One of the many issues I have with "treatment" in psych wards (in my own experience) is how not doing every single thing they force on you in the name of recovery is literally DOCUMENTED and can be used against you (in the sense of, me, and others I've known, have been held in the facility for longer for not following "treatments" they want us to follow).
Here are some personal examples of this:
I didn't want to take a new medication they prescribed me because they hadn't discussed it with my dad yet (I was 17, but my dad knows more about medications and about our family history of addiction). I told them I would take my meds once my dad said he agreed with them. They told me they would document me not taking my meds and said it "could come up during treatment plans" which were monthly meetings about our progress and were the only meetings that concluded if you could leave the facility or not.
I have extremely picky eating (most foods make me nauseous, gag, or cause severe pain). Because of this, I barely ate a lot of the food they offered, especially because they refused to give me dairy free food despite me having a doctor's order for a no-dairy diet. When I didn't eat at least 25% of my meal, they would document it and discuss it in the treatment plan meetings saying that I wasn't participating in treatment. Thus, lengthening my stay.
When I would walk out of a group therapy sessions when in distress, they would document it and tell me that i HAD to attend all group therapy sessions for the whole length. This happened on various occasions, each time I had left due to having a panic attack, meltdown, or similar state. On the one time I forced myself to stay in a session while overwhelmed, I ended up yelling at someone to shut up (they were constantly saying bigoted things even tho I asked them to stop. they also did this out of group therapy) and threw a marker at them while I was actively panicking. I was them punished for this despite telling staff I couldn't handle to stay when in distress and put on unit restriction (i couldn't leave the unit AT ALL, not even for meals or for recreation time. All meals were brought to me, meaning i couldn't pick foods i could eat and wasn't allowed utensils). I stayed on unit restriction for 4 days and was delayed discharge.
Another patient didn't want to take their meds because it made them feel sick (i believe they said it was making some of their psychotic symptoms worse as well. I'm not certain as this was around 2 years ago) and the staff tried to force them to take it. They ended up having a panic attack and were restrained by staff for "resisting" (they were on the floor crying) and were forcefully given a sedative. While fighting back against being restrained and sedated, they punched the staff member. They ended up being punished for this by being put in the "quiet room" which was a white room with no furniture where you were supposed to just sit on the floor until you "calmed down enough" to be let out. She never got medical treatment for the bruising on her hand from punching back nor whatever other injuries she may have gotten during the event. She was forced to stay in the quiet room for at least 2 hours and couldn't leave.
These stories are from 3 of the 5 psych wards I have been to.
Patients are given little to no autonomy in their own treatment or how the staff treats them. The moment we try to make our own decisions on our treatment, we are seen as noncompliant and they act like we don't know what is good for us because we are mentally ill.
What's sad is half of these were a result of medical neglect and abuse. We get punished for acting out against the abuse the facility puts us through.
Before anyone recommends lawsuits, please remember that those are expensive and inaccessible to most people, especially those who are mentally ill.
One of those facilities has been under multiple lawsuits and is still running, so they didn't exactly do anything.
(People are welcome to talk about their own experiences regarding this on this post!)
