My Experience with Involuntary Hospitalization

CW: involuntary hospitalization, suicide, sexual abuse, restraint, forced medication

Written by: an anonymous community member

Source: Photos of buttons and pins from the psychiatric survivor movement in Toronto

My trip to Carrier Clinic started with uniformed “wellness checkers” breaking through my landlord’s window because I couldn’t hear them on the other side of the apartment.

I was sent to an urban hospital where I was screened incorrectly and sent as “involuntary”. They drugged me incorrectly, didn’t explain to me where I was going, and generally neglected me. I didn’t sleep for two days because screeners woke me up at 2am, even after nurses assured me that wouldn’t happen. I was also very frightened due to the situation. They finally took me halfway across the state without clothes to Carrier. I thought Carrier would be better than the other places I’ve stayed at because the facility was so large and modern. I was wrong.

I’m no stranger to hospitalization.

I’ve had suicidal thoughts since the age of 3 which has landed me in therapy nonstop. I have diagnosed anxiety and depression disorders. I am also a survivor of sexual abuse in childhood. My disorders got worse when I was a young adult. I’m an older adult now. None of my trauma, current and past (there was more recently), was considered by staff when I was there. I was inadvertently re-traumatized by the staff’s ignorant actions.

The first thing worth mentioning is that there is no privacy on the unit. You might get a half hour during the day without a staff member coming into the room, but that’s it. They open and close the door every 15 minutes at night. For someone with anxiety and sensory related insomnia, this was awful. Many nights I was in the main room for hours sobbing to the staff because I couldn’t sleep. I’m also used to being alone all day, every day. I’m very isolated. Going from that to this environment was traumatic by itself. I was not allowed in the quiet room once during the 3 weeks I was there.

The smoking is unbearable. There are 4 smoke breaks during the day, and that is usually the only time you’re allowed outside. They keep the smokers on the far side of the courtyard, but it doesn’t help. The secondhand smoke is terrible—I don’t know why they would allow this in a unit that’s supposed to be for non-addicts.

I have sincere concerns about safety for patients at Carrier.

There were many instances where I witnessed firsthand a patient’s behavior becoming erratic in the common areas. I saw people restrained and taken away regularly. This is not normal in my experience. I met a teenager who was attacked at random in the adjacent unit. They already suffered from PTSD before arriving, and they ended up needing stitches. There was one time where I was publicly threatened by a man who was experiencing an altered state. On top of threatening me over an innocent misunderstanding, he spit all over the unit for weeks. While we were there, he got worse, not better.

I have reason to believe there was widespread misdiagnosis occurring.

My roommate was an open alcoholic. They vomited at least twice a day. They sobered up after a few days and subsequently did not have thoughts of hurting themself. I don’t think they received the correct detox treatment they should have. I saw many substance users, one of whom had difficulty communicating and taking care of themselves. They seemed to be quite physically ill. I believe that there wasn’t being enough done to give people the specific care they needed. We all experienced a lack of help because the staff’s attention was often directed towards substances users and people who were becoming more aggravated and/or “violent.”

I saw an overuse of sedatives, not only on myself. I’ve never seen so many people together that appeared medically sedated. Everyone was so groggy and out of it. ECT was also pushed way too much in my opinion. Sometimes patients would come back on a wheelchair in the morning with temporary memory loss because they got the procedure. I’ve never seen that at any other hospital I’ve stayed in.

This is the incident that I believe caused the most damage: up until this point I had refused to take Seroquel because I had been on it before and I knew it didn’t help. I took my other meds as directed. I have been on dozens upon dozens of psychiatric medications since childhood. I honestly thought at the time that protecting my bodily autonomy was the right thing to do as an abuse survivor. I didn’t realize that they would fulfill their threats of involuntary injection. After all, I had been otherwise compliant and cooperative for 2 weeks at that point.

That night they ordered security to restrain me and inject me without my consent.

I thought I was only practicing my bodily autonomy. Seroquel doesn’t come in injectable form, so they informed me they would be injecting me with whatever they had on hand that was similar. I can’t see how this was anything except punitive for my rebellion against the doctor. Luckily, a med tech calmed me down while I was crying on the floor. I told her about my history, and she convinced me to take the pill at the last minute due to the trauma. I was so scared.

I decided to omit names out of privacy concerns. However, I still have immense anger toward the male doctor who OK’d the order and the nurses who blindly followed him. I tried as hard as I could to talk to him, but he didn’t care. I requested to switch doctors after that incident. My new doctor was a woman who was a bit more understanding to my situation.

The second most traumatizing event was being forced to go to court.

I’m a strait-laced, passive person, so this was absolutely terrifying for me. I was shaking the whole time. I wasn’t informed until I asked specifically if this might affect future employment. They told me it might but by that time it was too late. I didn’t meet my lawyer until I sat next to her into the courtroom. The only real help I had was through my assigned patient advocate, who was reassuring to me.

Note that I’ve been to Trinitas. There I was not given clothes for 5 days, including underwear. I was forced to wear a diaper. The rooms by the windows were 48 degrees (which I know because building inspectors were there at the time taking the temperature), and the showers didn’t work half the time. There were bugs crawling in the bathroom in January. Carrier has money but somehow, it’s just as bad. There are 3 smart TVs in one unit alone, including a giant one in the main room. However, patients aren’t allowed to hold a remote. The TVs were off most of the time.

Obviously, there are no cell phones or computers allowed on the unit. But video games also aren’t allowed. They lacked any real selection of paperbacks, puzzles, or games. It was impossible to escape my stress without the tools I use daily for stimming/relaxing. The “serenity room” is an odd, locked glass room in the middle of the unit. You’re completely exposed to anyone nearby while you’re alone on a couch watching TV/reading. Sound completely bleeds through. This room seems specifically made for the staff to observe patients without needing to get up from the station. There’s nothing serene about it.

Finally, everyday patients must read a mantra aloud. Included in it is a sentence that lets everyone know this is a “5-star hospital, which is very good”. It was degrading for me. They told us the whole time we’d be able to submit a review, but I never even got one. I had spent days handwriting all the improvements that could be made, but I was ignored.

I qualified for at-home care services. Instead, I was sent to the closest partial hospitalization program, several towns away. They didn’t know what to do when they found out the at-home services were too full to take me, which took two weeks. The PHP was comprised mostly of people with developmental disabilities and substance users. I stayed for as long as I could. I didn’t have a car, so I had to rely on notoriously fickle Logisticare services. This was so highly stressful for me as an individual who needs a stable routine, that my it affected my ability to take care of my daily needs. I was not provided any safety net apart from their psychiatrist when I left.

The difference between Carrier and Trinitas to me personally, is that I was able to do a phone interview about my stay at Trinitas. I was able to voice my concerns directly to a real person. Trinitas sent me a formal typed apology in the mail. It was healing. Carrier gave me no such option. I still have flashbacks of my hospitalization nearly 2 years later. I see and hear it all the time in my mind, and it hurts. Even now sometimes I don’t sleep at night because of this. I’m hoping this review will help me heal and move on somehow. I abhor conflict which is a major part of why I never wanted to write this at all. I’m not trying to discredit anyone who was helped here, or the nice med techs. They were the only ones who listened. I just don’t want to be burdened by this anymore.

Follow-up: It’s been over 6 months since I finished writing this review. Writing it healed me in ways I didn’t expect. I’ve been slowly recovering from the trauma of the past few years since then. Flashbacks are occurring much less frequently now and I’m hopeful they will continue to dissipate with time. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to share this, but if my review can help someone in need, then I’m glad to share it. To everyone, thank you and take care.