I was Baker acted in the past few months. I already had a traumatising experience of staying in the ward when I was a child. At that time, I was so mentally disturbed, I nearly bit one of the nurse's fingers off in self-defense since I didn't understand why I was being so roughly handled, stripped of my clothing, belongings, and freedom. As a kid, I had no clue if or when I'd be able to go back to school to see my friends; at that time, I was Baker acted because I was crying for hours about not being able to go on a planned field trip at school due to a doctor's appointment. I didn't even throw a tantrum, but it genuinely did depress me and I was indeed crying, loudly, for hours on end. This was all it took to commit me. But the same mother who did this also called the cops on me, as an 11 year old, for tossing an unopened Lunchables package across the couch to my little brother. No, I promise you I am not leaving out any context. She thought I threw the food at him and was an active harm.
Fast forward to today, I had the joy of being able to visit the same facility 12 years later as an adult since I told paramedics that I'm just as good as dead if I'm going to be paying for ambulance rides every few months due to repeated unexplained seizures that happen in public.
I remain just as confused as I was when I was a kid.
Treating people in need as criminals; mentally incapable of making choices on their own -- how is this making anything better? And based off of my second experience, I can't help but reference memories of Coach Kamoshida from the video-game Persona 5, known for a hyper-inflated ego stemming from his authoritative power of his students. All of the staff at my location similarly had their own ego, as if their only source of pleasure came from denying the autonomy of patients, making them have no choice but to follow their orders or risk a longer stay while being labelled as mentally vulnerable.
At no point was I offered any kind of therapy. I never slept during the 48 hours I stayed either, so I laid on a bed for the entire time straight, only getting up when we were served rations for food.
No, I'm not expecting a spa day at a psych ward, but is there any specific reason why it has to parallel a sleepover in jail?
As an aside, when I arrived to the ward, I had my SN in my bookbag in its original packaging and a clear label of what it was. Along with my other belongings in my bookbag, my SN was very much inventoried and documented in my intake notes when they took me in. When they asked me what it was, I mentioned that it was "sodium" that I got from the store I arrived from, and that I use it to make my own jerky. They seemed to have fully accepted that explanation.
Obviously, now I am no longer in their custody, and the SN was returned to me in its original state and quantity when I left the ward.
I did lie to them about what the SN is for. But I am disappointed that, if I voluntarily committed myself in order to get better, I would have been significantly worse off. A child shouldn't have lasting trauma of being roughhoused in a mental facility in the first place, sleeping on a featureless mattress while being denied all privacy and treated as if they lacked any form of intelligence. I can understand why certain concessions need to be made for the sake of the patient's safety, but there is no balance of safety and productivity. I was told directly by the sheriff who drove me to the ward, that involuntary hold exists as an accountability buffer, preventing the patient from accessing methods to self-harm for a specified period of time so that law enforcement cannot be liable for suicides that occur in proximity to well-being 911 calls.
None of this is fundamentally intended to help your well-being in the slightest. In retrospect, it makes me angry, and has been something I haven't been able to stop thinking about. I already knew people generally lack the capacity to care about people who are mentally unwell, but having actual evidence and admissions from law enforcement makes me hopeless.
Fast forward to today, I had the joy of being able to visit the same facility 12 years later as an adult since I told paramedics that I'm just as good as dead if I'm going to be paying for ambulance rides every few months due to repeated unexplained seizures that happen in public.
I remain just as confused as I was when I was a kid.
Treating people in need as criminals; mentally incapable of making choices on their own -- how is this making anything better? And based off of my second experience, I can't help but reference memories of Coach Kamoshida from the video-game Persona 5, known for a hyper-inflated ego stemming from his authoritative power of his students. All of the staff at my location similarly had their own ego, as if their only source of pleasure came from denying the autonomy of patients, making them have no choice but to follow their orders or risk a longer stay while being labelled as mentally vulnerable.
At no point was I offered any kind of therapy. I never slept during the 48 hours I stayed either, so I laid on a bed for the entire time straight, only getting up when we were served rations for food.
No, I'm not expecting a spa day at a psych ward, but is there any specific reason why it has to parallel a sleepover in jail?
As an aside, when I arrived to the ward, I had my SN in my bookbag in its original packaging and a clear label of what it was. Along with my other belongings in my bookbag, my SN was very much inventoried and documented in my intake notes when they took me in. When they asked me what it was, I mentioned that it was "sodium" that I got from the store I arrived from, and that I use it to make my own jerky. They seemed to have fully accepted that explanation.
Obviously, now I am no longer in their custody, and the SN was returned to me in its original state and quantity when I left the ward.
I did lie to them about what the SN is for. But I am disappointed that, if I voluntarily committed myself in order to get better, I would have been significantly worse off. A child shouldn't have lasting trauma of being roughhoused in a mental facility in the first place, sleeping on a featureless mattress while being denied all privacy and treated as if they lacked any form of intelligence. I can understand why certain concessions need to be made for the sake of the patient's safety, but there is no balance of safety and productivity. I was told directly by the sheriff who drove me to the ward, that involuntary hold exists as an accountability buffer, preventing the patient from accessing methods to self-harm for a specified period of time so that law enforcement cannot be liable for suicides that occur in proximity to well-being 911 calls.
None of this is fundamentally intended to help your well-being in the slightest. In retrospect, it makes me angry, and has been something I haven't been able to stop thinking about. I already knew people generally lack the capacity to care about people who are mentally unwell, but having actual evidence and admissions from law enforcement makes me hopeless.
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