Medical Did Anyone Get PTSD from Involuntary Hospitalization

[Tigergirl1217]

Hello everyone,
I was wondering if I am not alone, and if anyone experienced trauma from force psychiatric inpatient treatment. When I was 18 my friends found out that I was on the verge of suicide, so I tried to flee. As I ran my friend caught up and held onto me for life. I got out of her grip, but then ended up in the hands of an officer, I was on the ground this time. After all that I was tied to a gurney to an ambulance so I could get a shot of haldol, which I felt very violating. Then they took me to the ER which is the place where i got all my cloths cut off, including my underwear. Later I realized I was on a hold before I went to the psychiatric hospital. I felt like a caged animal. I was court ordered treatment when on my 18th birthday, hence when my hold was over I just agreed to stay another day voluntarily. I also find hugging very triggering because the staff would bear hug restrain me. I am In college now, It Is getting In the way of building friendships. I am just so scared that the same thing can happen to me again if I get any closer to my acquaintance because she got so concerned over a panic attack. I did not talk to the friend that restrained me for almost a year. Prior to all of this I did have a traumatic experience with a medical procedure that involved a catheter when I was 6. I also feel rage with psychiatrists. Does anyone else feel the same?

 

[Teamwork]

I used to run away as a kid, and when I was hitting the preteen age got really quiet and withdrawn. my mom had some serious mental health issues so was seeing a psychiatrist. she told him about me but added quiet a bit more to it then just that, so he worked to get a bed ready for me. The next time I ran away, I was sent to stay with friends of the family. The bed wasn’t ready but, when it was I was taken home where my mom explained to me that I was going into the hospital for a rest. She did not tell me the type. My dad was very agaianst this so they had quite a fight at the house before we left, however during admitting process he and I were completely silent. I was 12 yrs old being admitted to an adult psych ward. Once there I was routinely drugged, saw people being put in straight jackets, had complications where my tongue wouldn’t work properly then be told by the nurse that I really needed to tell them sooner when this was happening. eventually another much older teen was admitted and she took me under wing and we ended up taking off from there. I was completely drugged, completely freaked out by this place and all too desperate. At the house we went to I managed to steal a razor from the bathroom cabinet and took back to the ward when we returned. I did a pretty bad number on my wrist requiring 42 stitches and life got much worse from there because they sent me up to a locked ward. Eventually they looked for a youth facility and found one 2 hours away. This was a huge psychiatric facility run by the government, with locked wards, PA systems that had calls for when patients went off the charts and all staff would go running to help. I was put in seclusion at least twice and totally by the means you describe and with the same drug.I was sent there and stayed there for over a year because the two cities Children’s aid fought over whose care I should be in. Once discharged, I was considered institutionalize and sent to a mental health group home. Did I wind up with ptsd from this absolutely, no denying it, but it was also on top of early childhood abuse, and the reason i ran from home so frequently. Which by the way i was never sent back home, but I am still working all this out years later.

 

[Friday]

I would suspect that’s going to fall under a different diagnosis & treatment paradigm...

...just from personal experience of having been physically restrained and put through immense pain against my will... in vastly different circumstance. Even the closest circumstance (held down by force, mouth held open by force, and my teeth shattered & nerves drilled being one, and two ditto except my gums were also being sliced into and shards of broken teeth were being yanked out of my very infected gums)... the second one was actually infinitely more painful, and infuriating, and humiliating, and I was begging them to let me die or kill me... but those were doctors trying to help me (fixing what had been done to me whilst being tortured). Again, what the doctors did was infinitely worse pain-wise & on nearly every other score... but that segment of time has “logged” very differently, with both far fewer and some veeeedery different after effects, than the time I was being tortured.

Ditto all of the other examples I have of against-my-will vs life-or-death. It’s just like they slot differently... both in how I reacted at the time AND in how I’m affected now.

Probably the biggest reaction difference at the time was how big my emotions were. In painful but not life threatening circumstance I tended towards BIG reactions. Probably over the top, in retrospect. The same way I’ll hiss or swear or wave my hand around -or kick/throw something- after getting a paper cut, but be completely silent or shout “I’m fine!” If I’m seriously injured. That kind of disproportionate reaction.

One of those after effects differences is that I’ll often use the non-life threatening events to avoid my trauma. It’s easy to think about, talk about, be mad about, and it’s super shiny & distracting. I don’t do that with my bigT trauma stuff. It’s almost impossible to think about, talk about, or feel anything about... even when I want to (or don’t want to). It’s like, even though the events themselves were shockingly similar on paper, the results of those events couldn’t be more 180 different from each other.

It’s like, when I’m pulled out of a collapsing structure I’m trying to make a save in? The person I’m mad AT is the person pulling me out (physically or my following orders) preventing me from doing what I want. They get the full force of all my rage directed right at them. They’re the shiny distraction. The big fat target I can pour all of my everything at. They’re the ones who are safe TO be mad at. But my nightmares? Are of the people being crushed, the screaming, the silence.

Just like the teeth thing. My waking thoughts are -easily- on the doctors. But my nightmares -and what I try to never think, talk, or feel anything about- is what happened before.

Clearly, I have complex trauma, and sorting out normal stuff vs trauma stuff is one of those things I both a) have to work on -a lot- so it’s something I’m used to parsing, even if it sucks :banghead: & b) I don’t know how normal people’s brains (or brains with differen5 disorders) categorize stuff. I know that in my own realm of experience different things seem to be stored in my brain in different ways, and have different effects on my life. (A lot of the biggest effects? Aren’t PTSD, by the by. I have full on lost my mind in grief, as an example. <<< I mostly mention this because some people seem to think that PTSD is the gold standard for pain. It’s not. A lot of things are infinitely more painful.)

I just know that personally I have to separate the different types of events and come at them very differently. Because they respond & react very differently. The life threatening & sexual assault stuff responds gangbusters to PTSD treatment and pretty durn terribly to other modalities, the other stuff responds badly to PTSD trestment, but gangbusters to other modalities. Is there some crossover? Absolutely! CBT & cognitive distortions would be a great example of that. But, for the most part, if I’m trying to treat one thing like the other? I end up with either no traction, or just make things worse. :wtf:

So, like I said, I would suspect that trauma therapy isn’t where you’d find the best ways of dealing, but that’s just my own experience & observation.

 

[Ronin]

Did I wind up with ptsd from this absolutely, no denying it, but it was also on top of early childhood abuse, and the reason i ran from home so frequently.

(A side note)
... So you do not have it from the hospital things.

But from the childhood abuse (and likely abandonment / neglect, etc, depending who and how looked (out) for you the time you ran.)

Back to the original poster...

I felt like a caged animal.

Feeling caged and being caged are two quite different things.

As to personal?
I had some super bad juju happen in a hospital, very close to a return from other quite bad experiences / changing countries and situations and in bit of a loop between a rock and a hard place, while my ordinary life was close to a student / enrolled in academia.

They are quite different things.
Actual torture in X settings is (while happening at places) miiiiles away from staff just doing their duties (and doing badly), and other people trying to help.

Ditto to being quite different from the same thing, other settings.

In your situation, I would look for psychiatrists / other treatment that are comfort bringing, where you can discuss fears and anxieties, and the like, the kind of non judgmental and friendly environment, since that is pretty straight forward, a bad and scary experience that was traumatic for you, but I am not quite sure rises to the type warranting the torture label / would not respond well to being treated as such.

 

[Tigergirl1217]

would suspect that’s going to fall under a different diagnosis & treatment paradigm...

So what exactly do you think it could be? I mean my psychiatrist diagnosed me with PTSD, but then again she is diagnosis happy. I would love insight as to what could possibly be or what I could do.

 

[Friday]

No idea! :D

Here’s why...

It could be a lot of things with names (including PTSD, if you’re like me and focusing on the littleT trauma to avoid bigT trauma.... like, oh, and I was raped (while I was there, last month, as a kid, etc.) but that doesn’t really bother me, it was being restrained that bothers me.... or the reason I was suicidal was because I haven’t been able to eat or sleep since I shot a burglar/ i’m wracked with guilt from my best friend dying in a car accident we were both in last year when I was driving/ my neighbors house burned down killing them all/ I was abused as a kid/ etc.).

It could be even more things without names. Meaning someone doesn’t have to have a full fledged disorder to have some cause & effect stuff going on. “I was held when I didn’t want to be = I don’t like people holding onto me” ... isn’t insane. It’s a very normal cause & effect type of reaction. So is “I felt betrayed by a friend = I’m afraid of making friends”. That doesn’t mean you’re stuck with the reaction forever, if you don’t want to be.

AND It could be a combination of a 1 or more named things + unnamed things. Like Depression + Fear can add some huge crazy weight to the thing you were afraid of. Because of the hopelessness of depression attaching itself to the fear piece. Or if you have sensory issues, or HFA, being held can provoke a suicidal meltdown, when there’s already a suicidal meltdown happening? Yeah. Worse x1000. Or if you had PTSD from something earlier in your life, the ginormous stressor = all kinds of off the wall symptomatic, for things that wouldn’t normally bother you. Or OCD + a betrayal = rumination overload. Et cetera.

Waaaaaay too many possibilities to even begin to list, kind of thing.

 

[Sideways]

Got first hand experience in how traumatic the experience can be when you’ve attempted, or are attempting suicide, and the things people do to prevent that occurring. I’ve still got open wounds, years on, from things that were done to me by medical professionals whp were intervening trying to stop me suiciding. Seriously disturbing stuff some of it. Still hard to grapple with.

But my correct primary diagnosis? Is the one that relates to why I was trying to commit suicide in the first place. The awful shit that went on preventing that happening is secondary mental health stuff consequent to my primary issue.

So, whatever was driving you to attempt suicide in the firsf place? As thoroughly traumatic as the consequent police & medical intervention may have been? It’s the “why was I at the point of suicide?” question that is likely to unwrap your core mental health issue.

And that? Could be absolutely anything.

 

[Friday]

So, whatever was driving you to attempt suicide in the firsf place? As thoroughly traumatic as the consequent police & medical intervention may have been? It’s the “why was I at the point of suicide?” question that is likely to unwrap your core mental health issue.

This.

 

[Teamwork]

A side note)
... So you do not have it from the hospital things.

But from the childhood abuse (and likely abandonment / neglect, etc, depending who and how looked (out) for you the time you ran.)

Back to the original poster...

I’m having trouble understanding what you are saying Ronin. Yes, there was much in the hospital that was ptsd related, as what came before it gave me no resources to cope with what I observed, went through, and how I was treated. It compounded it but would not have been the original source of cptsd.

 

[Tigergirl1217]

So, whatever was driving you to attempt suicide in the firsf place? As thoroughly traumatic as the consequent police & medical intervention may have been? It’s the “why was I at the point of suicide?” question that is likely to unwrap your core mental health issue.

This I know was a chain of events from my lifetime. Some could be considered traumatic. I've been wanting death since I was 12.

 

[Ronin]

I’m having trouble understanding what you are saying Ronin.

:) Nah, got me just fine.

I was reacting to the initial line of what I quoted of your post, being: Did I get ptsd from this, absolutely...
So went on thinking about there is enough in your post that would not be FROM that, and not the similar situation to what Tigergirl was asking about, hence looking for parallels if that happened might be misleading.

So that long noodle I posted after. .)

 

[Sideways]

Some could be considered traumatic. I've been wanting death since I was 12.

I totally understand why you might not want to focus on those years that preceded this traumatic event. That’s totally okay. Don’t want to talk about that part? No problem.

But that doesn’t make it insignificant. The statement that you’ve made here? Indicates that you’ve been enduring an astronomical level of stress for a long time, and from an age where most people don’t have any need to have suicide on the mind.

To me, it sounds like your story is a lot bigger and more complex than this traumatic event. Yes, absolutely the event you described in your OP sounds hella traumatic. But there’s clearly a lot more to your story, and I’m getting the impression a lot of your story is really painful.

So, if you don’t currently have a therapist you can trust? Absolutely you’re potentially going to find the support of a good T really life-changing. You life doesn’t need to be this hard or this awful. If this hospital event is where you want to start? Cool, start there. But know that this event, as traumatic as it was, is part of your story. And the whole story of who you are, and what’s brought you to this point - it’s all relevant.