Hospitalisation & meds

[cazwiz]

Have any of our UK posters been sectioned in hospital after threatening suicide? I've only ever had a 24 hour hold and I'm wondering if you continue to be suicidal and unsafe to go home and get sectioned for longer, do you end up in a situation where you have medication forced on you? I absolutely do not want to accept being put on any SSRIs or similar, and I have clear logic on my reasons why. Are hospitals able to force it on you or do they accept your righty to decide what goes in your body?

 

[BPD Barbie]

Depends on the section. With the right paperwork you can be treated against your will if they deem it to be within your best interests.

 

[CuddleHug]

I can't speak for the UK, but I've been sectioned 4 times in my country and they never forced anything on me. In fact, if I strongly refused to accept a medication they suggested, they listened. They will, however, try to talk you into whatever they think you need. For me, being in a vulnerable state and "fuck all" mindset, I usually accepted any new meds to get them to shut up.

I saw some patients refuse to take their pills and cause a fuss sometimes, and that was different. If the doctors ordered it and it's not something you can go on and off on, they will force you to take it. Usually with the words "take it this time and we'll mske sure you get to talk to the doctors today so they can change it". That shouldn't happen with new meds, though.

As I said, though, this is not the UK.

 

[Caspers]

I know they can force food on you if you refuse to eat, but I'm not certain about meds. Maybe if you desperately needed something like a sedative if you're going manic, or antipsychotics if you're too attached from reality, but I haven't heard of forcing antidepressants. I've not been in psych hospitals though, so I may not be correct, but that's what I've read and heard about. It's a bit dated, but there's a tv show called 'Don't Call Me Crazy' about a young person's psych ward in the UK, you might find that interesting?

 

[Emily_Numb]

SSRIs take weeks to work properly so their first port of call will be tranquilisers or Benzos. They can forcibly inject you with these under certain sections. Also in the UK, being 'suicidal' wont really get you sectioned. Even threatening to kill yoirself wouldn't get you sectioned for much longer than 24hrs. They simply don't have the space/budgets to put suicidal people into care for weeks on end.

I know you say you have your reasons for not wanting SSRIS but as someone who has been on various psychiatric medications for 20+ years, I can assure you they are not all created equal. Just discounting them entirely could mean missing out on a chance of feeling better. If you are already actively suicidal but don't actually want to die (you're in the recovery part of the forum), then what have you got to lose? Generally if you aren't willing to help yourself by trying out meds, the CMHT deem you as someone who has no interest in getting well so why waste funding. Harsh but just how it is.

 

[Existingnotliving]

From my experience its really hard to be sectioned properly. I've been on a fair few 24 hours holds or in hospital for harming myself/trying to kill myself. I've said many times that I'm still suicidal and not safe and that I will do whatever it is I've done, again and I've still always been sent home.

 

[noaccount]

These places are just conveyor belts for mass sexual assault on anyone who doesn't participate enough in the mutilating chemical modification of their bodies

 

[cazwiz]

SSRIs take weeks to work properly so their first port of call will be tranquilisers or Benzos. They can forcibly inject you with these under certain sections. Also in the UK, being 'suicidal' wont really get you sectioned. Even threatening to kill yoirself wouldn't get you sectioned for much longer than 24hrs. They simply don't have the space/budgets to put suicidal people into care for weeks on end.

I know you say you have your reasons for not wanting SSRIS but as someone who has been on various psychiatric medications for 20+ years, I can assure you they are not all created equal. Just discounting them entirely could mean missing out on a chance of feeling better. If you are already actively suicidal but don't actually want to die (you're in the recovery part of the forum), then what have you got to lose? Generally if you aren't willing to help yourself by trying out meds, the CMHT deem you as someone who has no interest in getting well so why waste funding. Harsh but just how it is.

Thanks for an informative reply. I have tried out meds though, many types. I just want to subject my liver and kidneys to any more of them. I think the negatives outweigh the pros and don't think they are a good solution. I also know suicide isn't a great solution for temporary problems (I am 100% pro choice though, and have my own plans for as and when) but I am also self aware enough that I spiral deep and fast and get suicidal very quickly, which is why it's very viable for me to get short term sectioned.
That should have read "don't want to subject my liver...."

 

[noaccount]

"We may be able to come up with all kinds of cleverly nuanced perspectives on how we, as professionals and philosophers, understand psychiatric diagnosis but the fact remains that people are being told that they have mental illnesses and disorders, with all of the usual connotations of those terms in Western societies. Moreover, they are heavily encouraged to take on the particular narrow understanding that you refer to–we are all bombarded with messages about "mental illness" being "as real as a broken arm", and needing to be managed by drugs "just like diabetes." Even the dubious compromise of the "biopsychosocial" model–a way of acknowledging some role for psychosocial factors while at the same time instantly relegating them to "triggers" of a disease process–is not much in evidence on the ground. And furthermore, the biomedical message is reinforced by the fact that these labels are being applied by doctors and nurses working in hospitals and clinics, who use not just the labels themselves but the whole medicalized discourse of symptom, patient, prognosis, treatment, relapse, and so. The "stereotypical biomedical understanding of diagnoses", as you put it, is absolutely everywhere. […] I have yet to hear any real life service user say "Although the doctor told me I have schizophrenia I'm not too worried, because "illness" is just a metaphor for suffering in this case and it doesn't exclude personal meaning." I'm sure readers are aware that the consequences of being diagnosed–such as being sectioned, forcibly injected, and so on–are not just metaphorical. Some of these learned articles strike me as a form of defense against admitting to the fundamental inadequacy and devastating damage of the current diagnostic system. Essentially, we need to acknowledge that we are not dealing with patients with illness, but people with problems." - — Lucy Johnstone, PsyD, Moving Beyond Psychiatric Diagnosis

Psychiatrists have never accepted anyone's right to decide what goes in their bodies.

 

[Emily_Numb]

Thanks for an informative reply. I have tried out meds though, many types. I just want to subject my liver and kidneys to any more of them. I think the negatives outweigh the pros and don't think they are a good solution. I also know suicide isn't a great solution for temporary problems (I am 100% pro choice though, and have my own plans for as and when) but I am also self aware enough that I spiral deep and fast and get suicidal very quickly, which is why it's very viable for me to get short term sectioned.
That should have read "don't want to subject my liver...."

Do you have some pre existing condition with your Liver? I've never heard of and SSRIs causing major liver problems.

 

[esse_est_percipi]

end up in a situation where you have medication forced on you?

Mostly, no, they cannot force you to take medication.
But there are certain sections of the mental health act which do give medical authorities power to 'force' you to take certain medications, like if you have been sectioned. But I don't know the details about how they would go about forcing people to take them.

 

[noaccount]

Mostly, no, they cannot force you to take medication.
But there are certain sections of the mental health act which do give medical authorities power to 'force' you to take certain medications, like if you have been sectioned. But I don't know the details about how they would go about forcing people to take them.

Sectioning is an extremely common, and extremely grievous, human rights violation.
Outside of this, there's a mass-produced, factory-like, constant process of medical staff stripping, restraining, violently tranquilizing, sexually assaulting, and solitary-confining psychiatric inmates wherever they can.
Once they have a diagnosis on you they can say anything they want to get police to take you into custody and judges will listen to them and not to you.

 

[esse_est_percipi]

Sectioning is an extremely common, and extremely grievous, human rights violation.
Outside of this, there's a mass-produced, factory-like, constant process of medical staff stripping, restraining, violently tranquilizing, sexually assaulting, and solitary-confining psychiatric inmates wherever they can.
Once they have a diagnosis on you they can say anything they want to get police to take you into custody and judges will listen to them and not to you.

Yes, it's all about control and power over groups. What Foucault called biopower.