No

by Jennifer Bioche

Created on: December 16, 2009

People with mental illness wouldn't be throwaways if the system they are thrown into wasn't so flawed. Involuntary commitment in the United States is a regular occurrence, and very often the sane are mistaken for the insane.

In 2003 my husband and I were in the course of some terrible marital problems. We had just had our fourth child.  Sleep was scarce and tempers flared. One night it got bad and there was some yelling. The next thing I knew, six police officers were in my living room, circling me like a suspected felon.   I was standing in my kitchen, dressed in only a bathrobe. For the next 45 minutes they paced, asked me questions, and raised their eyebrows.

I tried to maintain my right to not answer and offered to speak to one of them in private. They declined.

The stand-off continued. It ended by me agreeing to go the local psychiatric hospital. I thought it was to visit with a counselor, sort things out.  Once out of the car in the hospital parking lot, I was surrounded by 8 people, who closed in on me in unison.

"Let’s just take this slow,” one of them said.

I blacked out, and woke up hours later, faced down on a bed in the dark.  I felt my underwear being pulled down, but couldn’t move. A needle was inserted into my rear and a burning sensation trickled into my bloodstream.

What followed after that was unthinkable. I woke up again, to find myself in a locked ward and on a perfectly legal three day hold, supposedly for the incident at home. I was told to attend the ward’s 12 step programs for addictions I didn’t have, or jewelry-making therapy. I wanted to see my children, but the doctor later scolded me for such a request.

“If you don’t take the medication you’ll never see your children again.”  I was incredulous. I started to cry. This was all documented as further evidence of my “illness”.

A few days later, I would appear before a judge, having arrived at the courthouse in a caged sheriff van, like a criminal.

There a psychiatrist testified against me, describing my disorder which included having “intense paranoia” and being “overly aggressive”.  The attorney assigned to represent me said little during the hearing. With one slam of a gavel I was declared incompetent. If I refused medication, I would be forcibly injected and it was ordered I stay in the hospital for one month.

During those weeks I lost all sense of who I was, especially as my children weren’t allowed to see me.  The friends and family who did come to visit me had all bought into the notion that I was ill. This sent me spiraling down.    

I was released finally and believed incorrectly that if I could just get home to my children and resume my previous life, I could make things right again. But I couldn’t. Soccer moms in the school parking averted their eyes when I waved. Some stared. Some just came right out and asked if I was “still taking my medication”. There was now a divide I couldn’t cross. They were the sane. I was “sick”.

My children showed visible scars of my absence.  They were irritable, behind in school and cried at the drop of a hat.  My marriage, once solid was now bleating. The bills rolled in, and the final tally for my “care” after insurance tallied in the thousands.

I crashed into a horrible depression and couldn’t get out of bed. Now I really did feel crazy. Luckily and yet also sadly, I would discover that my story wasn’t unique. The internet took me into the world of other psychiatric “survivors”.

"Over one million Americans are involuntarily committed every year in the U.S.,” says Jim Gottstein, attorney at law in Alaska and founder of Psych Rights, a non-profit organization focusing on unwarranted court ordered drugging. Gottstein, who earned his JD from Harvard, posts “Everyday Horrors of The Mental Health System” on his site where people, often respected and educated members of the community, recount their time in the psychiatric slammer.

But Gottstein’s efforts are not just to blog and weep. His group, founded in 2002 is on overdrive to expose the abuse of involuntary commitment. In June of 2006, the Alaska Supreme Court heard Myers v. Alaska Psychiatric Institute, which ruled Alaska's forced drugging procedures unconstitutional. Faith Meyers was a patient objecting to being forcibly medicated, Gottstein represented her. Psych Rights also works at exposing the pharmaceutical’s role in minimizing the side effects of these medications. They focus on the importance and alternatives for counseling and non-medicated therapies for the mentally ill. 

Today many Americans die in these hospitals over forced medication. That’s the real issue we need to address.  Luckily I survived my ordeal and lived to tell about it. Others aren’t as fortunate. It’s a terrible thing to be declared insane. It’s an even greater tragedy to die trying to prove that you aren’t.

Learn more about this author, Jennifer Bioche.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.