It's been extremely difficult to go through life with the trauma I have from my parents (and a few other people later in life) forcing me into psych wards. For reference I had a terrible home environment as well as social difficulties growing up in a military/Catholic family. It was high pressure and they wanted me to be a golden child, but I was too different in various ways. My mother especially was abusive to my father and me. I tried my best to get either emancipated or graduate early to get away.

My attempts were struck down. I got increasingly suicidal so my parents tosssd me into wards. It got to the point my senior year where, when I lost a lot of weight ("severe anorexia" categorization to give a weight reference), where they just tossed me into one for ssveral months. It was so horrific. I felt so humiliated and unloved. I knew what people were probably saying about me back home and I got seriously mistreated. I started hallucinating 24/7 and having seizures. My family kept extending and extending it until I just pretended to be okay to go home. I still wish I could've just died before being subjected to all of that.

There's a lot of physical, emotional, mental, medical, legal, sometimes sexual abuse in these places. The elderly wail as things happen to them. A little girl tried to hang herself in front of me. People legitimately use psych wards to traumatize and ruin others' lives in the U.S.. Even my ex who was beat by his mother had his mother come in and threaten to sue when he was 5150ed because the conditions are that bad.

They coerce you to do medications and treatments that are often improper but you can't self advocate since you are the crazy one vs a doctor. They almost never let you go after the 72 hours and getting a lawyer is difficult and they discourage you. You have to wait inside while your trial awaits too and they scwre you saying they might judge you too insane if you go to trial and make you a ward of the state which is even worse. They prevent you from contacting friends, family, and employers unless you have the numbers memorized and take away your phone so you can't record things to sue. They also try to keep you from sharing contact information with others to prevent you from trying to sue. Even the people who go in voluntarily are often coerced and most try to get out almost immediately seeing how awful it is. (I get some places are better, but this was from my exposure to them in mixed units where there are both voluntary and involuntary, so they were worse conditions.)

I don't want to go into some of the worst of what happened to me right now because the ptsd is getting really bad, but all I know is that I have gone through so much of my life panicked, afraid of the government, and feeling like my body isn't mine and my autonomy can be taken at any second.

They so bad there was a study on workers who agreed to be treated as patients and they had to stop the study after less than a week because the workers were developing problems from the trauma even as people who went in involuntarily. I even know some people know both psych wards and prisons intimately, maybe even been to both, and say prisons are better. I don't want to go into too much detail about me specifically but I had a lot happen to me. For reference I was raped/SA'ed multiple times and I would go through it all again so many times rather than be subject to psych wards again.

My family still feels no real remorse for the damage done. I have to live with so much pain, shame, and paranoia of people conspiring against me to take away all my life, my privacy, my dignity. To top it all off, finding a therapist who doesn't support the system is like walking through a landmine. I understand they are legally mandated reporters if they know someone is suicidal. They can't change that. But the least they can do is understand what they are doing to people. Last time I tried to vet one it went extremely poorly.

I want specialized trauma therapy really badly, but I can't go through retraumatizing and explaining myself to a million "professionals" who don't even know the system they are a part of. Who don't even stop for a second to know what it's like to have your bodily autonomy and life ripped from you, whether you are suicidal or not, but especially if you already are. Who haven't been listening to the thousands if not millions of patients who have been screaming at the top or our lungs that we regret being/won't be honest about our problems because of happened/might happen to us.

I've seen tons of people warn against it, not just me, when professionals are supposed to be the people we can be the most honest with. All they do it sit there on their high horse in their comfy white collar job, probably never been through anything like that in their life, without consideration of how it affects people. And no, I don't mean all, but how do I find one who isn't like that? It's already hard enough to phrase it without sounding like a suicide risk.