Oh, I just realised (English not being my first language), I meant “just” a psychiatric clinic, not a criminal psych ward, I guess that’s the confusion part showing on my end, lol.
Thankfully, no manic phases for me, but I met several people over the course of my life that had them (one woman I had a short relationship with used to tell me about the stuff she ended up doing during manic phases in her past, oh boy, it can get both scary and funny, but always interesting). I can fully believe and understand that he would have been genuinely sorry in that moment and appreciative and glad to have heard that from you. Another patient only hearing half of it makes it quite funny, I wonder what he thought in his head about the context with seeing the other guy go “oh thank god”.
Ha, if that ain’t the truth with me - and people claim you can’t diagonse people over the internet from just their comments. Although I guess if I were to use the outdated terms, I’d definitely have both mommy and daddy issues in that case.