Against My Will

I have never shied away from writing about my life with bipolar disorder. I firmly believe mental health is something that should be talked about, not hidden away like some dirty little secret. That is how we remove the stigma of mental health disorders.

The following incident happened in July of 2019, and I am just now ready to talk about, or should I say, write about. It traumatized me to that extent. I wrote the majority of this piece shortly after it happened, so the details were fresh.

It started when I was about a week into a manic episode. This particular day, the bottom fell out. I was sobbing uncontrollably for most of the day. I was sleep-deprived, my anxiety was to the level of paranoia, and I was having panic attacks throughout all of this. I was simply unable to function.

In an effort to break the mania, I was instructed to go to the hospital. My psyche practitioner called ahead to speak with the hospital's on-call psyche doctor. We were trying to avoid hospital admission, and a care plan was in place. I was supposed to receive a sedative and some other meds to calm me down and allow me to sleep. In hindsight, I probably needed to be hospitalized. Just not the way it happened.

Upon my arrival at the emergency room, I didn't wait very long in the waiting room, and they got me into a bed relatively quickly. It was a smaller exam room with a bed and a chair. My husband was with me, and not long after being there, I was given an anxiety medication. This calmed me down a bit, but not all the way.

The on-call psychiatric practitioner came into my room to discuss what was happening. She wasn't interested in hearing what I had to say. She spoke over me, and when my husband stated that we have a care plan, she stated it doesn't matter here. It was very obvious that the only course of action she wanted to take was to admit me. I asked why we couldn't just try the sedative and anti-anxiety medicine. She had no answer. She said she had enough to involuntarily admit me for fifteen days, or I could voluntarily admit myself and could get out in a week. At this point, I was talking in a raised voice, and since it seemed obvious I was getting admitted, my husband went home. He had to work the next day.

When the nurse entered the room, she had paperwork I had to sign to admit myself. I filled it out, and for the reason section, I wrote that the doctor stated if I didn't admit myself, she would for fifteen days. The nurse took the paperwork away, they gave me another dose of Ativan, and I started to doze off.

After some time, the attending physician came into the room yelling at me. I had dozed, so I was a little bit in a fog. He slammed the paper on the bedside table and said I made things worse with my comment and that they were involuntarily admitting me. Again, I was talking with a raised voice and stood up to pace. It's just something I do when I am nervous. The next thing I knew, the nurse called for security, stating that I was being unruly.

At this point, I was seethingly angry and became a little unruly. Nothing physical, just yelling. When the first two security guards came into the room, they backed me into the corner of the room while the nurse and physician were still commenting about how this was my fault and that I should have just complied. I stood up. The security guards were in front of me, and I clenched my fists. Out of anger, I was not resisting anything, but at this point, I was yelling. The security guards called for backup; before I knew it, five security guards were in this little room. I spoke to my husband on the phone, and he calmed me down and said to just cooperate with them, and he would deal with it the following morning. He said I would not be admitted involuntarily after he got done with the psyche practitioner overseeing the psychiatric ward. I sat back on my bed and said I was not going anywhere until I had more anxiety meds. They gave me a sedative. The dose they gave me had me feeling weak and loopy.

The physician and the nurse left the room, but the security guards were still in my doorway. The nurse came back in with a wheelchair and said there was a bed ready in the psychiatric ward. We went there with no issues.

It was in the psychiatric ward where I was most traumatized. With all five security guards present, they brought me to an exam room and left the door open. One security guard came into the room with us; the rest were in the open doorway. The nurse asked me to remove my clothing. I said I would comply if the security guard left and we could shut the door. She said that was not possible because of what happened in the emergency room. So, in front of a nurse, five guards, and an open door, I removed my clothes to be strip searched. To add insult to injury, two security guards were talking and laughing, and the nurse forgot to grab me a gown. So there I was, naked, in front of the guards with the door open, waiting while my nurse went to grab a gown. I got my gown on, and I was out when I hit the bed. I didn't even have time to process all that had happened before I was sleeping.

The next morning, I was still in a fog from the medication they gave me. I spoke to my husband and told him everything that had gone down the night before. He said let me make some phone calls. One of the nurses came in about half an hour later to give me my morning meds. The nurses were acting very differently towards me; I was marked as combative or something like that.

Mid-morning, the head doctor came into my room to talk to me. He asked me point blank if I needed to be there. I said no. He stated he had spoken to my husband, and my husband felt the same way. I told the doctor about the strip search and the use of security guards. He apologized profusely. My husband found out in his phone call with the doctor that the practitioner from the night before had seen four people, and all four were admitted involuntarily. My husband threatened to call the New York State Office of Mental Health. There would be no need; the doctor had decided I was to be released. (I contacted the Office of Mental Health once the dust settled and filed a report.) From what we gathered after, that practitioner had lost their hospital rights to the hospital I was admitted to.

The whole experience left me feeling humiliated, angry, and very hesitant to go to the hospital again should the need arise.

I had nightmares about the security guards for a couple of weeks after. Every time I had to take my clothes off to shower or go to bed, I felt humiliated all over again. Probably most importantly, my trust in mental health practitioners was destroyed.

This is just one incident of many such instances in the mental healthcare system. Patients in crisis are often not listened to, leading to unnecessary hospitalizations. We are treated as a threat to others and ourselves as the default.

I wrote this piece to shed some light on certain practices and to let people with mental health issues who have experienced traumas during hospitalizations know that they are not alone. I talk about and write about my experiences with bipolar disorder for those of us out there who cannot.

You are not alone.

Thank you for reading my piece. If you would like to read more of my writings about mental illness, there are a couple listed below. I appreciate all reads, hearts, comments and tips.