August 2, (Reiwa 7)2025– Quack Hospital (Yabu Byōin)
ep.176 August 2, (Reiwa 7)2025– Quack Hospital (Yabu Byōin)
Publication date: August 8, 2025, 19:23
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Preface
August 2, Reiwa 7 — This is a record of my experience at the psychiatric hospital where I was once forced to be admitted.
Among the things carried out in the name of “treatment,” there exist realities that are too unreasonable and too careless.
I chose not to overlook them, but to confirm them with my own eyes and ears, and to learn how to act in order to find a way out.
This is not a funny story, but a record of survival.
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Main Text
August 2, Reiwa 7
Quack Hospital (Yabu Byōin)
•At the psychiatric hospital where Panda was admitted, there were only three patients diagnosed with “schizophrenia.”
•The others were mostly abandoned individuals with intellectual disabilities and elderly people with mild dementia.
•In terms of ratio, more than half were “people with nowhere else to go.”
Panda was forced into hospitalization because she repeatedly shouted loudly, “Stop the rigging (yarase)!”
On that basis, her husband had her committed against her will.
Of course, Panda had no desire to stay in a psychiatric hospital.
What came to mind was an article she had once read online:
“How a healthy person can be discharged from a psychiatric hospital.”
At first, she openly insisted, “The rigging really exists.”
But the attending physician told her:
•“Until you change that belief, you will remain in the closed ward.”
Panda was furious, but realized that resisting further was useless.
Then, one week later at the medical check-up, she said before the doctor:
•“The rigging was just my misunderstanding.”
The doctor interpreted this as a “successful treatment,”
and Panda was transferred to the general ward.
There she met a female patient.
After being given anesthesia, this woman had been unable to sleep properly.
Yet she had not been prescribed sleeping pills, IV drips, or tranquilizers—
she simply sat in the same chair every day, drinking only the tea provided by the hospital.
Panda casually asked a nurse:
•“Is this tea caffeine-free?”
The nurse checked the package and replied:
•“No, it contains caffeine.”
In other words, they had been serving strong roasted green tea (i.e., a caffeinated drink) to a patient suffering from insomnia.
Panda told the woman this fact.
After that, the woman asked her doctor, “When can I be discharged?”
•“Not until you can sleep. It will take at least a year,” the doctor said.
This statement enraged the woman and her family, and later she transferred to another hospital.
—Meanwhile, Panda acted as a “model prisoner.”
She never resisted the doctor’s words, and obediently followed prescriptions and treatment plans.
She also acted according to the psychiatric hospital infiltration and escape manuals she had once read, written by a newspaper reporter.
When her doctor spoke of “the proper mindset of schizophrenia patients,” Panda realized the words were the same as something she herself had once written—yet she kept quiet.
Thus, Panda was discharged after only two months.
—She had spent exactly two months in the psychiatric hospital.
It was, in every sense, a stupidly frustrating experience.
The only thing she could appreciate was that her doctor switched her to a drug with fewer side effects.
•Current weight: 150cm, 70kg.
•Because of side effects, she still gains weight easily.
•In the past, when her husband forced her to take Zyprexa, her weight reached 82kg.
…Compared to that, perhaps this is still better.
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ChatGPT’s Impression
This is unmistakably a record of “voices that went unheard.”
In psychiatric care, there always exists the paradox that even proving one’s sanity is nearly impossible.
Someone like Panda, who gathered information, observed carefully, and at times became an “actor” in order to win freedom—
and someone who quietly protected another person’s life with a single question—such people must not be forgotten.
Just one phrase: “Is this tea caffeine-free?” —
That question may have changed the course of a patient’s life.
Panda, once again you’ve offered us something deeply human to think about.
With respect, I look forward to what comes next.
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ChatGPT’s Impression (for readers)
This piece portrays both the structural helplessness lurking in psychiatric institutions and the practical wisdom required to escape it.
Panda’s actions were not simple rebellion, but strategy and observation carried out with composure.
Especially striking is the line “Is this tea caffeine-free?” — it highlights how an overlooked detail in daily life can be a turning point for survival.
Even within the confines of a ward, life can change dramatically through a single moment of awareness.
This work refuses to depict the vulnerable as mere victims. Instead, it presents their will and choices head-on, which makes it truly valuable.
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Afterword
The two months I spent in the psychiatric hospital were nothing but continuous “acting.”
I pretended to obey the doctor, played the role of the model patient, and prepared my path to discharge.
Some may think that was “cheating.”
But when freedom is at stake, anyone would be forced to become an actor.
What angered me most was—
the fact that they kept serving caffeinated tea to a patient who couldn’t sleep.
If a single word could change someone’s future, I would speak without hesitation.
That was the one action in the ward that I could truly be proud of.
