I'm sorry your memories are so bad. When I was newly diagnosed I went to a new psychiatrist who wanted me to go IP. I did not want to do this. I needed meds but I had a therapist, I wasn't actively suicidal, I just had akathesia and was very manic. She insisted, I refused, she insisted more and eventually pulled out the involuntary committment papers, all the while telling me if I didn't agree to go that the police would take me in a police car with handcuffs if I fought and that I would be going to the state hospital instead of a nicer local unit. I yelled and yelled at her but managed to pull the right words out of my psych degree and made her quite aware that if she tried to pink-slip me I was going to fight it in court. When she realized I knew the right words she stopped filling out the form and gave me one week to get things together and then I had to go in but she'd put me in the smaller unit at whatever hospital. I found out in the next few days that this was a gero-psych unit and that I was a)26 and b)worked with a lot of people who wound up on gero-psych so NO. I arranged time off from work, having to explain why in the process, got cat care, bought some pants without drawstrings, etc. and then when I called like I was supposed to she just asked if I was ok, I said yes and she said fine and dropped me like a hot potato. I've always been traumatized by that and it was almost a non-event once I started yelling the wrong words (it is the only time in my life I have been on the verge of breaking something belonging to someone besides my little sister when we were kids on purpose and it's a good thing I didn't because it was an antique something or other that was conveniently in my reach.) It took me another 7 years to agree to the hospital or to even consider it. I have a dr who doesn't hospitalize easily so that saved me from being forced IP in those years and by the time I did need it there was a mood disorders unit that was pretty much exactly the opposite of what horrible dr threatened me with (plus no handcuffs which is also a positive). It still took me a few days there to feel at all safe because I was so certain it would become what that woman had described when she tried to scare me into a voluntary admission. My current dr had to spend a lot of time telling about what it was like before I went in and even then I was terrified; she was only there once a month so I knew there would be a lot she didn't know.

I am so blessed to have that mood disorders unit but I don't think I'll ever be hospitalized without hearing the threats about the police and how bad the state place was.

I'm sorry that you lived part of my nightmare plus a lot more. It must have been terrifying at such a young age. When I was in high school and they found out I was suicidal I just got a long session with the guidance counselor (my mom was a teacher which probably influenced this).