forced psychiatric treatment

[blue200]

I was hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital against my will some years ago and found that the only way to get out of the hospital was to cooperate with my "jailers" and go to these insipid group meetings where I had to share things about my life.

I feel that this treatment was a grave invasion of my privacy and rights as a human being. I also met other people who were being "tortured" because they had mental troubles. I found out that the psychiatrists in these places have absolute powers over the patients. Is this right?

What do you think?

(as a postscript I would like to share that many of these psychiatric hospitals have now been closed)

[1Dove]

I don't know how it is in your state, but in my state(California) they will not keep a patient against his will.

We had a very hard time getting help for my brother who was a danger to himself and others at the time. At the mental hospital where we took him, they kept asking him if he wanted to be released. We had to convince him that he needed the help. He was so completely out of it and disoriented that he didn't even know he needed help. Once we got him to tell them he wanted to stay in the mental hospital, they kept asking him if he wanted to be released. When we weren't there, he told them that he wanted to be released, and they were about to put him out on the street without even contacting his relatives to come get him. He would have wandered off, and we might never have found him. He could have walked onto a highway and gotten killed. That's how disoriented he was. Fortunately, we arrived for a visit just as they were about to let him go.

So, I have to say, that there are times when I believe a person should be institutionalized against their will. And, by the way, my brother was suffering from bi-polar disorder. He has had three episodes in his life, but recovered well from each one of them. He works and lives on his own and is doing just fine now. But, who knows where he would be today if he had been released onto the streets without receiving the help he needed, but didn't know he needed.



[This message has been edited by 1Dove (edited 12-28-2002).]

[friend]

The psychiatric field is the only one that has no checks and balances to it, no where to complain or get justice done. It is pretty darn scarey!

I believe there are times to keep a patient locked up, if it has been ASSESSED that they are a true danger to their own life. If they endanger someone else's life, that is a criminal matter, not a mental one.

But people should not be locked up just because the family doesn't know how to deal with them or doesn't want to, or they have been labeled as mental, and all to often that is the case. Many times they are forced to take drugs and/or endure shock treatments simply because someone can't cope with them.

I say leave them alone. Keep them safe if need be, and let them be! Most mental patients have never been treated with any kind of dignity or human respect or really listened to. Their treatment should not be according to what is comfortable to others, but according to what they want for themselves. And they should have a complete physical assessment to rule out all possible physical imbalances, diseases, etc, that may cause the mental effects.


[This message has been edited by friend (edited 12-28-2002).]

[1Dove]

Please see posting below.



[This message has been edited by 1Dove (edited 12-28-2002).]

[1Dove]

Friend,
Well, of course the family doesn't know how to deal with a mentally ill person who is out of control. They are not trained or qualified to help their loved one in the way that only trained professionals can. Often times medication is needed that can only be dispensed by a doctor, and that medication can be a lifesaver. As far as shock treatment goes, I don't think they use that anymore. I could be wrong, but as far as I know that is a thing of the past.

My brother is glad that he got the help he needed, and he is thankful to his family for stepping in and getting him the help he needed at a time when he couldn't think for himself. His life is normal now, and he doesn't take medication anymore. But at the time he sure needed it.

If they had let him out of the hospital without his family there to receive him, he would probably still be mentally ill today and roaming the streets, that is if he were still alive.



[This message has been edited by 1Dove (edited 12-28-2002).]