My Story With Psychiatric Institutional Abuse

Hello my name is Sadie. I am a survivor of psychiatric institutional abuse. When I was 13 I decided I needed to lose weight so the boys in my 7th grade class would like me. Over the summer of 2019 I became addicted to disordered eating and eating disorder behaviors. On July 8th, 2019 I was admitted into a psych ward for the first time. That was the day my naive perception of the world was tested. They stripped me naked in an open hallway and took pictures of my scars and birth marks. It was during that one month stay at the psych hospital that I was stripped of my clothes and put in a canvas velcro dress with canvas velcro bedding to make sure I couldn't hurt myself with my clothes or bedding. That night I cried myself to sleep in the corner of my room because of how ugly and dehumanized I felt. This is only one example of abusive treatment in psychiatric hospitals. Fast forward to the fall of 2020 where I was admitted to an intensive inpatient for my eating disorder 2,015 miles away from home at the age of 15. I only was allowed outside twice in my two month stay at the worst facility I had ever been to. During my stay I was held down and given a shot that made me hallucinate because it was too high of a dose for my frail 15 year old body. I still remember the exact words they said to me before poking my in the back of the arm. They said, "we'll have to give you shots until you start eating again." I was emotionally abused by the staff for two months straight. I was gaslit and made to believe that I was the problem. It was the lowest I have ever been in my life. I still remember sitting at the glass door at the end of the fluorescently lit hallway, watching the summer sky turn into rainy fall and eventually an early winter snow. I imagined being able to step outside in the cold and feel the breeze on my face, but because I had a tube stuck in my nose for a month straight, I was not allowed out in the courtyard. If I wanted to take a shower, it would have to be in front of a staff member with no curtain. I was never allowed to be alone with an NG tube. Even me going to the bathroom was observed. I was quite literally stripped of my privacy and my humanity every single day and sadly this behavior became normal to me after a while. The psychological and emotional abuse became routine for me. It became comforting to be watched 24/7 because someone else was responsible for my safety and wellbeing. I do however remember one night in this hospital where I was in the shower with the door open and a staff member present. I began to feel lightheaded and faint, then within a minute I was sitting on the toilet seat only covered by a hand towel. I was throwing up acid and bile surrounded my five staff members all staring at my almost naked body. I was mortified that that many people were seeing me so vulnerable and bare. They all acted as if this were a normal nightly occasions while I was scarred forever by this memory. Because of the way they treated me, I thought it would be better to end my life than spend another day in that hospital. Eventually, they made me sleep in a recliner chair in the hallway ten feet from the lit up desk where the staff gossiped about the patients and talked about their sex life. I was not allowed to eat with anyone else so I was put in the hallway for every meal and snack sat at a small wooden desk. They told me that "a bed is a privilege" so I slept in that chair for a week while my 47% curvature of scoliosis pulled on my muscles and made my back ache for weeks after sleeping in the hallway. I was being pumped full of formula through my NG tube to the point where it made me throw up multiple times. I refused the feedings and was told, "if you keep this up you'll be sent to the hospital where there will be no more choices." They told me stories about how many of their patients died in the hospital because of the behaviors I was using. It terrified me but my eating disorder wanted to be sent there more than anything in the world, because it would mean that I was at the sickest point possible, close to death. One day, something in my brain just clicked and I realized that I don't want to die and just be another anorexic statistic. I started eating everything they put in front of me. I pushed my body and my brain further and further until I finally saw a light at the end of this dark dark tunnel I was stuck in. I got my NG tube out, I was allowed a bed again, and I was finally allowed to eat with the group after a full month of eating in solitude. After a while of making progress, I was discharged and taken home by my dad. It was the best feeling to be able to breathe in the cold fall air and be held my someone that I love. I finally felt free again. I was no longer trapped or restrained or held against my will. Stepping outside those doors felt weird, like no time had passed at all and it was all a horrible nightmare that I had finally woken up from. Some people say that everything happens for a reason, but I see no reason for a child to be internally hurt so badly.