"This hospital was 'too good'. Don't get stuck..."

By the way, I wasn't here June 2018 - I wanted this review to be anonymous to not give away my identity.

This hospital is too good. What do I exactly mean by too good? This hospital is so easy to get used to. It is so easy for this place to become your home.

I had been to previous hospitals and those were the worst experiences of my life, so when I arrived at Pebble Lodge I was eager to get out as soon as I legally could. As I had a lot of spare time (there wasn't much to do that I enjoyed), I liked to observe the behaviour of other patients. From the day I got there till the the day I got out, it was clear that over half of the patients (for most of them Pebble was the only hospital they had been to) preferred Pebble Lodge than their actual home. It wasn't clear if all staff were aware of this or not. This lead to many patients staying for longer than they needed to be by risky behaviour to stay longer. Most adolescents that come don't have mental illnesses severe enough to deem a hospitalisation for longer than a month. It seemed many had tried to attempt suicide, but the motive of most of them were clear. To fix a problem, not to actually die. If I'm honest, that was even in my case. I never had a mental illness when I went to hospital, in my opinion. But I developed symptoms of them - such as persistent sadness and hopelessness. Why? Because I got stuck in the system for over half a year and I just wanted to go home. As soon as I got to Pebble Lodge, these feelings went away, but I still was desperate to go home. If you can avoid hospitalisation, I beg anyone not to get involved in the system. Or if you do, become an informal patient and NEVER get sectioned. That way you can back out whenever you want. The biggest problem in this place is that people believe that all hospitals will be like Pebble, and get themselves sent to a PICU, which is worse than prison. If you get sent to a PICU or a low-secure, where - let me tell you - you'll lose all your dignity, you've most likely increased your stay by a couple of years (usually until you're 18, at which point you'll get transferred, realise you've ruined your whole childhood, got no qualifications and get discharged in a week because hospitals for adults can see through it all). When you come out, you'll have more problems than when you started. Anyway, this review is about this hospital, not the system in general.

This hospital was incredibly clean, but please, if you ever come here, don't take advantage of the cleaners.

The staff were okay, at least for the rubbish pay they got. Sometimes a bit unprofessional, but generally nice. Unfortunately it's hard to avoid any staff/patients you don't like, as you'll be living with them, so you'll just have to deal with it. I would recommend keeping yourself to yourself and not starting any drama with patients. It's pointless.

The consultants are both great and remained professional. The Dr was such a pleasure to work with. He's intelligent and funny.