This is a difficult subject for me. I've been "forced" in the sense that I was given the choice between 2 unattractive scenarios and in each case the best of the two bad options was agreeing voluntarily to treatment twice. In situation one, my addictions Dr. gave me the choice between going into the hospital every day to have supervised antabuse and agreeing to go into the psych hospital for a 4 week program, as soon as they had space for me, or she'd get my driver's license revoked. Since it can take up to a year to get your license back, I chose the supervised meds, and psych hospitalization. In situation two, I had to agree to do a 3 week IOP program or be put on a form which could have led to hospitalization for who knows how long. This again was by my addictions Dr. My psychiatrist didn't feel I needed to be in the hospital.

In hindsight, both treatments were good for me, as I was more out of control than I could really see at the time, so while I resented, hated, and to an extent resisted treatment, eventually I could see the point, cooperated, and got the help I needed.

Without those interventions I'd probably be dead.

In my last round of depression, where I did OD, my psychiatrist cooperated with me, to keep me out of the hospital unless it was absolutely a crisis situation. We adjusted my meds and went to weekly appointments. The reason for me wanting desperately not to be hospitalized, is that if you're hospitalized 3 times in a 3 year period you can become subject to a Community Treatment Order, and assigned to an ACT team. CTO's and ACT teams are reserved for the seriously mentally ill. Now I've always been meds compliant, so the likelihood of being given a CTO was low, but I've been closer to it in the past than I liked, so I didn't want to meet the official criteria, because the last thing I need as I try to rebuild my life, is someone from an ACT team paying me regular visits.

That being said, I do see the flip side. I have a cousin who like me is a recovering alcoholic with MH issues. She works as a peer support worker with an ACT team, in North Toronto. She views her role as helping people stay out of the hospital, and if that means ensuring that they are meds compliant that's what she'll do. She has one patient who keeps going off his meds because he believes that they're what's making him ill, and it's a revolving door in and out of the psych hospital. Is that good for him? no. But the fact is he can't function without medication. On meds he can function and have some semblance of a life. So what's the choice, try to keep him on meds and have a chance at a life, or give up on him, let him go off his meds, have him wind up on the streets likely to be dead in 6 months.

As I said it's a complicated issue for me. To me, forced treatment should be an absolute last resort, but I do think it has it's place.

splitimage