August 28, 2021 SATURDAY 4:40pm
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to go for help. Flashbacks of being forced and held down by three grown men, being handcuffed to a stretcher. Remembering how it felt like they were going to break my knee cap. I had taken myself to hospital for help this December and then I tried to run out the hospital door into the parking lot, so security jumped me, left me struggling, restrained to a stretcher, then drugged me and left me in isolation for 48 hours because they said I could have been hit by a car. They also forced me to change my clothes on video camera while in isolation, as well as use the washroom on camera, all because I had brought myself to hospital, I needed help, then after some time I tried to run into the parking lot. To stop me from hurting myself, they hurt me. To stop me from hurting myself, they violated me. It feels worse than rape (and I would know because I’ve been raped). At least you know the rapist wants to rape you, the system thinks they’re helping me with these kinds of actions and then they ignore me and refuse to change when I tell them the truth of how these treatments make me feel. I am more suicidal than ever but ONLY when I remember the ways I’ve been treated and how I am currently being treated by the mental health medical system. I’m traumatized and I can’t get away from the abuse as they won’t let me have rights because I’m a psych patient.
PHOTOS OF BRUISES CAUSED BY SECURITY GUARDS:
I feel my brain chemistry has been falsely accused. I was abusing marijuana edibles for over a year, which obviously fed the psychosis. That’s for me to acknowledge and own. Edibles take me over the moon. It was like being on acid every day. I was high all three times I entered hospital this past winter. I was also extremely sick from detox. My body was toxic. I chose detox as I had willingly taken every med I’d been prescribed for 19 years. The side effects of the medications have made me very ill. Every antipsychotic I’ve ever been on has crippled me over time, that’s why I’ve been on so many. When I got off the antipsychotic causing the Parkinsonism, I could lie still and feel calm long enough to watch full length movies. I hadn’t been able to do that in years, I couldn’t even watch sitcoms comfortably, as just like my current injection, all antipsychotics make me uncomfortable in my skin. It’s agonizing. It feels like torture, especially because it's forced. I get no choice.
Detox was no laughing matter. I made video documentation of how sick I was in toxicity and delusions. The videos are extremely disturbing to view. Within them I’m spitting up and foaming at the mouth. Detox was dangerous and it made all my symptoms worse. Ingesting large amounts of marijuana edibles on a daily basis didn’t help. I don’t feel it’s fair to blame my natural brain chemistry though for what happened this December when so many other factors were at play. Detox makes everything worse at first. I believe my symptoms would have levelled out had I completed the detox and come off marijunana. I want to know where my brain chemistry is at without marijuana, nicotine or pharma in my system. The only other drugs I take are melatonin, valerian root and Diphenhydramine Hydrocloride capsules for sleep.
I don’t agree that I was a danger to myself for visiting the homeless. My psychiatrist claims I put myself at risk of being raped and had me picked up by the police for it. But I used to be homeless. I grew up being homeless in Victoria. I still have friends that are homeless and I still have friends who struggle with using hard drugs. I am very comfortable around those types of people. I also have very good street sense.
I went to visit the homeless twice around November/December 2020 as I wanted to see how they were fairing during covid. I set up my sketching stool and sat out front Our Place (the homeless shelter in downtown Victoria) at 10:00pm at night and chatted with a young homeless man. I let him look at my sketchbook. He sat on the ground, bundled up. He really loved my sketchbook and stopped and read this piece aloud:
Afterwards he stood up and asked me if he could shake my hand. Despite it being covid, I said yes. I said yes because in that moment that young man wanted to connect with me in a very meaningful way. I shook his hand, gave him an Amy Frank Artist bookmark, packed up my sketching stool and left. The following night I returned but only to donate a coat and sweater that I no longer needed. I didn’t stay long the second night, I handed the items to security and then left.
In my teens and early 20s I hung out with panhandlers and the homeless a lot. I used to hangout at the needle exchange at 3:00am and one night I met a prostitute who was beaten and bloody from needles and abuse. She asked me if I could braid her hair and so I french braided it for her. Afterwards I helped her do her makeup as she just wanted to feel beautiful.
This is who I am. I don’t judge the homeless. I’m not afraid of the homeless. I identify with the mentally ill and the homeless. I see them as my people.
I don’t understand why I deserved to be treated with violence and why I’m still being treated with coercion just because I’m mentally ill. I wasn’t a threat to others, my psychiatrist acknowledges that, yet because I was supposedly a threat to myself and put myself at risk for being raped, I was forced into hospital. When I didn’t want the meds and let me be very clear here — I told the nurse the dose was too high, that I’d been in detox and that the dose the pharmacy had on file would hurt me. All she heard was “I won’t take the meds” so she called security and they grabbed me, forced me into isolation, pulling down my pants and injecting me in my buttocks with a tranquilizer. This is the way the hospital teaches you to take the meds. I wasn’t being violent, I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone or myself.
So to me it feels like my psychiatrist has made up that I was a danger to myself because I might get raped when visiting the homeless, then I get forced into hospital where I’m met with violence that feels worse than rape just because I have a mental illness and because I believe I should have human rights. The treatment I’ve received is exasperating my illness. Every doctor (who isn’t a psychiatrist) and person I speak to hears my story. Everyone I speak to can understand why I feel the way I do, but when I voiced it to my psychiatrist, he told me I was sick and that my anger at the medical system is from my illness.
This has got to stop because I can’t keep living this way. The side effects of the forced injected antipsychotic are unbearable. Psychotic does not equal dangerous. I’ve been in psychosis since 2019 (while on meds). I did make bad decisions in the area of love because of the psychosis and I hope the two people I hurt know that I didn’t mean to hurt them. At the time I cared about each of them very much. I am grateful to both of them for being direct with me. Them both telling me the truth has been the most helpful in overcoming the telepathic delusion.
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to go. I don’t know where to find help. I feel like I’m being raped and I’m screaming rape everywhere I go and then every month I have to sit in my psychiatry appointment and not show too much emotion because if I do I’m labelled unstable even though the angry emotions are a direct and natural reaction to how I’ve been treated.
If anyone has leads on a more compassionate psychiatrist please pass on my name and story.
I don’t deserve to be violated and abused just because I’m sick with mental illness. I am grateful for the PES: A Pathetic Excuse for Support group on Facebook. Psychiatry has a history of abusing it’s patients. It’s so devastating to me how the system is set up as my psychiatrist is a very nice person. He just doesn’t believe I deserve human rights as a psych patient. I’m not going to stop advocating for my rights though or for the overall better treatment of psych patients. This abuse has gone on since psychiatry was invented. Sick people need compassion and more help than drugs alone can provide. Drugs are not enough to save the mentally ill. Diet and lifestyle have to be changed for true health to take place. People also need therapy and coping skills. If a patient wants holistic and alternative treatment for their illness, they should be allowed to pursue that. I have great hope that justice will be served one day and that psych patients will no longer be discriminated against nor abused just because we’re mentally ill.