When people think about getting help and getting hospital treatment this should not instill fear in them. People should not have to come back from treatment with nightmares and PTSD as a result of treatment.

However so often patients in psychiatric units do not receive the same rights and respect as patients in other units on the hospital. Patients do not often have the choice to take medication, even if they are not an immediate threat to themselves or others.  Nurses control the medication the patients take and how much of it they take. If the patients do not want to take it orally it can be forced on them as an injection. This is especially the case in adolescent psych wards, where the patients have absolutely no control, primarily due to age. And while adult psychiatric patients are supposed to have the right to choose to take medication if they are competent and not threatening, often their rights are violated as well. This is because what is generally considered threatening for a psych patient is different than with a "normal" person. And, as I'll show in the story below, once someone is diagnosed with a mental illness their behaviors and beliefs are more easily reduced to a "symtom" that needs to be controlled before it gets out of hand. Furthermore, once a patient is considered to be a threat, forced medication is often used as the first "solution". The right to autonomy should be a fundamental right, even in the psychiatric ward and even in the adolescent ward for patients 16 or older. 

Forced medication or sedation should only be used in the most serious cases in which the patient is an active threat to themselves or others. Or in extreme cases where the patient is showing obvious signs of distress caused by symtoms (i.e screaming "help me" due to paranoia and hallucinations) and they are obviously not competent to to make the decision as to whether or not to take the medication and other methods of helping the patient have failed.  Unfortunately, forced medication is very commonly thought to be the first method of treatment. Often times this works to sedate the patient and make them tired, while bringing on a host of new problems caused by the side effects of the medications. Some of these side effects include, mood swings, suicidal thoughts, impulsivity, weight gain, nausea, vomiting, sleepiness, drowsiness, and more. What's worse is that often times patients will lie about their symtoms and/or side effects just to get out of the psychiatric ward sooner. This what I witnessed and this is what I did myself, in the adolescent psychiatric ward. And it's due to these terrible side effects, that I myself have experienced, that I advocate for the right of adolescent psychiatric patients who are generally old enough to make these decisions to have control over their bodies.  The side effects from medication are common, long lasting, and in most cases very severe as well. And forcing that on people, without immediate need, is inhumane. The hospital wants to get patients in and out as quickly as possible and doesn't actually care about the quality of treatment the patient receives or the trauma they likely leave with. 

The psychiatric ward should be a safe place, where patients feel they can go to calm down until they are doing better. It should be a place where patients feel they can talk about their feelings freely without fear of having to stay longer because it is traumatic. It should be a place where they feel respected, heard, and cared for. But so often this is not the case. The very fact that patients in psychiatric wards often do not have basic rights, makes it even scarier to be there. The fact that nurses can force medication or other forms of treatment on their patients without proper reason, makes it incredibly scary. 

When I was in a psychiatric ward for the second time, I was 17 years old and I was experiencing a minor psychotic episode. I was not a danger to anyone, I simply told the nurse what I was experiencing and asked to speak to my parents on the phone because I knew they would be able to comfort me. Instead, I was told I had to wait for the 10 minutes a day when I could call my parents and in the mean time I was to take the medication and sit down.

They did not care about what I wanted and what I knew could help me. They just cared about controlling me and drugging me up on medication. Psychiatric wards shouldn't be more like prisons than they are like hospitals. 

Here is a true story I heard that reflects the mistreatment psychiatric patients experience even on the adult ward. Note, this is not my own experience rather an experience I was informed of. 

"When I was staying on a psychiatric ward many years ago I met a 60-year-old man with bipolar mania who believed the British Government wanted him as prime leader of their Underground Power Circuit. One morning after having an altercation with the nurses, he rushed to the TV room, and said to me and my friend, “I’m not taking any more meds! They want me to take more! Please will you be my witnesses!” So we took seats and observed.

A minute later a posse of nurses came barrelling in. “We think you’ve gone too high and we want you to take extra medication.” (He wasn’t acting “high” or manic in any way, shape or form. The only signs of mental illness were his paranoia and beliefs that the government were following him because they wanted him as their underground leader! If you’d met him on the bus, apart from his “Underground Power Circuit” talk, you’d never have noticed anything off about him. No racing speech, no laughing or extremely elevated mood, no fidgeting or pacing to and fro ― no obvious signs of uncontrolled mania at all!) He was slightly irritable and angry, but this was because of a legitimate complaint about the nurses’ behaviour! He refused point blank to take any more meds. He was already on antipsychotics and mood stabilizers and he didn’t want any more.

The nurses insisted that he needed calming down, and if he refused to take the medication orally it would be forced upon him. Me and my friend were ordered to clear the area. (So much for being witnesses.) The next thing we heard was a yell as he was grabbed and put in a five-point hold (five nurses grabbing a hand or foot each plus one more for his head, and that’s the one that really sends them crazy (and of course justifies what happens next)).

A doctor came rushing in. There was an anxious exchange about how much of what put in the “emergency tranquillization” chemical cosh they were about to give him. What me and my friend heard was like a radio play from hell. As he yelled and cried out they pulled down his trousers and underpants and shoved a needle full of olanzapine into his backside. My friend and I were shooed farther away from the TV room as the uproar persisted. Half an hour later the drugs were taking effect and my friend who had previously been “too high” (too manic) was now unconscious. He spent all morning and most of the afternoon snoring in bed with a guilty-looking nurse at his side. They had drugged him so heavily he didn’t wake up till evening.

So what was actually going on here? This man wasn’t violent. And he wasn’t any kind of threat to himself or others. But! Because he happened to be sectioned (i.e. he was being held for inpatient psychiatric care against his will) and because he bore a diagnosis of bipolar mania with psychotic features he wasn’t permitted to lose his temper. Any anger he expressed was automatically viewed as a “symptom”. He had basically been medicated for losing his temper and being angry with the nurses. If his diagnosis had said “anxiety disorder” or “OCD” rather than “bipolar 1 disorder” they’d have given him a lorazepam pill at most and he’d have probably spent the day staring absentmindedly at the TV.

But because he was “bipolar” and “delusional” his treatment was totally different. That’s why I’m so cynical about the mental health system. People are treated as a label and a collection of symptoms. The human being who had lost his temper in an argument about breakfast cereals was reduced to a case of bipolar disorder showing symptoms of increased irritability, aggression and paranoia ― and that justified the olanzapine cosh. If a random person on the street walked into a supermarket and became irritated with the staff because his favoured brand of cornflakes wasn’t in stock, do you think he’d be prescribed emergency tranquillization and wrestled to the ground by nurses? Of course not! You see, it all comes down to labels!"

This story shows how once someone is diagnosed (especially with a psychotic illness) it's much easier to forcefully medicate them and say they were "incompetent" to make their own choice or say they were dangerous simply because they got angry. But when a quote "normal" person believes that vaccines are dangerous and cause autism or they get angry, they arent said to be too delusional to be competent and they arent thought of to be a threat because they raise their voice. 

So what do I want? I want first to increase awareness and bring attention to this mistreatment in both adolescent and adult psych wards. I want to encourage adults who have been mistreated and forced to take medication without good justification to bring their cases to the court (because this is illegal). I also want to bring awareness to change laws so that minors 16 or older are not subjected to forced medication either, simply because their caregivers or doctors permit it. Medication works well for some people but for others does not do much and causes terrible side effects. It often involves much trial and error and many very difficult and uncomfortable side effects that doctors dont often care about unless they are very serious. My doctor had me on a high dosage of Latuda and wouldnt lower the dosage even after my complaints of always feeling tired and lethargic and having little to no energy. 

I am an 18 year old who has been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. I have been bakeracted (involuntarily hospitalized) twice. I still suffer from trauma as a result of my stays at the psych ward. I still have nightmares and flashbacks of being there. Something has to change. Psych ward patients should not leave the psych ward with more mental health issues than when they came because of traumatic experiences.