From the brave and illuminating Elyn Saks (take 14:53 minutes to watch her TED talk):
Someone I’ll call just ‘The Doctor,’ and his whole team of goons swooped down, grabbed me, lifted me out of the chair and slammed me down on a nearby bed with such force that I saw stars. Then they bound both my legs and arms to the metal bed, with thick leather straps.
A sound came out of my mouth that I’d never heard before. Half-groan, half-scream, barely human, and pure terror. Then the sound came again, forced from somewhere deep inside my belly and scraping my throat raw.
This incident resulted in my involuntary hospitalization. One reason the doctors gave for holding me against my will was that I was gravely disabled. Supporting this view, they wrote in my chart that I was not able to do my Yale Law School homework. I wonder what that meant for most of the rest of New Haven.
During the next year, I would spend five months in psychiatric hospitals on the East Coast. At times, I spent up to 20 hours a day in restraints — hands tied, hands and feet tied down, hands and feet tied down with a net tied tightly across my chest. I never struck anyone, I never harmed anyone, I never made any direct threats to anyone.
I was lucky I wasn’t one of the one to three people who die in restraints each week.
Some people still hold [the] view that restraints help psychiatric patients feel safe. I’ve never met a psychiatric patient who agreed.
Today, I am pro-psychiatry and anti-force. I don’t think force is effective as a treatment. And I think using force is a terrible thing to do to another human being with a terrible illness.
anna in med school 