#and fucking psychotic symptoms. I can't even go back to the ward because they didn't DO anything

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What if I deactivated

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Irt the tags on my previous post: I have always struggled with reality/memory issues, of course. A lot of the time, especially when I was younger, like maybe 11 or so, I had this very strong feeling that I was lying about or exaggerating the things that were happening to me. I wasn't sure how to convey my feelings to my parents, so I basically just said something to the effect of "I'm a liar. I think I'm lying to you." And man, they held onto that for years. Any time I had a concern they would just tell me I was lying because I "admitted" to it.

Years later I was in a psych ward at 15. I had a complete nervous breakdown. I couldn't handle the stress of my own traumas, school, or what was going on in my head. When I was in there they threw the DSM-5 at me, diagnosed me with everything from bipolar to depression with psychotic tendencies to anxiety/general nervousness. They had me on 3, 4, 5, I can't even remember how many medications. It completely screwed with me, and I'm convinced that all that medicine permanently fucked up my brain chemistry in some way.

I don't remember much of my time there, but I did learn in my 20s that particular ward was shut down due to malpractice, which didn't surprise me. They were overloaded with patients, all the children were mistreated. They were over sedating 5 and 6 year olds. The youngest boy there was 3. They would keep the patients, children, away from their parents by moving them throughout different facilities without their knowledge. The final thing that got them investigated and shut down, I don't even really feel comfortable saying. I just feel really bad for the poor girl, and I think about her so very often. The nurses were straight bullies and my therapist, she did not like me. Whenever I couldn't speak, which I'm now assuming Alice was fronting back then (makes sense - that place was awful, triggering, and stressful) she would get mad at me and say I was being uncooperative & that if I couldn't share my traumas I didn't deserve to be there. If my stories or memories or feelings ever changed, she would call me a liar and accuse me of making things up again.

All that is to say at 15, I was called a liar again & a therapist reinforced this with my parents, which made me feel utterly helpless. I was somehow a liar, yet I was forced to be on several medications and had a litany of possible diagnoses. I felt like I went more nuts in there than when I went in. Afterward my parents made a point to make me feel guilty about ever needing to be there in the first place. Despite knowing everything I went through as a child, they didn't think I needed therapy at all and that I was making all my symptoms up. They completely took me off of everything cold turkey when I was 17, claimed I didn't need it. That sent me on a downward spiral that took a while to recover from. My parents took a lot of missteps when it came to dealing with my issues, and while I don't hate them for it now, I have never forgiven them.

I hated my parents a lot during this time in my life, I felt that they didn't care about me, and sometimes I still think they don't care. I have a better relationship with them now, and I am pretty close with my dad. I just don't think they understood me or knew what to do with me. It was much easier to declare I was some kind of attention hungry hypochondriac than to come face to face with the fact that I was screwed up, and that they screwed up by putting me in that ward in the first place

I also feel the need to clarify that my bio parents are divorced. My mom, the one I was raised with up until I was about 11, was the one that caused all my trauma. I haven't spoken to her in years. My parents, on the other hand, are my dad and stepmom. They are better people, and not malignantly abusive, but due to a lot of circumstances they were just kinda neglectful. The only reason I went into therapy in the first place is because I had a panic attack so bad in the gym I actually passed out & ended up at the hospital. I hate hospitals.