It’s now been eight months since I was involuntarily committed for five days. I still have not gone one single day without reliving the awful feelings I felt at having all control over my life taken away by the hospital. From the moment the psych ER doctor laid down his judgement against me I’ve felt like I’ve been living in a nightmare instead of the real world. The immediacy of the terror and shock have faded but in the back of my mind there is still a constant sense of crisis. I feel like my life is divided into two distinct parts: before involuntary commitment and after. I meet with friends and everything is totally normal on the outside, but on the inside I’m observing life from a distance and thinking about when I was locked behind closed doors and everything about my life was controlled by strangers.
I am completely alone with my problems. I simply don’t talk about my feelings to anyone because I understand the legal risks of admitting them. I have this constant image in my mind of completely unyielding authority figures not listening to me as I plead with them to stop hurting me, but they only dismiss my protests, looking down on me from a great height.
I think I might feel differently if I felt that the involuntary hospitalization had saved my life and that the doctors, ultimately, had been right not to listen to me. But I think they just got it wrong. My first suicide attempt came a few weeks after my release from the hospital, and was triggered by a reminder of the complete helplessness that I felt there. The next four suicide attempts were all triggered by those same memories. But I can’t prove in a court of law that the hospitalization pushed my suicidal ideation into a new and more dangerous phase, because all the evidence exists in my head. And now that I’ve been officially labeled as having a serious mental illness (SMI) everything I say is dismissed out of hand.
So I’m silent.
10 comments
I’m not a doc, yet years of experience have shown your probably correct with the connect the dots, yet the 1st stay seems to have traumatized who your thought you were and the possible labeling SMI.
Give self break.
These things often are waves or groupings of these feelings.
Try, to force your self 3 times today that you will go and look into your mirror and say soemthing possitive about yourself, don’t linger, just doing it is doing something different than your previous acts.
Want something different, change your daily routines and outlooks.
Catch 22, we can think our way into a new way of acting, yet with half to act in new ways to fool ourselfves into new actions
I’m afraid I don’t have any specific advice (if you were even looking for some) but I can relate to the helplessness of the situation. I got out of the hospital last Sunday after having been there for four days. I had attempted to hang myself on Friday Dec. 2, and I was hospitalized on Wednesday, Dec. 7. They discharged me (thank you, Goddess!) on Sunday, Dec. 11. My circumstance were slightly different in that it was voluntary, but if the doctor isn’t convinced I’m better, she won’t sign the discharge papers or give me a note to take back to my employer, who won’t let me back to work unless I have one. So unless I’m set on changing jobs (which I’m not), I would need to tolerate being…well, I suppose incarcerated is a good word, since we can’t leave without the doctor’s say-so. And if the doctor isn’t watching you closely or you say the wrong thing or they’re just predisposed to keep you held “for liability reasons”, you’re stuck.
I don’t know what you’re feeling. I have no answers for you. I just hope you’ll find the solution you’re looking for, and that solution doesn’t involve killing yourself, and maybe my note here will do a tiny bit to keep you away from the tipping point for a day.
David V
I just wanted to validate you a little. There have been studies showing that control is very important to people. When elderly patients in a nursing home were given control over certain aspects of their life they became healthier than others, and when that control was removed their death rates became higher. It is perfectly normal and valid that you became suicidal after having control of your life taken away.
I’m really sorry it is hard for you, and that you now fear finding someone to talk to. I don’t know what you were committed for, but I do know that there are talk and support groups that do *NOT* believe in that sort of thing. They may be hard to find and find some checking. And places like here. I think it is really shitty that happened to you. But…you are justified in how you feel.
You might want to read some books on PTSD. There is a feeling now that people can get over it, but it can be very hard. I’m sorry but…I know it can feel better to know that you are not alone and that you are justified in how you feel.
Look for the stability in the instability you’re feeling. I could’ve committed myself but they just label you and treat you from their place of fear and uncertainty about you. I felt confined and limited in the hospital and was happy to leave any time I was admitted for panic or whatever. Sometimes it’s a safe bet, but for where you’re at…do your best and leave the docs out cause they don’t know. Cultivate as many good feeling thoughts you can…Nothing is more important than that you feel good to break that fear that is gripping you, get out of your head. For now that’s the best I can share with you. You’re doing way better than you think, and you deserve to. You’re not a reflection of the experience you are having, you’re a dynamic person who is learning to navigate the current challenge you have before you. Good luck!
Thanks to everyone above for the supportive comments. I really wasn’t expecting a response, but having my feelings validated by all of you was a pleasant surprise. Caucajun32 hit it on the head. What happened undermined who I thought I was and shook my identity to its core. I’ve always been very independent minded and proud of the fact that I think for myself. To have a doctor call me mentally incompetent to my face, and have the power to overrule my judgement, was devastating. I wasn’t psychotic, violent or disruptive in any way. I went to the psych ER voluntarily, based on the advice of a psychiatrist I trusted, to apply for admission to an outpatient treatment program to help me out of a serious depression. Part of what eats me up is that I gave them all the ammunition they needed to destroy my life. I went there willingly, trusting that my honesty would be taken at face value, that I had civil rights like every other American, and that the system would protect me. I trusted the wrong people and got myself raped. I’m moving on as best I can, but this is something that will cause me suffering for the rest of my life.
So it’s not a good experience to be admitted?
and these people are supposed to be in the most caring profession – disgusting.
I see them in outpatients and can’t trust any of those b4stards
This is where you start intensive workouts and self-defence training (cue Rocky theme), then go kick some psych ward ass…
Have just been reading the news updates about the man in Brooklyn who was filmed on security cameras methodically spraying a 73-year-old woman with gasoline and then setting her on fire in an elevator. I’m sorry to say that my rage these days is so great, that the first thing I thought about this story before any of the details emerged was “maybe she deserved it”. It is a jarring and thought-provoking inversion of who I used to be for me to identify, on a gut level, with the perpetrator of an atrocity rather than the victim. I have always taken the underdog’s side in my outlook on life. I’ve spoken out on behalf of human rights violations around the world, and tried to orient my professional life towards activities that help people and communities emerge from economic privation. I really do believe in peaceful coexistence and not being silent in the face of oppression. And yet that over the past year I fell to such a low point that merely being awake and conscious was an incredible torment, and when I sought help from trusted professionals found myself coerced and bullied into a situation where the last shreds of my dignity were completely stripped away. And now I’ve emerged on the other side of both those experiences, the inner collapse and the external violation, with so much rage, rage, and more rage that my first emotional reaction to violent outbursts is to think – no, hope – that the victim did something to deserve the atrocity that was done to them. Because in a way that would vicariously satisfy my desire for revenge. Revenge for real transgressions, and for the years of pent-up feelings of shame and inadequacy. I can see myself in the mirror and it is not a pretty picture. I long to release my rage in an unrestrained outburst; lashing out feels good, at least temporarily. Long term, of course, I know perfectly well that it will not make my anger subside and in all likelihood will instill the same pattern of abuse in someone else. It’s a big mess, and I know there is no quick road out of here. From an intellectual perspective I think that my death would be the easiest and most just way to ensure that I dont suffer any more, and that I don’t pass on this misery to anyone else through interaction with my dysfunctional emotional patterns. But I’ve made numerous suicide attempts and I know that I don’t have the resolve to overcome the mind’s and body’s self-preservation instincts. Trapped.
Forgive yourself & other humans,..because this *earthly* life is not perfect…and we’re all only humans…we made mistakes.
and besides, we all live only ONCE in this earthly life, so that’s why many people made mistakes in their life, because you can’t simply turn back time and repeat life..
So forgive yourself (& others), free yourself from all the restricting guilts,
keep learning,
and keep doing the Best & worthwhile while you’re still given a chance to exist and alive here in this physical world…