[Stanley_19802]

Hello,

I am really trying to figure out how to phrase this without breaking the no suicidal talk rule. Well my past is WAY too long to discuss all at once. But to put is short, I was severly abused during my childhood and some as a adult as well. I was abused by my parents, other family, by school staff and also at the psychiatric hospitals my mom sent me to as punishment. If I did something my mom got mad at, she would lie to the hospital and say I was suicidal and just tried to kill myself so that they would take me away for 3-14 days instead of her having to punish me herself.

Of all the abuse, the hospital abuse was the worse resulting in PTSD. Just to name a few incidents, on one visit I was upset and wanting to go home. Instead of the staff member trying to just talk to me and help me calm down, he grabbed me from behind, threw me to the floor and placed his knee on my spine mid back and applied all his weight till he was lifting off the ground. There was a series of cracks and then I couldn't move. I was screaming in pain but couldn't move. More staff came thinking I was fighting or something. I was dragged to the solitary room, picked up and held against the wall, injected with seditive and then put in restraints and locked in the room. For the next week, every time I woke up, I was injected once again wth seditive. My doctor who treats the spinal injury says had I not been drugged for the week after the injury and not moving and giving my spine time to heal, I could have been paralized forever. Yea I can walk, but I am on a bunch of pain meds, and the injury made the bed wetting worse to the point of day time accidents. I will be in diapers forever.

Then on another stay thanks to my mom, when I called to confront her on why she once again lied to get me put there, I hung up the phone harder than I intended and swiftly walked to my room to just cry. I hated being sent to those places and was scared being there. They only came to visit me one time and never ever again. Anyway, a staff member came to my room and told me that because I was upset I had to go to the solitary room. I wasn't being violent. I was just upset and crying and just needed to lay down for a bit not locked in a room. He walked out and I thought the incident was over. He came back with 2 other staff and they grabbed me and dragged me to the solitary room, pushed me in and locked the door. It was 7:30pm and I didn't get let out till 8:30am the next morning. No lights, no bathroom....nothing. The ward lights were already down and bearly any light came through the little window in the door. The only light in the room was coming through the window in the back of the room. The moonlight was shining against the white brick wall of the building next to the hospital and into the solitary room window. So I sat in the corner next to the window. It was bearly 60 degrees in the room. All I had on was shorts, a t-shirt and sox. I was very cold. So sitting down, I pulled up my knees and pulled my shirt down to cover them and pulled my arms into the shirt to stay warm. I have been terrified of the dark since. I always have a flashlight near by, nightlights in every room and hall of the house and lanterns all over the house in case of power outages.

Anyway, I met some great friends in 2002 who were able to finally make me feel safe. I still had the nightmares and flashbacks, but they would always help me feel better. Didn't matter the time of day. And one was like my second mom. My friend who was my second mom passed away in 2005 of heart attack. Another in 2009 from lung failure. And most recently my last close friend died July 7th of this year because a doctor screwed up during her surgery and she bled to death.

So here is where it gets hard to work around the rules here. Sometimes I have problems where my depression gets bad and I want to leave life. Talking to the hotlines, they would often send the police out to "check on me". That normally resulted in going down to the ER and waiting for county mental health to come and do a evaluation. Long story short, this staff member at mental health feels even though I have medical insurance, I should instead pay for therapy with cash. I am on disability and that's where the insurance is through. So this staff member has me blocked from getting any kind of help through mental health including crisis services.

So the ER staff hold me for about 9 hours or so depending on what time I am brought in. I have to wait at the hospital till this mental health staff member comes on duty. Then a car is sent to pick me up from the ER and taken to mental health. I am only allowed to see him. Once there, he doesn't let me talk about what's going on. He comes into the room, tells me "Your not getting any services here. When you want therapy bad enough, you will find the money". He overturns the 5150 3 day involuntary hold and tells me to go home. Doesn't matter how suicidal I am, and never made a difference the times a suicide attempt was made. He don't care. And there is no money to be found as those on disability know.

Things got much worse when my friend Sandra died on July 7th. I explained to my therapist about the depression and the want to **leave**. She called to have me hospitalized. I got sent home. The next day I called one of the hotlines about the situation. The hotline called to police to come over and check on me. The officer was very mean. He began screaming at me "Why do you bother asking for help? You know no one is going to do anything. We have more important things to be doing than deal with you. If your going to take your life, don't call anyone, just go and do it and be done with it". That hurt, a lot.

The next day I was talking with a friend about the incident and how it made me feel like a worthless piece of trash. Well she called the police to come out and talk to me. I know she meant well. So the police came out. As soon as I opened the door he placed me in handcuffs and took me to the ER to be checked out. But not before screaming at me too. "Why do you keep asking for help? Don't you know we have more important things to do. Just kill yourself and be done with it".

On the way to the ER he tells me "You know mental health don't care about you. Why don't you just move somewhere else". I can't. I have just enough to cover my bills. If I don't have the cash for therapy, where am I supposed to get money for a moving truck, first, last and deposit for a place, gas for getting to this some other county? I am stuck in this county.

So I sat at the ER for 9 hours. Mental health came. She asked me if I was suicidal. I told her yea. She tells me I will send you home if you sign a contract that you won't kill yourself. I told her I couldn't sign it because it wouldn't be true because I wanted to die. So she leaves and comes back 10 minutes later saying I don't need to sign the contract, that she was overturning the 3 day involuntary hold anyway and that I could go home. The ER doctor was highly pissed. He asked me what I was going to do. I told him to his face too "Clearly no one gives a damn, I'm going home to overdose, have a nice day" and I left. I got a friend to give me a ride home.

The next morning I had had enough. I was hurting that the last of my 3 close friends were as much of a family that I had ever had were now gone. With my last close friend dead, I couldn't afford where I was staying so I had to put everything in storage and am renting a 10X12 room that has to be a bedroom, livingroom and kitchen because if I leave anything in the kitchen, my food get's eaten. Having only $100.00 dollars for food each money, I can't afford to have my food eatten and not even replaced. And then now dealing with the PTSD all alone. So it's a lot to handle on my own. My real family disowned me years ago.

So on August 7th, a day after I told the ER doc what I was going to do, I said my goodbye's to friends online and did just that. My therapist at the last minutes convinced me to go to the ER if she went with me (I found her 3 months ago but have to drive 30 miles to see her). I agreed and she went along. I was stablized at the ER and then hospitalized for 5 days in the psych ward 2 hours drive south in a different county.

A big waste of time. They didn't do anything. The groups were for depression. They had nothing for grief, feeling suicidal, or for PTSD. I basically attended groups that didn't address why I was there, ate and slept. On the 5th day the psychiatrist called me in to tell me I was being released. He said "You can't be fixed". So 2 hours later I was released with a release form that says "Being released still suicidal".

So yea, I am home with nothing resolved. As the title says, A difficult Situation. I hope I didn't break the no suicide talk rule. In this case, I couldn't exactly not mention it as it had to do with the situation. Anyway, I feel hopless, worthless and don't know where to go if no one where I live will do anything to help. My therapist tells me to just keep going. But how do you find the will to keep going when you don't feel life is worth continuing in the current situation? I have no idea how to fix this, or if it's even able to be fixed. I mean to have a psych hospital tell me I am not fixable, what's left beyond a hospital? Thanks for at the very least listening everyone.

-Stanley

[Rohag]

Wow, Stanley. My first thought was to take your post and send it to each one of your elected representatives.

And all your closest friends passing away. I am truly sorry.

The emergency psychiatric care staff where you live are not therapeutic for you. Real help may be out there for you (regardless of that "you can't be fixed"), but it's not going to come from them. You cannot make them reverse giving up on you.

Are you in the US? Have you tried calling United Way/AIRS? They are not for emergency assistance, but they might have ideas about your general situation.

[Stanley_19802]

Hello Rohag,

Thank you for your suggestions. I checked into the United Way 211, they don't have service in my area. In this area, everyone refers back to the mental health center. I called the suicide hotline here, the woman actually told me I should go buy drugs to manage my depression.

As for reporting them, the local news channel ran my story, it made no difference. I also contacted the California Govenor. He made contact with mental health who lied to the Governor. Mental health lied saying that they would give me services, but that I just didn't want to come in. So getting the letter saying all I need to do was come in, I made a trip down there. When I got down there they said the only help they would give me was budgeting help.

The help? They want me to give up my car, shut off my basic cable tv, cancel my internet and everything else except for rent, electric and food and use what's left to pay for therapy. What good is therapy is the other 6 days and 23 hours of the week is spent looking at 4 walls because you have nothing at home to keep your mind occupied.

I was able to locate a therapist by chance. I was checking out a news website that was running a story about a therapy center 30 miles away that just got a $10,000.00 dollar grant and was accepting new patients. So instead of having to come up with $150.00 per week for sessions, I just had to find gas money. I can at least make it once a month, sometimes twice a month. Once or twice a month over nothing at all for 8 years, I will take it.

But the problem is, crisis still happens. I should be able to get help when the depression and suicide is out of control. I should be able to get emergency treatment like anyone else. But your right, I can't force anyone to want to help me. I just figured since the mental health psych wards caused the PTSD, they can at least fix it. Thanks for the ear though.

-Stanley