#/ psychiatric abuse

[sudokufriend]

yeah the joke is funny but it’s actually really sad that people who are struggling can’t be candid about experiencing suicidality without threat of incarceration. and that the role ‘mental health’ professionals play in enforcing state policy is so normalised that everyone in these comments finds it funny. what kind of fucked up system insists that those deemed mentally ill must be subjected to therapy and then can’t even allow those trying to glean whatever small benefits are possible, to be genuine and talk about their real feelings?

also what’s particularly horrible is the self confessed therapist saying that ‘y’all ain’t slick’ as if incarcerating people and subjecting them to state violence is funny. fucking man…

[sickness-stricken]

I know I clown on Taylor Swift for using a “psych ward aesthetic” but if I’m being honest I feel like it’s a broader issue among writers trying to talk about psych abuse. Even if it’s not actively trying to be romanticized, it bothers me that every book I read where abuse in the ward is a prominent theme, it’s always the same idea: takes place before the 60s, shock therapy, the character strapped to the bed with leather belts in a straight jacket, etc.

It unintentionally frames psych abuse as this thing of the past and I don’t fuck with it. Like… you know this kinda stuff is happening now, right? Sure, I was never subjected to shock therapy, but I was restrained and I did have meds forced on me. But I guess that mental image doesn’t invoke quite the same kick.

[hyperlexichypatia]

I'm not, generally speaking, a fan of punishment as a solution to social problems. Punishment is often overly harsh, ineffective as a deterrent, and doesn't solve the actual problem. The punitive mentality is more focused on making sure the "bad guys" "don't get away with it" than on actually solving the problem.

But I get a lot more worried when people talk about "alternatives to punishment", or when they support their proposed solutions because "it's not punishment."

Because what that means, in practice, is "I'm conceptualizing this form of coercive control as 'not punishment,' and therefore not subjecting it to the rigor, due process, or evidentiary standards of punishment."

The U.S. loves punishment. It's one of our favorite national pastimes. But we do have, both legally and culturally, some limitations on punishment, at least in theory. Punishment isn't supposed to be "cruel and unusual." It's not supposed to be inflicted without "due process of law." You're supposed to be convicted by a jury of your peers.

But if you call it "not punishment," none of that matters!

You can force people to register under a law that didn't exist when they committed their crimes, because it's "administrative," not punitive.

You can subject disabled people to shocks similar to a cattle prod -- which would surely be cruel and unusual punishment -- but it's okay, because it's not "punishment," it's a "treatment" called an "aversive" (that's therapist for "punishment").

You can have people locked up and forcibly drugged solely because they can't afford housing, but it's okay, because it's "help," not "punishment."

Police can kill people in cold blood -- judge, jury, and executioner -- and it's fine, because it's "self-defense," not "punishment," even if they argue after the fact that the victim "deserved it."

It's also a matter of cultural attitudes. If you said "The punishment for trespassing should be life in prison," or "The punishment for loitering should be permanent loss of the right to control one's body, money, or living space," or "The punishment for turnstile-jumping should be lifelong forced ingestion of drugs that numb basic cognitive functions," most people would think this was horrific, much too harsh a punishment for a relatively minor crime.

But if you change it to "Instead of jailing and punishing unhoused people with mental health issues, we should respond to their minor crimes by Getting Them Help, like institutionalization, conservatorship, or outpatient commitment," people now think this is completely reasonable.

Even being the victim of a crime can get someone not-punished far more severely than the perpetrators are "punished." People might serve jail time for financial fraud, but not usually a life sentence. Being the victim of financial fraud, however, can lead to a life sentence of institutionalization -- which fraud investigators have cited as a barrier to getting victims to report fraud. I personally know of multiple disabled young adults who were afraid to report being the victim of sexual assault or other kinds of assault because they knew that if they reported it, the perpetrator might or might not face some kind of punishment, but they would definitely face some type of "not-punishment" coercive control, like forced therapy, forced drugging, supervision, or having to leave school.

You want a society with less punishment? Me too. But only if you acknowledge that "punishment" includes all forms of coercive control. If you do something to someone against their will, if you restrict someone from their right to live as they choose, that's a punishment, regardless of whether you call it that.

[magicpiano]

Dark AU, Arkham patient! Jazz Fenton.

Sadly, Jazz Fenton is convinced that her brother Danny is still alive, that Phantom didn't kill him, that ghosts are actually sentient and not necessarily evil. Clearly she was brainwashed by Phantom who was pretending to be her brother.

The GIW graciously don't charge her with the crime of violating the anti-ecto act by protecting ghosts as a kindness to her parents who have done so much good work. She is sent to a mental hospital outside of Amity Park because they think she will recover better away from ghosts.

Well Arkham doesn't know what is about to hit it and Jazz is going to do whatever it takes to escape and save her brother.

[crimeronan]

the last time i went to therapy they told me there was nothing wrong with me and that the clinic was for people with real problems.

this sounds like a joke about how i'm in denial about my mental illness but it's an actual legit thing that happened.

the reason it happened is not very fun or funny or punchline-like though. what happened was that i walked in and started the intake paperwork and one of the papers was a court document telling me to sign away my right to refuse ECT and force-fed antipsychotics. this document was included with no explanation in a stack of other more standard consent forms. i was at a low income medicaid clinic that serves a lot of homeless people who don't have legal counsel warning them what they're signing.

after several panicked texts to my partners, i overcame the fawn response just enough to ask the receptionist, "hey, is it okay if i look this over before i sign it?" and they replied, "oh, yeah, that one needs a legal witness anyway."

but it was included with no explanation in the consent forms. a document telling me to sign my name stating i'm incompetent and can be held down and subjected to 1950s horror torture if the doctor feels like i should be.

so i went into my appointment and i answered all the questions as brightly and neurotypically and sweetly as i could, and they told me i was incredibly self-aware and well-adjusted and that there was nothing they could do for me, and then i went home having been dishonest with my therapist.... but ALSO still having the right not to be Fucking Lobotomized For No Reason.

now don't get me wrong: i'm gonna guess the Vast Majority of therapist's offices do not do this. i'll even guess that this was flagrantly illegal, although i'm not super familiar with my state's specific patient rights protocols.

but it is Very Important to know that when you say "go to therapy, therapy is beneficial, and tell your therapist everything, because lying is counterproductive"

....some of the people you say that to. are going to walk into clinics like this.

so like.

please.

for my sake.

please understand.

Lying To Therapists... And Not Going To Therapy... Is Good, Sometimes ,

[unstablemotions]

Save my Cousin with Very Severe ME from Forced Psychiatric Hospitalisation 💜

Only your signature needed! Click here for the petition

My cousin Line, known online as @nebulow (her instagram is more active), is suffering from very severe Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME), a multisystemic neuroimmune disease, which is incredibly misunderstood in our country Denmark, where psychiatrists have decided that my cousin is not suffering from a somatic illness, but is instead psychotic and that all her symptoms of very severe ME are delusions. They don't listen to her, when she tells them she's not interested in their psychiatric treatment and they are now threatening with forceful psychiatric treatment, which might worsen her ME if not cost her life.

The petition has more information on my cousin's case and about ME in general if you wanna read more.

Please sign this petition made on behalf of my cousin! You don't have to make your name public, all you have to do is confirm your signature through an email. Reblogs are appreciated to 💜

[shitcomscriptwriter]

Psych clinicians will bend over backwards to disagree with you.

In 2021, I went to the hospital for trauma and psychotic symptoms. I held strange beliefs, hallucinated terrifying things (like my own death, for one), and was generally off base and out of touch with reality. However, I’d have on and off awareness that these frightening things were not real.

Upon reading my records, I see that they wrote “there is nothing in patients presentation to suggest psychosis”, citing my organized thought process around my bizarre beliefs, and basically went on to state that I was playing pretend to escape the demands of daily life. Mind you, this “fantasy narrative” I was escaping to was violent, mind breaking, and horrific.

Psychiatry is largely an ego trip for immature clinicians, and they will do anything to prove that you are wrong and they are right.

[somebodytolove31]

I have never been to a psychiatric ward or a mental hospital in general (outside of therapy sessions) but it bugs the hell out of me that like 9 out of 10 of the people I know who went to one come out with more trauma and problems, like idk about you but if I went to a place where I was meant to get better from my mental issues and I came out with more of them I would sue. Why is this allowed

[sudokufriend]

less about ideas that would kill a victorian child and more about ideas that would kill a tiktok user. i’ll start. antipsychiatry.

[sickness-stricken]

This is how it feels to be psych critical in 2025 except your inbox gets flooded with “well just because the mask didn’t help you doesn’t mean it won’t help anyone, you want people who are helped by the mask to DIE?????”

[rose-chateau]

Medical assault and battery is so fucking normalized, and that includes psychiatric care.

"I just felt like my consent was violated." Girl you told them no and they did it anyway. If they weren't a doctor, your body would be a crime scene.

[crazycatsiren]

How animal control handles frightened/distressed animals reminds me of how psychiatric wards deal with just about anything, to be honest.

[only-knives]

not that people who've been to the ward are immune from being pro-psych, but if you've never been to a psych ward*, i sincerely don't want to hear about how psychiatry/psychology is good because you've had such a good experience with X provider, or X medication saved your life. *i also don't want to hear about how the forced treatment was what you needed or how the ward you went to let you have your cellphone etc. etc. i genuinely do not want to hear it.

like. the first hospitalization traumatized me so bad, i became dangerously delusional, was re-hospitalized, and sent to state. when they transferred me, i was strapped down into a gurney at all points on my body, *head and neck included*, and loaded onto an ambulance. my parents lost most of their parental rights; i was a ward of the state and had near zero rights. when i got there, they made me choose if, "if necessary," if i wanted to be wrangled down and forcibly injected with a sedative... or wrangled down and locked in a padded room all by myself (but at least i had a choice, right?). i signed consents and paperwork that i did not fucking understand. then i was told i'd be locked inside for 2 straight weeks (which yes, they followed through with). the psych ward was remote, nothing but barbed fences and trees around us. cant even see the sun through the heavily tinted windows. that was the *start* of the stay. i'm sure you can imagine nothing good came after.

so like. if you walk out of a place like that thinking it was good for you, then i can only imagine how traumatized you are and i hope you heal someday. but if you've never faced the destruction of your autonomy like that and go around being like "oh this is good actually" then shut the ever living fuck up.

[crimeronan]

I know Sol's childhood and developmental years were like. CSA trafficking war front hellscape. And Devin's was background, unwell orphan to violently depressed god-child torture. And I even know that Ruby grew up in Oichan... but how did she get from that to "social worker who forges identities and rescues forcible sex workers at the cost of her own well-being"?

:O you are so nice for letting me infodump more.

so!

ruby and sol are about the same age and fled the same famine at about the same time. ruby was with her parents, sol was alone. tachni was one of a handful of places that seemed "welcoming" to oichen refugees, and it's also the center of global commerce, so. living there is a good opportunity!

actually getting INTO tachni is a Fucking Nightmare. both ruby and sol legally immigrated through contingency citizenships. a contingency citizenship essentially just means you sell yourself to the light temples & can't be contracted anywhere else (unless someone friendly with said light temples pays an EXORBITANT amount of money). and you can't ever leave. and you can't ever quit.

the consequences for leaving or quitting are. horrifying.

so like. call it indentured servitude or call it slavery. either way it's Not Great.

sol got in because she caught cozia's predatory eye. ruby got in because she was fluent in the language already and tested well enough to be a Gifted Student. so she was brought in as a general student -> nursing student -> proper nurse.

the problem is that the state of healthcare rights in tachni is Also Fucking Horrifying. in addition to invalid proceedings, you have straight-up slave marriages with spouses whose wives or husbands fully control their medical care; you have a world without HIPAA; you have a world where nonconformity and rebellious behavior are pathologized; you have a world where permanent asylum incarceration for developmental disabilities n chronic mental illness is the norm.

you have a world where doctors are cops to a MUCH greater extent than they are in the US. including working With The Actual Cops on subduing n "treating" patients.

ruby couldn't do it.

and ruby was obligated to do it for the Rest Of Her Life.

so. she looked for ways out Other than killing herself. and when she couldn't find any legal way to escape her circumstances, she started quietly learning to rebel from Inside those circumstances instead.

in very young adulthood, sol's husband robert purchased sol's contract because of his many political n social ties to the light temples. he later "borrowed" ruby the exact same way, because sol was physically sick and clearly mentally ill. and he wanted a live-in nurse for his wife who could be a friend from her culture, who spoke her language and cheered her up, and who would also report back to him. cop style.

ruby's refusal to betray sol's confidence was one of the most dangerous things she ever did.

[clusterlgbt]

you can’t be anti-prison and pro-forced institutionalization

you can’t be anti-institutionalization and pro-prison

Prison abolition and anti-institutionalization go hand in hand! If you consider yourself a prison abolitionist but still think disabled (mentally or physically) people deserve to be forcibly admitted, you’re not really a prison abolitionist.

Likewise, if you’re anti-institutionalization but support prisons, you’re not really anti-institutionalization

no one should ever be incarcerated. Including those who are “a danger to themself or to others.”

[hyperlexichypatia]

The DSM can and will be replaced by something with a better design.

I know.

They will come up with a new, "improved," reworded classification system for which people should be categorically disbelieved about their own subjectivity and which people should be subjected to coercive control "for their own good." And people will say it's "better" and "more scientific," and people will still be categorically disbelieved about their own subjectivity and subjected to coercive control.

And there will probably be several more rounds of rewording and reworking and Really For Real It's Better This Time, trying to narrow down and perfect exactly how people should be categorically disbelieved about their own subjectivity, and exactly which people should be subjected to coercive control "for their own good."

Until we eventually overthrow the entire system and abolish the entire premise.