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Stanley_19802 · Jul 13, 2012, 12:32 PM

Hello All,

This is going to be on the long side here as I have a lot I need to say. And as the title says, I was abused in hospitals. Psychiatric hospitals to be exact. Growing up, my mom didn't punish me by grounding me to my room or taking away my game system. Her punishment was to pick up the phone and call the local children's psychiatric hospital and lie telling them I was suicidal and had tried to kill myself. They would send a team along with a ambulance to come and take me away to the hospital. At the hospital is where the abuse started.

My first admit was on November 20th 1990. At that hospital (CharterOakHospital – CovinaCA). I don’t have much information on why I was admitted. I woke up sitting in a chair that afternoon with no memory of how I got there. All I know is what happened after I woke up in that chair.

Just before going into the hospital admitting building my mom tells me “When you speak to the nurse, tell her your suicidal”. I didn’t know what “suicidal” meant. But I found out what saying that gets you. I was admitted to the children’s ward of the psychiatric hospital.

Things were ok at first. But then things got bad fast. I had only had a 2 hours of knowing my parents before being left in this place alone. The doctors and such kept asking me what happened at school to be brought to the hospital. I couldn’t tell them, I didn’t know what happened. Everything before waking up at school in that chair at 2:30pm was blank.

Things got difficult though when I heard a kid screaming. I have always been compelled to help kids from day one. I found out the kid was locked in a solitary room and was freaking out. So to help I got myself put in there by telling another kid to tell a staff member I hit him. I didn’t, but I knew they would put me in the room next to the kid if the staff thought I was hitting others.

It worked, I was put in the room next to him. You had to yell loudly to be heard in the room next door. The kid was 15 and was freaking out because of the room. He had problems with being in such small rooms and was flipping out. So I was trying to talk to him, calm him. Then I heard a loud bang and then screaming. He had tried to break the small window in the door and instead broke the bones in his hand.

He was taken out and to the ER while I was now left in the room alone. I soon realized why he freaked out. The room was deafening silent. You could hear your heart beating in your head. You lose track of time since there isn’t a clock to be seen. The walls are covered with rubber padding making the room even more sound proof.

Soon I was freaking out. I lasted about 10 minutes alone before I began banging on the door to be let out. I couldn’t take it. The room didn’t have much room. There was a twin bed bolted to the floor in the middle of the room and about two feet between the bed and the wall all the way around.

The size of the room was really getting to me. Finally a staff member came to let me out. I never wanted to be back in that room again. But that wasn’t the last time. And even today, I don’t think it will be the last.

The hospital used the rooms a lot though. So my next visit to the room was 3 days later. My parents came late in the day to pick me up to take me to my grandparents house for Thanksgiving dinner. When I was returned I was upset and feeling like a rent-a-child.

The staff took me over to the gym to join in playing basketball with the others. I didn’t feel up to playing basketball after how I was feeling. So I was sitting on the sideline. The staff said if I didn’t feel like playing I could go back to the unit. I choose the unit figuring I would go back to my room and lay down till everyone came back.

I was walked back to the unit. Once I was walked through the locked doors I began walking to my room when the nurse grabbed my arm. She told me since I didn’t want to take part with the others I had to sit in the solitary room till they got back. I hadn’t done anything to anyone. There was no reason to be put in there. I was left in there a little over a hour.

I was freaking out again, pounding on the window to be let out. The nurse threatened me saying “If you don’t stop, your going to be put in restraints”. I didn’t know what restraints were but it didn’t sound good. I finally sat in the corner of the room wanting to be dead.

I had only been here 4 3 days and felt thrown away. I wanted to die and go back home to Heaven. I was angry I was put with such a heartless family that never came to visit me or even call me for the week I was in there. I hated it here.

I was finally let out the hour later when the kids returned from playing basketball. But I was back in that solitary room the following day. The next morning I was upset. I wanted my so called parents to come and get me out of there. I went up to the nurses station in tears begging them to call my parents. They just ignored me.

I continued to beg them when I didn’t notice I had crossed over their duck tape line. THEN the nurse acknowledged me. She got up, grabbed me by the arm and pushed me into the solitary room and locked the door. They could have just talked to me, or let me call home to calm me down. They didn’t have to do that to me.

My time in that hospital affected me. It was the start of the PTSD. I can’t forget those hospital rooms. I had a bad month of nightmares back in 2004 that I actually created a video walk though tour of the children’s ward of CharterOakHospital I was held in, including the solitary rooms. I have it posted here:

2 years later my parents divorced and my dad got custody so the psych ward visits stopped. My dad preferred to punish personally through hitting, kicking and yelling. But in 1996 my mom got custody of me and my brother and the hospitals visits started up again.

Now living near Van Nuys the psych hospital of choice became Van Nuys Psychiatric Hospital in Van Nuys CA. I made a walk though of this hospital to which you can see here:

The first I was sent there was about 3 months after I started school in the area. I was being attacked almost daily by a bully. When I finally stood up to him the staff at school didn’t see him hit me, only me defending myself and the bully pretended he was afraid making it seem like I attacked him.

That afternoon my mom approved the hospital staff and a mobile psych team and a ambulance arrived at my school. I was put in restraints and taken to the hospital. My first day I was in solitary.

What happened was they wanted me to join in the group therapy they were having. I really wasn’t in the mood. So the staff member took me to the solitary room and locked me in for the 45 minute group. It was overkill. I wasn’t trying to hurt myself or anyone else. I didn’t deserve to be put in solitary.

Then once I was let out I went to my room and laid down on my back. I was upset that the solitary rooms were once again being used on me. They brought up memories/flashbacks of the solitary rooms I was in when I was in Charter Oak 6 years prior.

That’s when 3 staff came almost running into my room. I got up on reflex. They spun me around, pushed me face down on my bed and then pulled my right arm behind my back and pulled it up toward my neck. It hurt bad. They held me like that while they removed my shoe laces. They never even gave me the chance to give them up willingly.

When they finished they just let me slide off the bed onto the floor. It hurt so bad to move my right arm. So I asked for a bath towel and made myself a sling for it. I couldn’t really use my arm for a little over 3 days. The whole time getting yelled at for making a sling as it could be used to hang myself. Well, if they hadn’t messed up my arm I wouldn’t need a sling. I was let to go home the next day.

I was back into the hospital not long after. Same problem, but this time a different bully. I was grading school work for a teacher when this one student tried to pick a fight. When I just ignored him he went into the schools solitary room, closed the door and began screaming “Stanley, let me out, why did you lock me in here, let me out”. I just continued to ignore him.

10 minutes later a staff member came down the stairs to see what was going on. He opened the door and the bully came out with a bloody nose from throwing himself against the walls inside. When asked, he said I hit him and locked him in the solitary room. I was told I was in big trouble and was sent home.

I had enough time to make some mac and cheese for lunch when I saw the ambulance pull into the drive way. I knew then what she did. My mom called the psych ward to have me punished again. I tried to climb out the bathroom window but there was too many nails. So to avoid going back there and getting hurt again I ran. But my mom sent the guy next door to get me. He tackled me halfway up the block and brought me back.

Back at the hospital things got out of control with abuse fast. I found out she told the hospital I beat up a kid at school and then came home and was throwing knives at my brother. I didn’t do either. When the nurse told me I was pissed off.

I called home to confront my mom on why she lied and she cuts me off saying “It’s all your fault. Child services is thinking of taking your brother away. If he gets taken away I will never forgive you” and hangs up. Of course I was angry. I hung up the phone and was making my way to the locked door. In my mind at the time I thought if I could get home, I could explain what all happened and sort things out.

Halfway down the hall this staff member matches my walking speed and asks me where I am going. I tell him I have to get home to fix things. Instead of trying to talk to me. He stops. Just as I look back to see where he went he grabs me from behind and throws me face down on the ground.

Then he puts his knee on my spine halfway down my back and applies all his weight to where all his weight is on his knee on my spine. There was a loud series of cracks and then nothing but the worst pain I have ever felt. I just started screaming. It hurt so bad.

Other staff came running over to help assuming I was “going off”. They told me to get up and go to the solitary room. I couldn’t. I was paralyzed from my waist down. That’s scared me more than the pain. The staff assumed I was just refusing to get up.

So each staff member took each of my arms and literally dragged me to the solitary room, lifted me up and held me against the solitary room wall while the nurse injected me with sedative. Then I was placed in 5 point restraints on my back.

Part of me was glad to be knocked out as that meant I wouldn’t have to be in pain with my back. I woke up several hours later in my room. I was in so much pain. It took me 10 minutes just to sit up. I was afraid to try to stand. But was so happy when I saw I could stand. That time being paralyzed scared the hell out of me.

My pain was still the issue at hand though. I made me way down to the medication window to get some Tylenol or something for the pain. The nurse hands me a cup of pink liquid. I told her, it doesn’t look like Tylenol. She tells me it’s not, that it’s liquid Thorazine tranquilizer. I told her I needed the pain medication for my back. She told me no, that all I can have is the Thorazine. I set the cup down, said no thank you and went back to my room and laid down.

All the sudden 3 staff blow into the room, yank me out of my bed leaving me screaming in pain, dragged me to the solitary room, injected me with sedatives and then back into restraints. I woke up hours later to staff unlocking the restraints.

I was let to lay back in my bed for a few hours. I was woken up later for another dose of Thorazine. They were drugging me to keep me knocked out 24 hours a day. A few hours later I was told I had visitors. I had to be carried to the visitors room I was so sedated.

It was my mom, her boyfriend and my brother. They asked me how I was doing. I was able to say “I am doing…..” before my head hit the table as I passed out. I learned later I was on such high doses of Thorazine I couldn’t stay awake. It apparently freaked out my mom and everyone because they couldn’t wake me up. I had to be carried out of the visitors room and woke up hours later back in my room. No one ever came to visit me there again.

A week passed and they began lowering the dose of Thorazine and I was able to stay awake for periods of time. That’s when I was taken to see my social worker. He told me because of my moms report for having me admitted that I would never be able to go back home.

I was told that they were trying to find me placement in a group home or foster home. He said if placement couldn’t be found at the end of the week I would be transferred to NapaStateHospital and held there till placement could be found.

However if I could find family to live with, I could do that. So I began doing that. Calling all the family I could. However by this time my mom had contacted the family and told them her version of what she thought happened. So none of them wanted to let me come live with them. They either said no, or straight up hung up on me.

Upset I hung up the phone a little harder than I had intended. On my way to my room the staff member told me I had to go to solitary to cool off. I told him no, I just needed to lay down for a bit and went into my room. 5 minutes later 2 staff came in and dragged me to the solitary room where I was injected with sedative and locked in.

I was left in that room all night from 7:30pm-8:30am the following morning. The room was already dark, but went nearly pitch black when they turned down the ward lights. I banged and yelled for them to turn on the lights in the room, but they wouldn’t. The only light in the room was light from the moon shining down between the two buildings, bouncing off the white wall of the building next door and into the solitary room window lighting up the corner of the room where I stayed the whole night.

It was so cold in there. It had to be high 50’s low 60’s and all I had on was socks, shorts and a t-shirt. There was a sheet but it was being held in place by restraints. So I sat in the corner and pulled me knees up to my chest, pulled my shirt down over my legs and pulled my arms into my shirt to try to stay warm.

Up till that night, I wasn’t afraid of the dark. But I have been terrified of the dark since that night. I totally freak out screaming during black outs. I can’t be in any room without the lights on. I have a lamp next to my bed that’s on 24/7. Along with a flashlight next to my bed. And then nightlights in ever open electric plug.

I was finally let out in the morning. That night in solitary is one of many flashbacks and nightmares I have, forced to relive that night along with other psych ward events. It’s torture. As a teen, I was put back in one last time for 3 days. This stay didn’t result in too much abuse. Not nearly as much as the two past stays did.

Then it was another 3 years before I would be back in the hospital. But the difference of all the hospitals that came after was now I really was suicidal. If you go to a psych ward enough times, it will MAKE you crazy. At least that’s what happened to me.

As a adult I have been in restraints and solitary rooms many more times. But all this trouble can be traced back to those first hospital stays as a child. 80% of the nightmares and flashbacks I have are of the two children’s psychiatric hospitals I was in growing up. Only a handful of nightmares and flashbacks are from abuse in adult psychiatric hospitals.

To describe every incident of abuse in a psychiatric hospital would take forever to describe. The thing is I can’t forget what happened. Tortured by it every single day. And that’s been my issue lately. The nightmares and flashbacks are so severe right now that it’s straight up torture.

What’s also made it difficult is the hospital ER we have in town recently did some construction and they have two dedicated rooms for those waiting to be seen by mental health. The new rooms layout is nearly exactly the same layout of the solitary rooms at Van Nuys Psych.

When I am there, I don’t see the ER exam rooms, I see 4 solitary rooms. But what I see no one else does. It’s like I see two environments one on top of the other. Like a picture double exposed. I can’t handle being in those rooms because to me, it’s me being put back in Van Nuys Psych’s solitary rooms again.

My back pain just makes it that much worse because the back injury happened at Van Nuys Psych and being anywhere similar while having back pain sparks off flashbacks. I have pain medical now for it, but even on the high doses (2 5/500mg vicodin, 10mg Baclofen, 10mg flexiril mucle relaxer and a 10mg Methadone which is similar in strength to morphine) I still have break through pain. And if that wasn't enough, I am urinary incontinent from the injury. I will be in diapers the rest of my life.

It’s all just been too much lately. I just don’t think I can cope with this much longer. It’s torture. It’s got me feeling like offing myself just to stop from having to continually re-experiencing it. I just want some peace. Anyway, thanks for letting me share everyone.

-Stanley