I have more than many experiences with mental health experiences, so my answer to this will be VERY huge... But here it goes, to whoever wants to read it.
First of all, it is important to mention I did all kinds of therapies and been in all kinds of medical facilities. I was put on therapy from when I was 4 years old, an order from the court, due to the violent nature of my mother's and father's divorce back then. Since I was just a kid, while they were going through the court process of divorce, therapy was mandatory for me, trying to prevent me from going mentally broken. (That didn't work apparently, and here I am lol)
I have a lot of memories starting when I was 4 years, it is not that much unusual, but still is that I do, but mostly because of how my reality impacted me from a very young age, I assume.
Back then I was followed by a therapist assigned by the court, so someone who works as a clinical psychologist and social worker. I can't say much about it, therapy when you are that young usually means they are making you draw things they ask, or asking indirect questions to you about what they think might be affecting you at the moment (in my case, questions about my parents, to see if I was afraid of any one of them, or if I was suffering with their divorce). I cannot say I had a good or bad experience with that one, she was very caring, and she gave me a bunch of toys back then that I kept until my teens years, but there was nothing much going on, though I was already not particularly healthy back then, not that I would speak about it in such a tender age. Overall, I don't think I was ever mentally healthy, and I am probably like this since birth - at least I do not remember a moment in my life I wasn't how I am now.
Moving forward, I was put in therapy when I was 12 years again, this one was a professional that worked in my school. A teacher of mine had been observing me for a long time during the school year back then, and since they always saw I had antisocial behavior, not talking with other students, playing with them, and I mostly seemed shut down inside my own head, she had her concerns about me and, without saying a word, she made it so I would be called and had no choice but to at least attend a first session. I don't blame her, neither felt betrayed - she was genuinely concerned that something was not ok with me and after I went to the first session, she spoke with me directly, told me it was her, and told me she spent many months thinking on how to address the situation without herself being too invasive to me, and she concluded the best way was to have a professional - who is required to maintain confidentiality - to listen to me instead of her asking me directly and that probably causing me to shut down or asking to change class for thinking she was unto me for some reason.
That therapy didn't last long because back then my mentality was simply "leave me alone, I do not trust humans at all, not one of them". I was already learning psychology back then, because it has always been something I took interest in from a tender age, so I was learning and reading books on my own free time - so I recognized the techniques that professional was using, and it was very easy to lie and pretend everything was alright, when it wasn't. Again, I cannot complain, they were just trying to figure out if something was wrong, and if I actually needed help with anything at all.
Then, this is where it starts getting heavier, darker, and probably more extreme.
I left my home when I was 15 years old after a plan was set in move to report my mother to the authorities (physical and mental abuse from my mother, to put it short and simple), and so I was taken in a children protection program and moved to a government's house for that purpose, to keep me safe from her, all the while attending court here and there for declaration purposes and for them to understand the full story of how everything started and what happened exactly. At that moment, once again, court requested that I was put into therapy and closely watched as, back then, my body had not only the marks left by my own mother beating the hell out of me, but also my own self-harm marks.
I was being followed by a psychoanalyst woman that also worked as a supervisor to the house I was put to live in. She was very nice, and she actually helped me quite a lot back then, to understand some things about myself, and to deal with a bunch of other things. If I am still alive, in a way, she is one of the reasons why, honestly. I did attempt to kill myself while I was there, and when we started the therapy sessions. The first bad experience started in the emergency room of that hospital when I was caught in my suicide attempt and carried there.
There was a team of several doctors waiting for me already, due to the nature of what led me there. When I arrived there, I immediately sensed the hostile posture of them towards me. They were pissed that I tried to commit suicide so young, and therefore thought of it as a valid reason to be angry at me! I tried to do it back then, by cutting vertically my forearm from the wrist down and my thigh, from the knee, down. They were grabbing my arm in an aggressive way, all the why yelling at my face "WHY DID YOU DO THIS HUH?! THINK IT'S FUNNY?! YOU THINK YOU HAVE PROBLEMS?! WAIT UNTIL YOU ARE AN ADULT TO SEE WHAT PROBLEMS ARE LIKE!". This sort of thing. I was unmovable really, they wanted to be idiots like that, I could also be an idiot. So I refused to answer everything they asked me and told them to fuck off and mind their own business. I was there for at least an hour being pressured to open myself up and actually speak of the why I did that. I never did answer them though - that is definitely not how you make a person talk, much less one that was taken from their mother after bring tortured in so many different ways, both physically and psychologically - that there, was only a reminder that there are more people like my mother out there. After treating me like shit, they let me go to address the wounds - yes I was there bleeding for more than an hour because they really wanted to get me talking first - not that I minded, more blood lost, more chances to die, but of course I knew they would not let me just die, so...
After that episode, I kept my therapy sessions with the psychoanalyst but was also forced to take some pills and go be followed by a pedopsychiatrist. I am going to sum the psychiatrist with only "Are you feeling better this week? No? Then let's increase your pills" - this went on until I was taking risperidone, trazodone, xanax, aripiprazole, valerian (natural medication), and at least two other pills which I cannot remember right now. Yes, all at the same time. I was ingesting a cocktail of basically more than 20 pills a day, distributed from morning to before sleep. Yes, I was a living zombie, which only made me feel worse, not better, but oh well.
Fast forward again to when I was 18. I chugged more than 200 of my trazodone pills I was medicated with at that time in hopes that would kill me. But my body rejected it, as I puked some of the pills and, while I managed to keep the rest inside, I suppose my SI kicked in, although it is all a fog nowadays in my head, but it seems I crawled all the way from the secluded place I was to not be found, to where I was living at the time, for the people I was living with to find me. I don't remember doing so consciously, but that is what they told me happened. I was taken in an ambulance, and then I was put in the psych ward, cause that was my second attempt, that they knew about, and my history of therapy and meds was huge already.
These things I remember perfectly, even though I was still heavily medicated. After waking up and being more conscious in there, I asked a nurse to go to the bathroom, I was not being able to hold my pee anymore. They ignored me. For hours. I kept calling them to no avail. So I ended up peeing myself for not being able to hold anymore. That was when they came, finally, because they saw the pee on the floor, down the chair I was sitting. They put me on diapers saying "since you act like a baby, you are going to be treated like one".
The next day, there was a doctor there when I woke up after the fact that went "So young and already causing so much trouble. You know what your problem is? Your mother didn't slap you when she should, or else you would not be doing these things to people." I snapped. Saying that to my face without knowing anything about me or about what went down with my family... I snapped and I attacked him, toon a chunk of his ear before they managed to grab me with security and other doctors and put me in a straight jacket.
No problem. I was used to be tied up anyway, courtesy of my mother, so I learnt as a kid to dislocate my shoulders in order to untie myself in any situation that requires it, so I just removed it from me, and watching that, they immediate grabbed me and, this time, they tied me up to the bed I was.
The guy was acting disgusting again later on, by asking me if I wanted to eat, and I of course, said yes, as I am still a living being who gets hungry. He put the board with a plate on top of my belly (I was laying, tied to each side of the bed, wrists and ankles), and so I asked him how I was supposed to eat like that (I had been slowly and carefully removing one of the ties from my left wrist in the past hours without them realizing, so at that moment I could free my left hand already if I wanted to, and could fastly free my other hand too). He told me "dogs don't require anything other than their tongues to eat, so you can eat like that too".
I obviously enjoyed that, right? :) I freed my left hand and told him: "Here is your two options: bring me a fork and a knife for me to eat properly, and do not even try to tie me up again, or next time I get up it won't be your ear, but your life, and trust me, I am heavily medicated already, you can bring a full army, I will find a way." I think he always pissed his pants. But he brought me the stuff while making me promise I would "behave". So I left him alone and ate.
I also saw a life support of an old guy beeping out, warning that his heart stopped (he was apparently in a bad condition, cause he was unconscious all the time I was there) and, after someone yelled "can someone check that please? His heart stopped!" , I heard a nurse saying "Whatever, just turn off the machine, he does not have family that will come anyway, besides he is old already, no point in saving him now." - this angered me because that person was not in a condition to state themselves if they wanted to die or live, they were put to sleep all the time they were there, I haven't once seen someone picking him up, waking him or talking with him, just saw nurses putting more and more sedatives on him as time went on, to keep him asleep. He died there, in front of everyone, and someone came picking his body after.
Finally after that, the psychiatrist came and took me to the appointment for assessment. He immediately went: "I saw your history, you are staying here until further notice". I just said "No, I am walking away right now as I am 18, and even if I wasn't, I am emancipated by the law since I was 16, and therefore treated as an adult by the law. The law states that, unless I am considered a danger to others, I cannot be forced into hospitalization. I am obviously not a danger to others, even if I am to myself, but that is my problem, not yours, and therefore, I am telling you I do not wish for treatment right now and I am walking away right now. This place is disgusting, and your co workers have no human touch to be working with mentally ill people. It's disgusting how I ended up hurting your co worker after what he said to me, and I am the one considered to be in the wrong. I am walking away, right now, and if you try to stop me, I am pressing charges and we both know how that will end for you, not for me, after what I witnessed while here".
Period. He let me go immediately. Here goes one last story.
I was 19 and had an immediate impulsive crysis. I did not want to do anything, I just wanted someone to help me calm down, so I went to the ER. While there, what I got for an answer was "I am sorry, psych emergency services are closed at the moment, but we can schedule an appointment for you on.... Well, 6 months from now." Yeah. Perfect. I need it NOW, not 6 months from now, otherwise I would not have come to the ER.
They sent me away, until I was just breaking down inside, which led me to cause quite a confusion, me yelling, breaking things apart, and looking them in the eye and saying "Is this what you require to assist me? To see me like this? I am telling you I need help, to not hurt another person, and to not hurt myself, but unless you see me going crazy like this, you won't help me? If this is what you need, this is what you get".
I was immediately sent to another hospital, had my appointment and even got appointments for throughout the full year and the next year scheduled already. Yeah, I needed to snap and look really crazy for them to finally find a solution - when there was none moments ago before I snapped. Wonderful.
I am leaving a lot of details out, but this is already such a huge post...
After this episode, I was assigned a wonderful team of psychologists and psychiatrists, they did indeed help me in so many different ways, and for the first time in my life, I was able to live without feeling constantly a heavy weight in my chest. I was able to enjoy life and be able to deal with problems efficiently. I still am nowadays, but... I don't feel like what that implies suits me, I don't feel like I want that, and hence I am here. I won't talk about the reasons why I did that, or why I want that, that does not belong to this thread. But whoever might be curious, I'm open to questions of any kind, of course.
