#institutionalized

[eerieeccentrix]

[be-listen-we-are-in-loud]

I Hope My Little Sister Doesn't Remember Me

An Excerpt from an up-and-coming anthology "Intimacy in Institutions: Stories of Autonomy, Connection, and Rebellion"

CW: ableism, institutionalization, seclusion

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Her name was Kylie, and she was five years old. Her favorite color was probably pink, but it could just as easily have been green. She liked glitter glue and playing foosball on the hard cement outside and scribbling with markers way beyond the lines in every coloring book on the ward. She ate new foods with a pinched expression like she expected the staff to feed her old socks, and she cheered like they'd just said she got to go home for real every time the kitchen served her favorites. She was the sweetest five-year-old I'd ever met, and she reminded me of myself every time I saw her squeal giddily and bounce back and forth on her toes. She reminded me of myself every time I listened to her scream herself hoarse in seclusion, too.

The thing about seclusion is that it's supposed to be a last resort. This is news to me, and it definitely would have been news to Kylie, since seclusion more or less became the staff's go-to timeout spot for Kylie, probably because of how much she fucking hated it in there. This institution had one of the better seclusion rooms. It was bigger than most and the floors and walls were actually a little bit padded, but it was still just a big closet they liked to lock misbehaving children inside.

Kylie was locked in seclusion a lot. Even though I was barely thirteen at the time, I remember thinking that the staff were cruel for doing things the way they did. Even the nice staff, even the staff I liked, always seemed to screw up when it came to Kylie.

From what I could tell, Kylie was actually a pretty easy case. She was five years old, rocked on her heels, had anger issues related to loud noises, bright lights, and sudden shifts in routines, and she did what she was told nearly all of the time. There was only one rule the staff were supposed to follow to support Kylie and--despite the fact that telling her five minutes before an activity changed that the activity was going to change seems pretty simple--there were zero rules the staff actually followed to support Kylie.

I tried to get involved sometimes, to calm Kylie down before she could be dragged kicking and screaming into seclusion. I felt like I was taking the role of big sister, sorting out the problems before the rest of our terrifying family could descend on her like a pack of angry wolves. It didn't work, didn't keep them from prying her fingers off the legs of the foosball table and lifting her into the air, dragging her inside the seclusion room and slamming the door behind her.

"Don't get involved," a staff member with a kind face said to me after, "It's not your job, and we're trained in de-escalation."

I remember thinking that if that was the work of someone trained in de-escalation, I was terrified to find out what happened to five-year-old girls who stomped their feet and said, "No, I don't wanna go inside!" in the real world.

Kylie spent her sixth birthday in the institution. She was supposed to go on a home visit, but too many visits to seclusion dropped her levels--the staff's favorite game to play with us--to low for her to leave. She spent a few hours with her parents in a side room, probably just the same as I had spent and would go on to spend my thirteenth and fourteenth birthdays respectively inside of the acute ward at that same institution. Her parents brought in special birthday food and played games with her until their time was up and they had to go home without her.

There were three, maybe four of us, in the institution then. In an effort to distract her, the staff let us sit around the television and watch her favorite Studio Ghibli film. I can still remember the way she'd excitedly cry, over and over, "Haku! Haku! Haku!" every time the dragon's face appeared on screen. The way the word spilled out in an excited mess and the way her eyes seemed to sparkle were dug deeper into my memory each and every time I've thought of her for the last seven years.

At the time of writing this, Kylie should be about fourteen years old. She's the same age as my younger brother, something I probably realized at the time but forgot quickly. It's only now that I'm doing the math again that I realize she'll be starting her first year of high school soon, or finishing the last year of middle school, assuming she's not a part of the statistic that says youths who are discharged from an institution face a suicide rate that is "more than 30 times the general population rate for as long as 5 to 10 years thereafter." (Fontanella et al, 2020)

Assuming the best of things, Kylie's a teenager now, with hobbies and interests and hopefully a halfway decent support network. She's probably got a favorite subject in school, and passions she dives into intensely. She's probably got a handful of close friends and a dozen acquaintances, and her time in the institution is probably as distant of a memory as her baby blanket.

Probably.

Hopefully.

I wonder if she's seen Spirited Away again since that day. I wonder if it triggered something in her brain when she did, if she remembered cheering for Haku on her birthday with tear tracks still drying on her face as she sat on a couch only a few yards away from the padded room. I wonder if she remembers the staff who failed her again and again and again. I wonder if she remembers the coloring books and the glitter glue and the foosball table. I wonder if she remembers the girl who tried desperately to be her big sister when no one else would.

More than anything, though, I wonder if she remembers seclusion. For her sake, I hope she doesn't.

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. . .

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Citation:

Fontanella CA, Warner LA, Steelesmith DL, Brock G, Bridge JA, Campo JV. Association of Timely Outpatient Mental Health Services for Youths After Psychiatric Hospitalization With Risk of Death by Suicide. JAMA Netw Open. 2020;3(8):e2012887. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.12887

[furiousgoldfish]

If you have experiences to provide or facts to provide about this, please add them on this post!

[ranidspace]

kendrick recs:

his entire discography

actually, i said that as a joke but. no genuinely for fucking real.

its so fucking hard to pick favourites songs. just pick an album and listen to the whole thing. any album. if you heard people saying Kendrick won a pullitzer, it was for DAMN. which is an incredibly good album to start with. To Pimp A Butterfly is the highest rated album of all time and is so fucking good. Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers is his newest full album and feels a bit different to the rest but still it's on the same quality. Section.80 and good kid, m.A.A.d. city are both incredibly solid albums and both iconic in their own way. everything this man puts out is amazing. It's hard to put into words how much i love it all sorry

If ur a kendrick fan reblog this with ur favourite song from each album to give non kendrick fans recommendations

[unwillingrealityshifter]

I find it very difficult to sum up 47 days of horror and torment into a 1 hour recapitulation while pointing out the most specific, painful details, those that I've never told anyone before, because it is simply too painful to even think about, let alone let it out for another human being to hear. This time it was simply necessary. Just puke it all out, all the blood, the shit, the smells and sounds and fears and screams in the middle of the night with no warning or reason.

I think I died there.

Ever since the first night there, God is no longer my biggest enemy. I was the most desperate, most scared in my whole life. I have lived through the burn of hatred since I was five. I faced drowning and kicking, ribs cracking since I was ten years old. I survived a man with a big knife and big hands sliding over my skin, I broke that circle of little girls when I was fourteen. I've felt pain many describe as worse than childbirth.

But those first moments in that cage, I prayed for the first time in thirteen years. The desperation swallowed my pride like rotting candy. I can't reignite the burning, searing rejection, the hate, the defiance that could rival Lucifer's, the power I've had before.

God isn't my worst enemy now.

I have much more important matters to attend to.

The list grows and ages along with me. So many red letters. One day, I might tear the pages out and throw them in the river, let the water wash it all away, but I know I've always been this way. Since I started kindergarten. Since I was four, for fucks sake. It didn't feel wrong to imagine strapping down and starving the fat boy who punched me in the face, cutting flesh and skin off of him. It didn't even feel strange.

It felt just natural.

Now I see different faces. The ashes in the urn. The kids who caused me to start showering with a locked door so no one could see the bruises and scratches. The man who branded me for the next seven years.

But those have now moved to the bottom of the very long, exhausting list.

The real monsters have taken center stage now.

When the world ends, I just might be waiting at the door.

[captainpirateface]

Friendship

[fr0gpuppy]

I HATE THE HOSPITAL

November 8 2024

crayon on paper

[viewfromthelake]

Discovered a great site for making memes called The Death Generator. Time for me to become intolerable.

[stimtickle]

“I have trouble sleeping at night. I have bad dreams like I’m falling and wake up scared. Sometimes it takes me a while to remember where I am.” - Brooks

Photos by Tim Stickle / 2015

[unwillingrealityshifter]

My body is a doe, scared, heart pounding, they hold me down and I don't understand.

The monsters wear human faces. They're not human. They smell artificial. Their souls are pressing against my skull. They're incomplete, like a fundamental part of their nature was pumped full of chemicals, strapped to harsh metal and cut out.

I don't think they even realize what they are.

I can sense my own fear, my head supplies me with images that I know mustn't be real. They're pressing me down, surrounding me.

"Unnatural, unpure, sick, corrupted, monster.."

Their words overlap in an infinite cacophony, again and again, and with panicked breaths I am gazing up at them and respond,

"Not me, not me, not me..."

[maroonpalt]

Comment what you did and if you think Ted can save you o7

I unfortunately am going to jail along with my lawyer because we tried to rizz up the judge and at first he was into it but then he realized we were bribing him and declared me and Ted guilty 😔

All I wanted was a pepsi

[strawbynrobyn]

Had a dream that I was doing high school like normal but then when it was time to go- I went to some kind of at risk/recovery house with the other students. Like I didn't go home. I was institutionalized but they still let you got off campus for school.

Also it was implied as an alternative to juvie on top of the rehab (which tracks) but I was the only one there for something ✨ violent ✨ that everyone knew about but they weren't afraid of me either, just picked on me.

Some girls were like "that's so scorpio of you" -actually I'm a Pisces "oh no that's so much worse"

[stimtickle]

“They send you here for life and that’s exactly what they take.”

Photos by Tim Stickle / 2015

[seymourmusicclub]

Kendrick Lamar  - Institutionalized