“Do you need to go lie down?” Her light pink lips were turned into a solicitous frown.
“No Darlene, I am fine.”
“Okay pumpkin, if you insist.” Her drawl was not motherly like the young nurse probably intended but instead incredibly annoying.
“I am not a gourd Darlene.” He whispered under his breath.
“Oh honey, simmer down!” She had heard him and called back amiably as she walked away.
Tom shot a glare in her direction and settled further into his chair, pulling his arms around himself.
Ten minutes later he was dead asleep. He couldn’t help it, it was the drugs. There was a fine line between subduing the patients and knocking them out and they seemed to have never hit the balance with him. He normally spent all day every day drifting out of hazed reality and sleep.
This time he was woken up by one of the orderlies with his hands under each armpit lifting Tom to his feet. Tom startled awake. It would be okay if they woke him and asked him to get up or something, but he was treated like a rag doll. They didn’t expect him to be capable of much. Not much of the patients in there really were. They were drugged into oblivion. Most of them used to be dangerous. They thought Tom used to be dangerous. After all, that’s what Riley told them.
“Wha- where are we going?” Tom broke out of his grasp to stand on his own and pull his thin white hospital t-shirt straight.
The orderly raised his eyebrows and Tom gave a calm gesture with his hands to signify that he wouldn’t be any trouble.
“It’s time for treatment Tom.”
“As if these drugs aren’t doing enough? I don’t need that.”
“Tom, that’s not up to you to decide. Are you going to cooperate?”
“Well, what kind of treatment is it? You could at least tell me that.”
“Tom, your brother signed off on it, it’s okay, just come along and behave.”
Another orderly noticed the pair and joined the group. Ready to reinforce. It made a deep pit twist in Tom’s stomach. To them, he was dangerous and unreasonable. They would never come close to treating him like a real person. It didn’t matter what he did to prove to them that he was indeed sane.
I was doing a late night email check and was beyond delighted to see this petiton update for Garth Daniels, an Australian man who was being subjected to excessive restraints, drugging and electroshock has finally be realeased and will be given proper care to rebuild his life. Get the rest of the details here.
Chris Dubey is a psychiatric survivor who has done excellent writing on the issues surrounding electroshock. Seriously, I was thrilled when I stumbled across his work. He recently shared his FDA shock device reclassification response on Mad in America To read more of his well cited and argued work elsewhere on the web, check out the links below. Letter to Three Connecticut Politicians about…
some may argue that threatening patients with electroshock to control their behavior is a thing of the past. I call bull crap. On the recent electroshock Facebook Q&A page a psychiatric survivor shared this information about the abusive and coercive treatment that was used against her and the backlash of her incarceration has had on her life have been devastating. She was able to avoid…
There’s this belief that forced electroshock is a thing of past–something rare or nonexistent in enlightened, modern-day psychiatry. Recently, there was even a change in Irish law that seemed to protect a patient’s choice to refuse shock. But it turns out it’s utterly useless. The article below explains how this patient refusal can easily be overturned by psychiatrists. All they have to do is…
Longtime Psychiatric Patient Sues Hospital for Excessive Restraint Use and Forced Electroshock
Longtime Psychiatric Patient Sues Hospital for Excessive Restraint Use and Forced Electroshock
Trigger warnings: Footage of unmodified electroshock Restraints Forced electroshock Forced hospitalization Pro shock comments This video is an excellent find by kiwijustice2blog.wordpress.com. View story in the link below. Is it ever acceptable to apply electro convulsive therapy against a patient’s will? Garth Daniels is a 40 year, long time mental patient who has been subjected to forced…
