing documents.

I was in the house I would be staying at for the next 30 days. Little did I know at the time that my time here would change the course of my life, and represented a pivotal turning point in my mental health journey.

The first week

The first few hours after waking up were terrifying.

We had no idea what to expect. We didn't have our phone. We didn't know anyone.

But Cedar held on strong and quickly got to know our housemates, two very nice people, including one trans enby. Having another queer person in the house made us instantly more comfortable and reassured us that we had made the right choice.

Having a headmate front for us, our protector and our caretaker, was extremely helpful in our transition as we were able to function normally and acclimate to our new situation, while not compartmentalizing away our problems. Lily was simply not ready to front yet and Cedar was able to take on the roles he needed to to get Lily to a place where she would be comfortable.

It was over a day later until I (Lily) first fronted again, fully exposing our depressed and suicidal self. We were met with immense care and compassion from our peers and the staff, and it was clear that we were in a safe and healing space.

It was a scary first week adapting to the change in living situation, the new schedule of continuous therapy and social interaction, and the overwhelming emotions that we were experiencing.

But we pushed through, was vulnerable whenever we could, poured our soul out to our therapist and in group, and we eventually made it to the second week.

The second week

The second week, we got more new friends and things got worse before things got better. I was in a deep hole and had no will to get up and start dragging myself out.

But I was surrounded by support and so I simply cried and cried and cried. I talked openly about how much emotional pain I was in and the anxiety I'd carried my entire life, and how I just wanted to give up.

My goal for the second week was to allow myself to have hope. To give myself the opportunity to feel hope, not even to feel hopeful, just the act of allowing myself to feel hopeful.

It was hard, but I got there by the end of the second week. Giving myself that small glimmer of hope, lifting myself from rock bottom.

This second week was also when we started to dig into therapy with our individual therapist. The therapists at the residential we went to were, frankly, really really fucking good. So we got lucky in the company we went to, the specific house we ended up at, and the specific therapist we were assigned to.

During this second week and our 3 sessions that week, we had dug through and found the nuggets of truth that had been holding us back all this time.

Decidedly by the end of this second week, we turned a corner and started to truly heal.

The third week

The third week was a blur of productive group sessions, new insights, poetry writing, and difficult moments.

We learned so much, wrote so much (see Finding the Words), were able to help our peers, and honestly just had a really good time. I love therapy and getting this amount of group and individual therapy was a joy and I got to make so much progress that I couldn't have done anywhere else.

We had a family session with my mom, got through difficult situations with staff, learned so much about ourselves, found a new headmate, and were blessed with the opportunity to get to know and heal with a bunch of cool people

The fourth week

The fourth week was a bit of a wash, as my therapist was out on vacation and I was planning my discharge. Most of my friends had discharged as well. Things got a bit messy, but we kept our head up and kept writing and kept trying to learn about ourselves whenever we could. By this point we were fully accustomed to the routine that had been established in the weeks prior, so this was by far the easiest week.

I didn't even cry! I cried a lot on the last two days.

The hardest part of this week (and the residential program in general) is the self-advocacy. A lesson I learned quickly was that you have to stand up for yourself in a place like this. You have to know what you want and push the staff to get you what you need. Remember that your peers and your therapist are (hopefully) in your corner and ready to support you in the difficult moments of self-advocacy

Summary (again)

So in summary, a residential is a little bubble. A bubble of healing where you are asked the simple question: Are you willing to put in the work to feel better?

Are you willing to work through ~4 hours of therapy a day? Are you willing to be vulnerable? Painfully vulnerable? To your therapist? To your peers? Are you willing to let go of the familiar pain and embrace uncomfortable healing? Are you ready to make changes in your life? Are you willing to accept that things can be better?

Are you?

I was, and residential turned out to be what I had needed for me to truly turn the corner on my healing process.

Lily

Appendix: Comparison to a psych ward

Miles different. Drastically different. Could almost not be more different.

In a psych ward, or hospitalization in general, their goal is to make sure you don't hurt yourself and hopefully stabilize on your own. Maybe with new meds.

But your typical stay in a psych ward is 3-14 days. That's less than the time it takes for most medication to become effective. So what are you really doing in there?

You're stuck without your electronics, not able to leave, no privacy at all, and stuck with nothing to do but twiddle your thumbs, play chess, and maybe color if you're lucky.

A psych ward is not a place of recovery, it is an emergency place of stabilization. A residential should be where you go next after a psych ward.

A residential is a place of recovery and healing, where you're placed in a protective bubble and you get a full time job of fix yourself.



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