What is the impression of mental illness in everyone’s minds?
Perhaps most people would say “crazy person.”
These people cannot blend into normal life, and their final destination can only be a mental hospital.
So what is a real mental hospital like?
In order for everyone to truly understand the real life of mental patients, Shanghai Mental Hospital participated in a 200-day real-life shoot, will the filming crew have a new definition of mental illness in these 200 days?
Mental Hospital
Under the lens of the filming crew, the mental hospital is no different from an ordinary sanatorium.
Most of the patients here are elderly, resembling a group of lovely children, so doctors and nurses call them old children.
Of course there are also young people.
These special individuals’ daily lives in the hospital are well-arranged, they get up, eat, do morning exercises on time, receive physical therapy at 10 am, start taking medication at 11 am, and the hospital also arranges entertainment activities for everyone from time to time, such as singing performances, watching movies, and sports events.
It seems a bit like a retirement home life here, except they cannot leave the mental hospital, they can do everything else.
They don’t look like the crazy image in people’s minds.
The Normal People in the Mental Hospital
In the mental hospital, there is an old lady who excels in calligraphy, and journalists have no barriers communicating with her. After getting to know her for a few days, they found out that the old lady loves to share and is also a well-known teacher in the hospital.
Later, with the help of doctors and nurses, they learned that this old lady’s name is Zhou Zhiling, who suffered from bipolar disorder in her youth and was sent to this mental hospital for treatment.
Later, with the help of doctors and nurses, her condition gradually improved, and she even started a romance in the hospital. This fully proves that she has recovered from her illness, so why is she still staying in the mental hospital?
It turns out that when Zhou Zhiling recovered, she was already over fifty years old, with her only close relative being her brother, but her brother, due to visual impairment, was unable to take care of her, so he could only let her spend her remaining days here.
There is also an elderly man named Xiao Yunsheng, who suffers from alcohol-induced mental disorder, and was sent here by his family. However, his condition is not severe, as long as he quits drinking, he can live a normal life.
But his children, considering him old, are unwilling to take care of him and have always left him in the hospital.
Initially, the children used to visit him frequently, but gradually their presence dwindled, and they even stopped funding Xiao Yunsheng’s treatment, only his ex-wife, out of a sense of marital duty, frequently comes to see him and help with the expenses.
For patients like them who have already recovered, there are quite a few, but due to various reasons, they have to continue to stay in this cage. So here, it’s easy to see the ugliest side of human nature.
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Adolescent Girl Ming Yang
This is real footage from Shanghai Mental Hospital, living with mental patients is a burden for many families, so most people choose to send their loved ones to the hospital for treatment, but do these patients know they are ill? Are they willing to live in a mental hospital?
Mingyang is a top student, she aspires to become an excellent lawyer, so she has been studying diligently since she was young. However, she pressured herself too much, combined with an unsound family environment which led to her developing a mental illness in high school.
From her earliest memories, Mingyang often witnessed her parents arguing and fighting over trivial matters, leaving an indelible mark on her young mind.
With age, the onset of adolescence, Mingyang became sensitive and suspicious, distancing herself from classmates and teachers.
Initially, when the teacher noticed something was off with Mingyang, they communicated with her parents, yet her father did not take it seriously. Later, as Mingyang’s condition worsened, she attempted suicide at home, which made her father realize the severity of the situation.
Thereafter, her father took Mingyang to the hospital for examination, confirming her diagnosis of bipolar disorder, a type of mental illness. Due to her father’s work commitments and lack of time to take care of Mingyang, he had no choice but to send her to a mental hospital for inpatient treatment.
And Mingyang also knew she was ill, so she had to accept her father’s arrangement. After receiving treatment at the mental hospital for a period of time, Mingyang eventually recovered and even had the chance to take the college entrance exam, realizing her dream of becoming a lawyer.
The Odd Old Children
The journalist also interviewed a girl in the mental hospital, who said: “The people here are either extremely intelligent or extremely dull, their intelligence and dullness are hard for ordinary people to accept, so they seem out of place.”
There is an elderly man named Wu Baoxiang, who is the star laborer in the hospital, often helping doctors and nurses with chores. If you didn’t know him, you would probably think, like the journalist did, that he was a hospital staff member.
Every day, Wu Baoxiang helps everyone tidy up beds, clean up, and organize tableware. Therefore, he is often taken advantage of by other patients, always asked to help with chores, but he never tires of it. When asked why he loves working so much, he says, “My alien friend told me to do it.”
In response, the doctor said that Wu Baoxiang has been living in the hospital for 30 years, and in all aspects of life, he is just like an ordinary person. The difference lies in the many strange ideas that come to his mind, claiming the existence of aliens, being good friends with them, and the aliens even told him that humans will evolve to be like them one day.
As for Dongdong, it’s the nickname for Zhang Donghui, he loves being called Dongdong by everyone, not only he speaks fluent English but also has very clear logical thinking, he can clearly know his age, the day of the week, etc.
When he is in the mood, he also likes to sing nursery rhymes, showing his childlike nature to the fullest.
However, despite everything seeming normal, problems often arise during meal times. Zhang Donghui always eats in a hurry, as if he were a starving wolf who hasn’t eaten for days, stuffing food into his mouth incessantly, risking choking.
After finishing his own meal, he would go and grab others’ food, so eventually medical staff had to separate him from others during mealtimes.
Actually, there are many “dull children” like them in the hospital, as well as many “smart people.”
Some are physicists, and some are mathematicians, they completely differ from these “dull children,” they are not talkative, dislike socializing, making it seem like they are perpetually immersed in their own world, unable to come out. Perhaps this is one of the reasons they seem out of place in the eyes of society.
In fact, most of the mentally ill patients know they are ill, and they also understand that they are a burden on their families, so ultimately they choose to stay in the mental hospital for treatment, following the doctor’s instructions to undergo physical therapy and take medication on time every day.
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The Earliest Mental Hospitals
This is real footage from Shanghai Mental Hospital, where the filming crew lived with patients for 200 days. So why did these patients fall ill? This has always been a question that the medical world is exploring.
The earliest mental hospitals appeared in Europe, at that time people’s understanding of mental illness was very limited, any behavior that ordinary people could not comprehend would be considered mental illness.
Back then, mental patients were confined in rooms like prisons, also known as asylums.
At that time, people had no scientific treatment methods for mental patients, they believed that simply being violent could control the behavior of these patients.
So initially, in mental hospitals, there were only guards with sticks, with no medical staff present.
Even under the temptation of profit, some people began to exploit their positions, turning the daily lives of mental patients into an exhibition, where people could buy tickets to visit the mental hospital, much like a circus, this was also quite popular in Europe at that time.
Later, doctors started to pay attention to mental illness and tried to change the situation of mental patients from a physiological perspective, such as removing their frontal lobes. Although this method could make some mentally agitated patients calmer, they did not return to normality as a result.
Instead, they became quiet lunatics, lost their self-care abilities, and many patients died on the operating table due to the risks of this technique.
Yet this kind of medical practice became the mainstream psychiatric treatment for a long time.
Later, with the continuous advancement of technology, the definition and treatment methods for mental illness slowly improved. So now, mentally ill patients can recover slowly through a period of medication and psychological therapy.
The Root of Mental Illness
So where does the root of mental illness lie? This question is still difficult to answer even now.
Some people were initially fine, and then one day they fell ill, becoming unrecognizable to those around them. Did they really just suddenly become like this?
In fact, many things can be traced back, but people are often too careless and fail to notice in time.
Life in society today is too fast-paced, everyone is either busy living or busy dying, paying less and less attention to those around them. The lack of care is also one of the reasons for triggering mental illness, but of course, this is not absolute.
The roots of mental illness are different for each individual, but if family and friends can discover the patient’s abnormality earlier and intervene sooner, then their condition may improve optimistically.
For example, in Shanghai Mental Hospital, there is an old man named Hu Shaotang, he loves writing letters to his brother about their mother, asking about her daily eating habits, exercise routines, emotional well-being, etc. His handwriting is neat, and he has no issues communicating with others, so why did he fall ill?
According to his brother’s introduction, Hu Shaotang is a highly filial son who always puts their mother first. However, when he was young, he often suffered delusions, thinking that his brother was involved in the underworld and mistreating their mother. Whenever their mother fell ill, he would lose control and physically harm their brother, even resorting to using a knife. This situation persisted for a long time, and the family thought Hu Shaotang was just overly concerned about their mother, and they did not consider his issues from a mental illness perspective. Later, as his condition worsened, becoming uncontrollable whenever he saw his brother, the family was willing to admit that Hu Shaotang might have a mental problem.
They had no choice but to send it to a psychiatric hospital for treatment. After several years of treatment, his condition gradually improved, and Hu Shaotang could now have calm conversations with his brother. However, the news of their mother’s passing, his brother never dared to tell him, fearing he might have an extreme reaction.
Craving Family Affection
In reality, these patients yearn for family affection, especially those who have been living in the hospital for decades. Whenever family members come to see them, they are happy like children. But family members never see the sense of loss in patients when they leave.
The journalist interviewed an old man, everyone called him Lao Pu, in the footage the journalist asked him, “What is your biggest regret?” He pondered for a moment and said, “The biggest regret is losing a happy family.” But when the journalist wanted to ask him more about the reasons, he tactfully changed the subject: “It’s time to eat.”
For the patients in the hospital, the most sensitive matter mostly stems from family issues. They yearn to be cared for by their families and to one day return to them.
Of course, journalists have also encountered very extreme patients here, those who might be laughing and talking one moment, and the next moment, they see the reporter as an enemy, seeking to harm them. However, such patients are mostly those who have recently arrived at the hospital without receiving systematic treatment.
Finally, hopefully every mental patient can slowly recover, return to their families, and integrate back into society.
