Have You Been Put in Wrist/Ankle Restraints While Psychotic and if so, were you non-violent or violent or have you been both during different hospital admissions?
yes, and I was non-violent
yes, and I had acted out with violence
yes, being both non-violent and violent (on different occassions)
I’m doing this to see how many of us have experienced the use of restraints
Personally, I was subjected to ankle/wrist/waist restraints every hospitalization by american ambulances, despite never threatening anyone with violence. I was allowed to roam freely in the hospitals because intake would always determine I wasn’t a threat. However, the EMT’s loved to restrain me for all those dozen or so hospitalizations in my 20’s…never for the suicide attempts, just the psychosis. It was always a long ride to the nearest hospital and psych ward due to my paranoia and the restraints.
Who else here has been put in restraints? Was it the police, the ambulance people, or the hospitals themselves?
This is my first constitutional oversight project!
@Rhubot (other constitutional oversight committee board member) is there anything I should add to this poll?
I was put in a straitjacket for an ambulance ride to a general hospital from a mental hospital. At the time, I was unable to understand anything. I forget the medical term for this mind state. Apparently, I had hit a psychiatrist, although I was unaware of having done so.
A famous case of a person being put in restraints is that of Elyn Saks, who is a famous law professor and mentally ill persons trial lawyer advocate in California. She went through what the poll is asking herself when she was younger and became a lawyer for just those reasons. She felt she had been treated unjustly. Her book is “The Center Cannot Hold.”
Good poll. I was put on a straight jacket because I refused the sedative injection they gave me, I was non violent but it took five police officers to hold me down for that injection. Then I was put on restraints when I arrived at the hospital and spent the first night tied to the bed. Then they asked me if I was going to give them trouble, I said no and they took me off.
Numerous occasions. Probably because of something I instigated or something unsafe I did when my cheese had strayed from my cracker. I made it through to the other side so I’m not losing sleep over it. Just glad there were safe places for me to get my head straightened out when I needed them.
Edit: Couldn’t really answer the poll because I’m not always sure why I wound up in restraints. I know the one occasion I tried to vacuum a nurse and that didn’t go over well.
Yes… I had cut my wrist and neck because of a delusion. They gave me stiches, which scared me a lot…tried to pull them out all the time, because i thought they were devil’s poison. Did not know whether to answer violent or non-violent…whenever i’m psychotic i turn into an extreme pacifist towards others, but i was harming myself, so i can imagine why they used restraints. It was extremely scary though, because i did not understand. I just watched the hunger games the day before, where a boy is put in restraints. I thought “this can’t be coincidence…i ended up in the hunger games!”
Here in the uk irestraints are never used in hospitals (not sure about prisons). Instead they just inject you, forcibly admittedly. Takes 3 or 4 nurses to do that.
I’ve been in restraints four times. I had thick leather cuffs around my wrists with chains on them. And they chained me face down by all four limbs onto a table. I think those four times were actually the worst experiences of my life. It’s indescribable how helpless and miserable I felt. Personally, I think restraints are barbaric, and the practice should have ended in the Middle Ages in 1500 a.d.
Police do though if their called to escort you in the back of a ambulance!
I got injected, but for non compliance.
They did move my bed away from the wall when I first got to hosp for easy access to restrain and inject me. For being non cooperative, I was quite distraught at the time.
I was handcuffed numerous times being escorted by the police to institutions. they had them on really tight but they refused to lessen the cuffs…I thought they hated me.
