#forced institutionalization

this was the same hospital, mind. a different floor of the same building. but while we were doing group therapy about emotional regulation and trust building, the other floor was locking people in isolation and straitjackets and forcibly sedating them for crimes as minor as being too loud.

The association of Quebec’s psychiatrists says it supports a bill that would make it easier to forcibly hospitalize someone in a mental health crisis. Existing law permits authorities to treat someone against their will only if their mental state poses a “grave and immediate danger” to themselves or others. The bill would instead allow authorities to forcibly hospitalize people whose mental state presents a “situation where there is a danger” to themselves or others.

Read more.

Read the ACLU statement

"WASHINGTON – President Trump signed an executive order today directing states to criminalize unhoused people and institutionalize people with mental health disabilities and substance use disorder.

The order, titled “Ending Crime and Disorder on American Streets,” directs the Justice Department to expand indefinite forced treatment for people with mental health disabilities or substance use disorder, and those living on the street who “cannot care for themselves.” The order also purports to eliminate federal funding for evidence-based programs, like harm reduction and housing first, that save lives, and directs federal funds toward cities and states that criminalize substance use disorder, punish people for sleeping outdoors, or enforce other laws targeting unhoused people.

The order also calls for sweeping federal data collection on unhoused people and those with mental health disabilities, raising serious concerns about surveillance, privacy, and how such data could be used to justify further criminalization. Instead of funding services or support, the administration is prioritizing profiling and control."

Details on how this will play out on the state level, taken from a statement from the Vermont Center for Independent Living:

"This executive order:

• Ends support for Housing First, a proven Vermont strategy that helps people stabilize and rebuild their lives.

• Promotes forced institutionalization by expanding civil commitment laws and undermining longstanding legal protections for people with psychiatric disabilities.

• Conditions federal funding on aggressive enforcement of anti-loitering and anti-camping laws, resulting in sweeps and arrests rather than housing and support.

• Targets harm reduction programs, despite Vermont’s leadership in opioid response strategies that prioritize dignity, safety, and survival.

• Encourages data-sharing between housing and health agencies and law enforcement, raising serious privacy, disability rights, and civil liberties concerns.

• By conflating affordable housing access with involuntary treatment compliance, the order threatens the rights and dignity of people with disabilities. Specifically, it requires recipients of federal housing and homelessness assistance to mandate substance abuse treatment or mental health services for participants diagnosed with substance use disorder or serious mental illness."

As someone who spent a good chunk of time in a psych ward as a teenager, yes, this, absolutely. The complete isolation, being treated as something to be controlled instead of as a person who needs kindness and help, and the lack of any support when released is a perfect mix to just. Completely destroy someone.

14. Post a line of dialogue from one of your WIPs without context.

“Seventy-two hours involuntary, then a hearing, then seventy-two hours voluntary, forty-eight hours of notice before the discharge, I did it all by the book.  I’m not stupid.  You shut up and scrape by on minimum compliance, you get out and forgotten like that.”  A snap of her fingers.  “So don’t go thinking I pulled some prison break and you can play the hero cop who saves the woebegone public from the crazy psycho bitch.  I don’t play that game.”

15. Post the last line you wrote without context.

I don’t know enough about psychiatric health to talk in detail about what a comprehensive community-based, healing-oriented approaches to supporting people with severe mental illnesses would look like. I know that we need them, but past that—I’m just not the person to ask.  To answer your question of “what I meant” when I said that captivity is wrong: I meant that captivity is wrong. Also, the idea of “separating people from society” as a solution to anything is both futile and cruel.