#mental patient abuse

[uncanny-tranny]

I think a lot of people are frustrated sometimes when somebody expresses that therapy just "doesn't work" for them, and I used to feel that way, too, until I realized that the therapy that I was doing just wasn't right for me.

When people think therapy, I think many just assume it's all cognitive behavioural therapy and that that is the only kind of therapy out there. However, this isn't true, and CBT can absolutely be ineffective for certain situations. If you are confused by this idea, here's an example: when I was in the midst of my most recent abusive circumstance, not only was my therapy weaponized against me by my abuser, but also, the therapists I had were ill-prepared to treat ongoing abuse. They had the tools common for CBT, but there is only so much a victim can do before their circumstances are completely out of their control. In a case like this, CBT can be an unhelpful tool alone, which is why you have people who blanket statement say that all therapy is unhelpful (understandable why one would say that if they haven't had any helpful/good experiences).

It seems like people see this idea that "therapy doesn't work" as an automatic red flag, and certainly, I can imagine why one would think that. However, in a healthcare system that generally prioritizes CBT therapy as the "only therapy," it's helpful to remember that CBT isn't always the best option or the best option alone.

[pyrepostings]

Whumpee who has been in a straitjacket for so long that once they're out they still hold their arms in Position and don't feel comfortable in short sleeves.

Whumpee who got put in the straitjacket as punishment for Being Too Emotional and Needing To Calm Down and so after rescue needing lots of time and effort to admit to feeling any emotions at all.

Whumpee who gets the opportunity to burn the straitjacket when it's all over to prove it will never be used against them again.

Physically disabled whumpee who would be able to get by with a cane or crutch to walk, forced into a wheelchair they don't have the ability to control because their arms are restrained, wheeled around at the whims of the ""caretakers""

[mtt-burger-emporium]

thinking about chara and the implications of the line "chara hated humanity. why, they never said..." like ok i KNOW something was happening at home. chara baby you didn't deserve that shit i'm so glad you fell down a thousand feet in a cave hole and right into the arms of people who would keep you fed roof over your head and would never raise their hand against you. "eradicate humanity" you're 10 years old how about eradicating your shitfucked surface fam by calling cps first

[porcelain-rob0t]

when it comes to making documentaries about old mental hospitals, like Pennhurst for example, i think it's better and more productive to focus on the people who were institutionalized and giving them the voice they deserve but never got. rather than "ooooo spooky ghosts oooooooo". like yeah, ghosts are cool or whatever, but you know what's even cooler? standing up for disabled people

[meat-pvppet]

Old ass oc that looks so very prehevilcore

[quietly-by-myself]

A Wicked Work of Art - Chapter 3

Masterlist

CW: medical whump, trans whumpee, test subject whumpee, experiment whumpee, fantasy racism, dehumanization, fantasy whump, suicidal whumpee, slavery whump, injection into an open wound, stitches, references to past physical abuse, dubcon medical treatment, noncon procedure (wound stitching), discussion of mental health treatment, discussion of patient autonomy, nonsexual nudity, carewhumper, doctor carewhumper, medical restraints, broken bones

===

Just like he’d promised, Vasiliki came back within thirty minutes. In fact, he hadn’t really done anything other than brew tea for the subject, ensuring that it was the correct temperature with clinical precision.

When he entered, the subject had stopped crying. In fact, he looked rather dissociated, if Vasiliki had to put a word to it. Restricted affect, maybe. It was understandable. The subject had been through a lot of traumatic events in the recent months. A year with Constantine, as his personal “companion.” Just the thought made Vasiliki gag.

“Here’s the tea I promised,” Vasiliki said softly, placing down beside the bed, on a table with a small lamp. “I’ll let you drink it yourself, but I’m only allowing you one hand. The restraint goes back on right after, okay?”

The subject nodded, looking away from Vasiliki. Vasiliki tried not to take offense, reminding himself that the subject had failing mental health. It was Vasiliki’s job to ensure that everything about him was as healthy as possible, including the subject’s mental health.

“I’ll give you more lead on the other wrist so you can sit up.”

Vasiliki was quick with his work of unrestraining the subject’s right wrist, then loosening up his other wrist. Then, he pressed a button on the side of the bed and the bed moved the subject’s beaten body up.

Immediately, the subject began to cry out in pain. Vasiliki stopped the bed from moving him all the way up.

“What hurts?”

“My ribs, sir.”

From the sidelong gaze of the subject, Vasiliki figured that there was more to the story than sore ribs. 

“I’ll need to undress you.”

The subject swallowed and nodded his agreement. Vasiliki pulled a switchblade from one of the pockets on his lab coat and cut away the paper gown that was on the subject. 

What Vasiliki saw was worse than what he usually saw. Alongside the gnarly bruising that looked only a day or two fresh, there were deep gashes - deep gashes that Vasiliki thought to stitch up. They wouldn’t heal on their own. 

Vasiliki walked over to the wall and grabbed a pair of nitrile gloves. The snap made the subject flinch visibly. 

“It’s okay. I’m just going to feel your ribs for now.”

That did little to comfort the subject. Vasiliki didn’t exactly blame him for that. He approached carefully, very aware of the subject’s unrestrained hand. 

Now that he saw the full extent of the bruises and wounds littering the subject’s body, he was beginning to understand why the subject flinched at every one of Vasiliki’s movements. Gently, Vasiliki felt along the subject’s sternum, then felt up and down his ribs. From the look of it, the subject had been booted with some sort of spur.

“I need to feel a few of your wounds. You’re going to need stitches.”

The subject suddenly got very pale. All the blood in his body dropped to his feet.

“Please, no. I don’t want that. I can’t. I can’t take the pain. It’s okay, sir, to just let them heal like that.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll use a local anesthetic. You’ll only feel the needle when I inject it.” Vasiliki’s lips played a slight smile. “I’m the doctor here. I think you need stitches, so you’re getting stitches. I can’t give you more powerful painkillers by mouth because you need the codeine for your cough. However, the local anesthetic will do well for when I stitch you up.”

Soon enough, the subject was keening. Not even whimpering - full on keening. “Just kill me. Let me die. I can’t do this anymore. It’s too painful. It’s too much.”

“Look me in the eyes, Akakios.”

The subject was reluctant, but followed the order. There was a mix of panic and absolute despair in the subject’s eyes. It genuinely made Vasiliki’s heart ache. 

“You have a broken sternum. I would guess that some of your ribs are also broken from the amount of bruising.” 

Vasiliki, again, had to turn off the clinical side of his head and try to think about the humanity in the subject. 

“Nobody is going to hurt you here. Our job is to make sure you’re up to standard. We do what we can to ease your pain, within reason. Normally, we’d need special clearance to give you oxycodone, for example. However, I’m the one who normally approves those forms, so you’ll get something stronger once you’ve fought off this respiratory infection. Now, I want you to understand that what you went through over there is over. Constantine is gone. Okay?”

Akakios swallowed and nodded, but Vasiliki could tell it wasn’t genuine. The subject was just trying to make him happy.

“Now,” Vasiliki walked back over to the cabinets and took out five syringes, a vial of lidocaine, and a dissolving stitch kit. “I think two of those wounds on your legs and three on your chest are going to need stitches.”

“Please no.”

Vasiliki went over to the table, placing the materials on the table next to the subject. Then, he picked up the tea.

“Here,” he took the subject’s shaky hand and placed the mug in it. “Drink this first. It’ll get too cold if you don’t.”

The subject took a deep breath, then took a shaky sip of the tea. He seemed to like it, because he kept drinking it quickly. Vasiliki knew it wasn’t from dehydration. The kid had been hooked up to IV fluids since the minute he got there.

“Now, I want you to take a deep breath and try to calm down as much as you can.”

Vasiliki knew it was largely useless as he took the mug from the subject and lowered the head of the bed back down. He then restrained the subject’s free hand and tightened the restraint on the other one.

“It’s going to hurt for me to put the anesthetic in, but it’ll hurt less than the stitches without it.”

The subject just shook his head, freezing. Vasiliki sighed and drew up as many CCs of lidocaine as he safely could. As he moved to inject it into the wound he decided to work on first, the subject screamed bloody murder. He immediately devolved into pleas for mercy that dissipated quickly once Vasiliki began the stitches. 

Each time that Vasiliki injected the anesthetic, the subject screamed and each time that he started stitching the subject, the subject went quiet. He couldn’t thrash much at all with how tight the restraints were. 

“See, that wasn’t so bad?” Vasiliki went to the wall and changed his gloves, grabbing more alcohol swabs to clean the blood around the wounds. Then, he got transparent dressings and placed them on top of each of the stitched sites. 

“No, sir.”

It was a bold-faced lie.

“You don’t have to lie to me, su- Akakios. I prefer honesty. Now, I want you to be honest with me. Are you still suicidal?”

The subject looked far away from Vasiliki and nodded. Again, Vasiliki rolled the stool up to the side of the bed. 

“I can’t offer much in the way of comfort. I’m sorry for that, truly. Have you thought over what I said about putting you on something for your mental health?”

“You’ll do it anyway.”

“I will do no such thing. I think it’s counterproductive to take away your autonomy like that.”

“I’ll do anything to ease my suffering. This is all too much. I just want to die.”

Vasiliki took the subject’s hand and squeezed it a little. “I know. I can help you not feel that way, if that’s what you so wish.”

The subject seemed to consider it. “Dr. Christakos, I don’t want to feel. I don’t know what I did to deserve this.”

“I’m sure. I’m sure of that.” Vasiliki looked away from the crying subject. “It’s just this world we live in. It’s nothing you did or didn’t do. Do I understand that you’re willing to give this a go?”

The subject nodded.

“Okay. It’s an infusion combined with a pill you’ll have to take every day until we see significant improvement. I’ll get you started right away.”

Vasiliki went and found one of the nurses, ordering a high dose of ketamine, along with pills of mirtazapine. One of the nurses that Vasiliki had hand-picked brought the two to him, something Vasiliki quickly accepted. He quickly attached the bag of ketamine to the subject’s IV line, then prepared a glass of water for him to take a pill with.

The subject was compliant. Vasiliki knew that the ketamine would help faster than the mirtazapine would, but he also knew that it would produce its own set of side effects. Perhaps it was better for the subject not to remember the suffering he was going through for a few days, until the mirtazapine could start working well.

Vasiliki said little to the subject. He didn’t really know what to say to him. Tender emotions weren’t his strong suit. That was why he worked at the Facility.

Vasiliki took a deep breath and turned to face the door. Just as he was about to slide the door closed, he heard a quiet voice.

“Thank you.”

Vasiliki smiled to himself. “You’re welcome. Rest now.”

With that, Vasiliki had made his decision: he was keeping the subject for his own purposes.

Maybe the years had made him soft, but he found himself attached to the suicidal subject that had found himself under Vasiliki’s care. He wouldn’t let the subject go so easily.

Luckily, he knew who to talk to. It would take a few days, but maybe it would give the subject peace of mind to know that he was the test subject of a scientist who at least cared about his health.

That couldn’t be said about all facilities.

===

Tags (open!): @i-can-even-burn-salad, @whumpsday, @pigeonwhumps, @oddsconvert, @pumpkin-spice-whump, @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi, @writereleaserepeat, @just-a-silly-little-whumper, @sparrowsage, @inscrutable-shadow

[whoneedssexed]

BetterHelp Shares Your Data With Facebook

[inklingofadream]

I think it’s very interesting how Renfield/mental health in general are treated. Today we have “he is usually such a well-behaved man, and except his violent fits” which I don’t think is an attitude you’d really see toward Renfield’s particular behavior today. There’s a definite element of infantilization (see: the way they talk about the visitor not taking offense because it’s a madhouse, lots of general little quirks in phrasing) but I think that someone in a psychiatric institution today who attacks an administrator with a knife and draws blood doesn’t get nearly as much understanding, no matter how little they’re in control of their actions. I think today that’d get you a longterm label of being trouble, definitely not someone staff referred to as well-behaved no matter how isolated the incident

[holygroundgone]

I think it's interesting how he yu seems completely bereft of empathy for the people around him, even and especially xie xue who he supposedly has a crush on however we see such an intense outpour from him for the people at the mental health institute to the point that he risks his life and even exposes his ability he needed to hide to save these people deemed too difficult to save.

It makes me wonder if there's more to his statement of having been 'born this way'- perhaps he was born with this psychological ebola (insane phrase, insane fictional mental illness with special abilities) similar to a form of neurodivergency but it makes me wonder what was done to him, what happened to him that the only people he can feel empathy for are other victims of mental health care?

At this point it could certainly be that he just faced the extreme humiliation of mental health treatment already described in the book so far (tied up, made to look like a madman), but..

[coochiequeens]

The violent altercation resulted in police intervention. At first, Smith’s boyfriend claimed she had been abusive towards him. But later, Smith says he tried to blame it on his gender identity issues.“ While she was checked into a hospital to heal from the abuse she was reported to the police for stating that her abusive ex was transgender.

A UK woman has been summoned for an interview by Derbyshire Police over alleged “transphobic” behavior during her hospital stay at Chesterfield Royal Hospital.

Toni Smith* says she received the notice just after being released from the hospital’s mental health unit where she had been seeking treatment following a traumatic episode related to her past abuse by a trans-identified male.

Speaking to Reduxx and The Publica for an exclusive joint report, Smith explained that she was voluntarily admitted to Chesterfield’s Herrington Unit in January after contacting emergency services herself and explaining that she had self-harmed.

Smith is a survivor of repeat sexual and physical abuse — abuse she says she suffered at the hands of her transgender ex-boyfriend.

“When we met, he was a bodybuilder. His biceps were bigger than my head. I’d never met anyone as big as him.” Smith says, explaining that the two became an item in 2017. 

Just over one year into the relationship, Smith says she discovered that her partner had a proclivity for wearing women’s clothing and expressed a desire to transition.

“It completely blindsided me. I had thought for a while that he had [body] issues… at first, a lot of the habits he had were similar to the issues my body dysmorphia caused me. So I thought it was similar.” 

Smith notes that while she was not hostile to her boyfriend’s decision, she was not interested in affirming his declaration.

Given the gender ideology debate was still far-removed from mainstream popularity at the time, Smith says she had never given too much thought to the politics surrounding transgenderism 

However, her feelings about her partner’s “transition” were mixed.

“I knew straight away that I would not stay in the relationship. But I felt sorry for him, I wanted to help him feel comfortable with whatever life he was living, and I thought we could part as friends after that.” 

But it wasn’t long after that Smith says her partner became physically abusive towards her and their disagreements would often turn violent.

“He abused me horrifically,” Smith alleges. “One time, he sat on my chest and strangled me until I passed out.” 

The violent altercation resulted in police intervention. At first, Smith’s boyfriend claimed she had been abusive towards him. But later, Smith says he tried to blame it on his gender identity issues.

“He told me that the reason he’d strangled me and was so horrible was because he was jealous of me,” she explained.

Smith says the abuse continued to escalate, with her boyfriend’s gender identity becoming a catalyst for the continued deterioration of the relationship and her mental health.

“He would take my make-up and accuse me of cheating. He controlled the money but would message his family claiming I was spending it on myself or drugs. He also began coercing me into having sex with other men for money,” Smith says, explaining that “at first” he didn’t force her, but would instead invite men over and put her on the spot.

“One of them, near the end, injured me quite badly. [My partner] knew it was too much because it was the last time he made me do it. I think with others he told himself he wasn’t abusing me because I eventually gave in. He thinks that’s consent,” Smith says. “There was a lot of blood. I started getting pains after that low down in my stomach. After I left him one day I collapsed and started convulsing and the hospital found my birth control coil had been dislodged and was basically stabbing into my cervix and embedding in the inside of it.”

Smith provided Reduxx and The Publica a number of covert videos she had recorded while in the relationship. In one, he admitted to spraying a household cleaning disinfectant down her throat because she accidentally got facial toner on him while she was spritzing it on her face. 

In another video from April of 2020, Smith captured an interaction with her partner, who is seen wearing long red-dyed hair and pink pajama pants, becoming angry at her for singing in the bedroom — something Smith says she was doing to block out the verbal abuse he had been directing at her.

The interaction ends with him storming out to shut the house’s electricity off, leaving Smith in pitch-black darkness while he calls her “abusive.” 

Smith alleges that after she stopped recording to go turn the electricity back on, he kicked her into a wall.

Disturbingly, Smith says her partner then reported her for a “hate crime” for not sufficiently affirming his gender identity — something she says had happened multiple times before in their relationship. 

Police attended the residence, but classified it as a simple domestic dispute with no intervention needed.

The next day, Smith decided to end the relationship.

“The day I left, I was begging him to get help. He told me he wouldn’t … so my friend called me a taxi and I left. I went up to the north of England, at which point I suppose he realized I was not actually going to come back to him. He started threatening to kill himself unless I did, but I refused.”

Over the coming week, police contacted Smith with questions about the relationship, clearly concerned about the distressing number of calls that had come out of the residence over time. 

Smith finally opened up to officers about the abuse after the relationship ended. Merseyside Police arranged for her to record a video statement, and Derbyshire Police took over the case.

In June of 2020, two months after Smith left, her ex was arrested while police investigated Smith’s claims of having been sex trafficked by him.

“The reason it took them so long between my statement and arresting him was because they went through every report he’d made against me. He’d been reporting me without my knowledge and there were so many reports it took them a couple of weeks to make sure they’d closed all of his, which they said they now regarded as malicious and false,” Smith explained.

Reduxx and The Publica reviewed communications exchanged between Smith and a constable with the Derbyshire Police, in which “she/her” pronouns were used for her abuser.

No charges were ultimately pursued and minimal details were provided to Smith on why that decision had been reached.

“[The constable] came and said that his superior felt there wasn’t enough evidence and refused to even ask the crown prosecution service for a decision. He just closed it with no further action.”

Though Smith expresses her relief that the relationship had ended, she continued to struggle with her mental health even after the break-up. 

She experienced depressive episodes, self-harm, and severe anxiety. At times, Smith says she was scared to leave the house out of fear she would see one of the men who had been apart of the sexual abuse she endured while with her ex.

In January of 2023, Smith says she had a severe self-harming episode, and contacted her local hospital for help. 

She was directed to the emergency room at Chesterfield Hospital due to a lack of space, and was ultimately admitted to the Hartington Unit, the hospital’s psychiatric facility. Smith was placed in the female section for treatment, where she would spend the next few weeks rehabilitating. 

While there, Smith befriended a few other female patients in the unit — one of which, unbeknownst to Smith, identified as non-binary.

“There was no mention of her being non-binary. I didn’t know. I had heard her make a comment about another patient, saying that she was ‘transphobic and no mental illness causes that,’ which I thought was strange,” Smith says, continuing: “But there was no mention of her identity specifically. She seemed to be on a low-end of having a mental illness and was very functional.”

While the two had an amicable relationship at first, things went downhill after the non-binary individual overheard Smith discussing her ex-partner with another patient.

“She heard me talking to this other lady in the common area … I was opening about my ex and mentioned he was transgender,” Smith explained. She says that after she came in from an evening cigarette break, the non-binary patient was “screaming at the top of her lungs” about trans rights.

“She was standing in the communal area, shouting ‘trans women are women,’” Smith says. “She was shouting it. This wasn’t a private conversation.”

Smith explains she immediately perceived the outburst as being directed at her, and approached the young woman to relay her own experience.

“I told her, ‘go and get raped by one and tell me how much of a woman they are,’” Smith says. “I didn’t shout at her, and then I walked off and went to bed.”

It was the next day that the incident occurred which was ultimately reported to police.

“I got into an argument with a nurse who kept insisting the shouting patient was non-binary, not female. That gaslighting affects me in a strange way, because of my experience. [The nurse] told me, ‘they’re not a woman,’ and I said, ‘yes she is, she’s on a women’s ward, for a start.’”

Smith says she got very upset, and the non-binary patient overheard the conversation and began shouting from another area, recognizing the conversation had been about her.

Smith’s new partner would later call the hospital to complain about the nurse’s conduct, concerned that they had caused her emotional distress.

“We could not work out how this hospital was, on one hand, supposed to treat me for my trauma which they understood was caused by a transgender male, and on the other, argue with me that a woman was not a woman.”

Smith says the incident made her  want to leave the hospital because she felt increasingly distrustful of the staff. 

She was discharged at the end of February, and, approximately one month later, was issued a notice from Derbyshire Police informing her she was required to attend the station for a formal interview.

In the letter, police explain Smith was alleged to have “performed a public order offense” in which she “directed words deemed offensive towards another individual on the ward.” 

The date on the letter corresponds with the conversation Smith had with the nurse in the kitchen about the non-binary patient.

Smith explained that she was incredulous about the letter, taking particular issue with the fact police issued it despite knowing she had been a patient on a psychiatric ward receiving treatment for her mental health.

“This specific thing does not frighten me. I know they won’t be able to prosecute me. I know the law well enough… but the fact that the police are able to harass women because of their speech is frightening,” Smith says. “There’s nothing I said that is criminal. But it does worry me that they are doing this to women.”

Reduxx and The Publica reached out to Derbyshire Police for comment but did not receive a response to the inquiry.

In the interim, Smith says she has no intention of contacting police, noting that they have her contact information but have yet to reach out to establish a date for her station interview.

“If they want me to come down, they know where I am. This whole asking me to be proactive to arrange for my own police interview… I’m not going to do that. I shouldn’t have to.”

Smith only recently became more involved in discussions surrounding gender identity through online communities, seeking support for her past experience having been abused by a trans-identified male.

“This whole movement… it’s a misogynistic men’s movement, I feel. It has nothing to do with ‘trans rights.’ They’re going after vulnerable women, and demanding we change the way we see the world.”

Disturbingly, Smith is not the first woman in the United Kingdom to face police intervention after “offending” a transgender individual.

In January of this year, a disabled woman in South Wales had her home searched and was subjected to police detention after being reported for committing a “transphobic hate crime” for putting up stickers raising awareness about domestic violence. 

The next month, Caroline Farrow, a mother of five who has been outspoken against gender ideology, had her house forced into by Surrey Police after her social media activity was reported as criminal. Farrow had previously been investigated by police in 2019 for misgendering a trans-identified male on Twitter.

*Smith’s surname has been changed to protect her identity.

[naamahdarling]

.

[chaoticdesertdweller]

[hellalugosisdead]

i love laying in bed and replaying cute moments with my bf in my head on repeat :3

[brokentoys]

remember when eddie was having a psychotic episode and freaking out and instead of being treated softly, and being reassured by caring people that he’s hallucinating, he was instead handled like an abused animal with aggression

remember in the ark games how the doctors would often yell at him or belittle him instead of explaining calmly about how what he’s saying is wrong.

[gloriousmonsters]

Wasn't there that horror film years ago that had the villain believe self-harm was the next step of human evolution? I feel the genre needs to have each film with a psychologist in the room to step this from happening.

Tbh I can't bring one to mind that has that premise, so I think I probably missed that one, but oof.

And honestly, my gloomy caveat to this is that being a psychologist does not mean you're going to be automatically good about mentally ill people, especially 'difficult' disorders and conditions (just like doctors can easily be awful about sick people), but it's very nice to sometimes see something where people are trying, at least. Thinking of In Sound Mind, the horror video game I will never shut up about bc while I do not agree with some of the diagnoses given in the in-game files, it's incredibly nuanced and sympathetic about its mentally ill characters compared to the average horror and some psychiatrists, I believe, are referenced in the end credits as being consulted for the game. So in some cases, consulting people can definitely help!

[emiliosandozsequence]

that doctor from my 600 lb life is lucky he lives a good ways away from me bc if he didn't i would drive down there and tell him what for