It all began in June last year. One afternoon, bored and in need of something to occupy my time apart from writing and doing voice-overs, I called my sister and asked her to give me a “seed”, which could have been anything — a car, a sum of money or a house — and I promised to triple the seed before the end of the year. I wanted to test how industrious I could be with resources, but my sister didn’t see it that way. She thought I was talking strangely and spoke to my family about my request. Her report to my family threw them into a panic. They already were concerned I was spending time by myself.***I guess it didn’t help that I had spent some time in a psychiatric hospital the previous year due to a drug addiction problem. Depressed and unemployed in 2018, I had developed the habit of using marijuana often. One time, I ate too much and was knocked out for three days. My family admitted me to rehab in a psychiatric hospital in Abeokuta. My time in the ward was harrowing. I witnessed hospital staff regularly assault patients who didn’t do what they asked. I returned home after three months with a fear of psychiatric hospital wards.***I was alone in the house I shared with my brother, listening to music when my brother and sister came in to tell me they were taking me to a psychiatric hospital. Feeling like they were overreacting, I refused. The argument became heated, and I left to lock myself in my room. To my surprise, they broke down the door. I was worried about how violent the scenario was getting, so I tried to fend them off. My sister, who’s also a doctor, held me down alongside my brother and injected me with sedatives. I yelled weakly that I was fine and didn’t need to see a psychiatrist as I faded out of consciousness.Sometime later, I became conscious again, groggy and with a heavy cloud in my head. My hands and feet were bound behind my back, bending my body in an uncomfortable position. I was in a car speeding through a busy road. A rage I have never felt before washed over me. I asked why the Bleep my hands were bound, yelling at them to untie me and take me home and insisted that I was fine. I jerked at the knots, but they were tight. They didn’t respond to my angry questions, driving on in silence along Lagos roads.We arrived at the psychiatric ward of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital. I was enraged and exhausted, but I thought it was wiser not to struggle in the presence of the hospital personnel to avoid making them think I was violent and getting sedated again. The doctor examined me and told my family that I seemed fine. However, because they mentioned that I used marijuana, he insisted I had to be admitted. That was the last time I saw my family for the next three months.The daily routine at the ward went something like this: we were woken up at 5.30 a.m., we’d shower, get our vitals taken and then eat breakfast by 7 a.m. Morning pills were served at 10 a.m. After that, we watched TV or slept till 1 p.m., when lunch was served. You could hardly find someone to talk to because we were pumped full of medication that left us dull.My drugs made me very sleepy and groggy throughout the day. I was unable to think properly and had an increased appetite, making me gain a lot of weight. After breakfast, I was resigned to staying in bed the whole day with no activity whatsoever. A lone TV constantly tuned to one channel droned above my bed. We were never allowed to step outside.The sleeping conditions were another problem. Mosquitoes flew through the poorly installed net to sing in my ears every night as I tried to force myself to sleep in the sweltering ward. For some reason, there were no fans installed.After some time, I decided to stop taking some of the medications I was prescribed because they always made me sleep through the day and night. I was feeling a lot less sharp and unable to do things I did easily, like songwriting or recalling things. I would put the drug under my tongue and spit it out as soon as the nurse left. The nurses began to notice that I was more active and alert. I became more interested in playing table tennis on the table in the recreation room by myself, and they suspected that I was no longer using my medication. They reported to the doctors, who decided to prescribe a much more powerful antipsychotic. I hated every minute of it. I’d seen them force-feed patients with tubes through their noses, and I didn’t want that to happen to me so I cooperated.Continue reading: https://www.zikoko.com/man/family-forced-me-psychiatric-hospital/

My name is Remi, and I’m a student at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital. In 2019, I was diagnosed with depression and suicide ideation. I went to see a doctor after seeing symptoms of what I assumed was Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD).What were the symptoms?I was unable to focus on things. In class, I always zoned out or fell asleep. I had to cram to pass exams and I’d forget everything I read right after.I also had problems socially. I always preferred to keep to myself, and didn’t have any friends. My roommates tried to make friends with me but I always rejected them. My temperament also estranged people from me. I got severely angry at the slightest trigger so people generally stayed away. On the inside, I was always angry, sad or just numb.So what did the doctor do?She wasn’t convinced that I had ADHD. She chalked all my symptoms to just being stressed. I was certain I had ADHD and I was determined to make her see. I mentioned in passing that I sometimes think about killing myself and she immediately referred me to LUTH’s Psychiatric ward to see a specialist.At the psychiatric ward, I was diagnosed with severe depression with suicidal ideation and they refused to let me leave unless I called a relative. I refused. They called their intervention personnel — big, heavily-built men who they said would restrain me if I tried to make a scene. They threatened me to call my relatives or risk spending the weekend chained to a bed till Monday — it was a Friday.Woah. Why didn’t you want to call a family member?The only relatives I could call were my parents and I didn’t want them to think I had mental health issues. An uncle of mine lives with schizophrenia and I’ve always heard of them speak with him with a certain stigma. I didn’t want my parents to think I also had a mental health condition.So, who did you call?I called a doctor who worked at the NGO I volunteered for but unfortunately, she wasn’t in Lagos so I had to call my mom who called my dad. When they arrived, the nurses said I’ll need to be admitted. I lied to my parents that depression had to do with a gastrointestinal issue I had and told them I didn’t want to be admitted.My parents told the nurses that I would not be getting admitted. They were made to sign a document in which they undertook to ensure I came for my clinic appointments.I was prescribed some drugs for my depression and assigned to a psychologist. I used the drugs religiously and faithfully attended my appointments but my mental health worsened.What happened next?I was told I had to be admitted. They said I would be admitted for a period of two weeks. I knew that my condition was worsening but I was worried about missing school. My depressive episode had been triggered because I performed poorly in school and missing weeks of classes could make me carry some courses over into the next semester.I eventually agreed to be admitted, thinking two weeks wasn’t so bad. I was promised that I would get help from a team of psychiatrists and psychologists who would see me every day. I knew I needed help so I agreed.After I was admitted, a nurse told me that it was impossible for me to be admitted for just two weeks. She stated that the minimum time spent admitted was six weeks, and even that was a minimum. With severe depression, it was unlikely I’d even get out after six weeks. I hated the fact that I was lied to. Why did they have to? I would have agreed to be admitted, without needing to be lied to.Wow. Did you at least get the help you were promised?I was assigned a bed in an open ward filled with patients in varying severity of mental health conditions. I found it hard to sleep because there were no fans in the wards. There were also mosquitoes and the patient adjacent to my bed snored terribly loud.Day after day, I waited to see a psychiatrist or psychologist but none came around. I was just given drugs and food every day. I was losing my mind in boredom because my phone and laptops were taken away. I had nothing else to do but eat and sleep. The medication they gave me made me very drowsy all the time, so I was taking a lot of naps. I was also not allowed to read because they said I have something called Brain Fog Syndrome. I was bored and fed up. On top of that, I wasn’t getting the treatment I was promised.My mom came to visit daily with my favourite foods because I’m a picky eater. She’d also bring along my phone so I could text and watch movies while she was around. One time, she had a run-in with a nurse who was angry I didn’t eat hospital food. The nurse continued to be rude to my mother without provocation every day of my stay.By the fifth day, a Friday, I could no longer take it. I demanded to be discharged from the hospital because I felt I was just wasting away, doing nothing but eating and sleeping while my mates were studying. I didn’t want to risk carrying a course over at school so I asked my mom to ask for my discharge. I explained everything to her and she agreed.My mom asked for advice from a family friend who was a psychologist and she was told that I could go home as long as I attended my clinic days religiously. The nurses tried to discourage my mom from checking me out but she was determined. They threatened that if my mother took me home and I harmed myself, the blame would be on my mother. My mother and I insisted that I was lucid and was fit to attend the clinic from home.She signed the required Discharge Against Medical Advice (DAMA) form and spoke to a resident doctor who impressed on her the implications of me going home before the conclusion of my treatment. The doctor reluctantly signed my release form and said I was good to go.We handed the DAMA form to the nurses. They then refused to let me go because my dad was listed as my next-of-kin but it was my mother who came to request my discharge. The resident doctor said it was a tiny matter that could be overlooked but the nurses refused, saying my dad had to come in person. We begged and pleaded with them, stating that my dad was at work and wouldn’t be able to arrive till way past 6 pm, the closing time. That would have meant I’d have to spend the weekend at the facility since it was a Friday. They refused and insisted my dad come all the way to sign the form.Against all odds, my dad made it there before six pm that evening. The nurses tried to discourage him as well, to the point of aggression but my dad had spoken to our psychologist friend who had told him there was no harm in me going home. I had a feeling the nurses were trying to delay till closing time in order to keep me there for the weekend.Whew. So you went home, right?Unfortunately, the officer to sign my final release papers had already gone home that evening. I was told I’d have to wait till the next morning before I could go home.Wow.My mother and younger brother begged and fought and pleaded for me to be released that night to be allowed home but the nurses disagreed. I told my parents to go home and come the next morning. My father did but my mother said it was already too late to go home and make the long trip back to the hospital again in the morning. She and my brother would sleep somewhere on the LUTH campus till it was time to fetch me. I tried to discourage her but she refused. She snuck me my phone to call her in case anything was wrong because she didn’t trust the nurses.Wow. What happened next?Miserably, I went back to my bed. Shortly after, one of the nurses came to me and said she suspected my mom had given me a phone. I denied it several times. She threatened to search my things, which she did. I had anticipated this so I had hidden the phone in my shirt. She continued to insist that she was sure I had a phone on me and would search my body. I pointedly refused, telling her she had no right to touch me. I anticipated that she would be back so I hid the phone in my panties.She left and returned a moment later with one of the heavily-built crisis intervention personnel whom she ordered to handcuff me to the bed and restrain my legs while she searched me. I was screaming at her not to touch me but she did anyway. When she didn’t find it, she said she would have to search my privates and I screamed at her not to do it. She ordered the guard to hold my hands and legs while she stripped my pants off, in the full view of the male guard and the rest of the patients in the ward. She took my phone and left me on the ground, naked and screaming. I felt so violated that I didn’t know what to do but to keep screaming.Oh my God. I’m so sorry.Apparently, my screams were so loud that my mother and brother heard where they were and came running back to see what was wrong. They peered through the window and saw me handcuffed to the bed, screaming, naked and jerking at the cuffs violently. Their pleas to tell them what was wrong was left unanswered, as I could not just stop screaming for minutes on end. The nurses threatened to inject me with a sedative if I didn’t keep quiet.My mother and brother tried to get into the ward but the nurses refused to let them in. They told them nothing and the nurses threatened to have my mother thrown out. She was heartbroken seeing me in that state.Continue reading: https://www.zikoko.com/life/how-i-was-abused-at-a-mental-healthcare-facility/