I was involuntarily admitted twice because I refused meds on a psychotic state and it was very traumatic but at least my psychosis went away. I was given haloperidol and then clopixol injections.
Has it ever happened to you? What do you think about forced treatment?
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It saved my life.
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Sometimes people don’t know how badly they need help and having someone step in to have them committed can be the best thing for them.
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I’ve been committed over twenty times. Most of them were “voluntary commitments” but the only reason I didn’t fight the commitments was because I didn’t know I had the right to ask for a jury trial of six people. When I learned that I started asking for a jury trial when they were going to commit me. It didn’t make any difference.
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you need the meds. it is the only way. it surely saved my life.
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totally agreed
i’d never have stuck with meds in any other situation
saved my life a few times over
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Me too. I ve been through hell with this sza. There are days I want to sleep away the day. So far I’ve never been forced but just voluntary admission except in the beginning.
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I had a court hearing to be involuntarily committed to the State Hospital. I told my public defender that I didn’t want to fight it, and would go if they thought I should
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Not been forced, but I was close… they told me if I miss an appointment they would take me in. That frightened me so i kept the appointment and stayed up all night so I would not miss it.
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It is a tricky topic, for sure. There are so many people who appreciate the forced treatment they received, but also a lot who hated it and became even more mistrustful. It is a high risk/high reward type thing, so I personally think it should be saved for situations where the risks of going without treatment are higher than the risks of losing trust in the system. Some of our most successful and happiest members originally got better with forced treatment, but there’s probably a bit of bias on this site, since we are directly pro-psychiatry and pro-recovery. People who hated forced treatment tend not to stick around here.
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Given the system where I live it is hard to say what is forced treatment and what is voluntary. I have a bunch of “voluntary” commitments because I was so caught up in the process that I didn’t know I had the right to ask for a jury trial to make my commitment more legal. When I was aware of that I did actually get a few jury decisions on my commitments, and it made no difference. I was still committed. Actually, if everybody started asking for a jury trial on their commitments it could get expensive for the state.
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I think its a necessary evil, a person in the thrall of a psychiatric break cannot consistently help themselves out of the situation and is a potential danger to themselves and others.
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The difficulty predicting a person in a psychotic break is a big problem too. There have been times when I have been psychotic and circulating that it was a bad situation all the way around.
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Forced treatment should rarely be used.
Psychiatric hospitals have a long history of mistreating their patients: from forced injections of live hepatitis at Willowbrook, to forced lobotomies at Pilgrim State. My girlfriend’s sister died from complications of a forced lobotomy at Pilgrim State. You may be thinking that was ancient history; psychiatric hospitals don’t do those things anymore. For the most part, I agree.
Restraint chair. Ancient history, right? Sad to say, no. They’re being used in many psychiatric hospitals as I write this. Patients die in them every year usually by choking on their own vomit. Even when patients calm down they’re often left in the chair for hours and hours. I believe the restraint chair violates the US Constitution’s 8th Amendment (cruel and unusual punishment clause). Critics argue that the chair is a very effective restraint. So is a knee on a neck.
That said, I’m very leery about forced injections. I think it would be appropriate to use a forced injection on a patient who reasonably seems to be an imminent threat to his or her self and/or others. However, de-escalation techniques should be tried first. Also, the injection should be the least restrictive/ most effective dose.
Lastly, psychiatric treatments come and go, but what must never, never go is the dignity and respect due to each and every psychiatric patient.
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Clap clap! You spoke very well and I agree with what you said.
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Thank you very much for all the replies. It is interesting to know your points of view.
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The only thing I don’t like about forced treatment is when they give you the injection. “Going dark” is always an uncomfortable sensation. Feeling your brain being shut down like that is traumatic. I wish they could develop an antipsychotic that put you down softly and slowly, without pain. But then again, sometimes when you’re that psychotic you just embrace death and don’t fight it. It still hurts though.
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I think what they called it for me was civil commitment. I went to the er saying there was a speaker inside me and they moved me to the locked ward. After a few weeks I went to court and would only be released from the ward if I took the meds.
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Like someone else said, it saved my life
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