Being bipolar II I do not have the episodes that some of you have described with your families that cause you so much trouble, and am usually just very depressed, or irritable and annoying, but even so I have still experienced being stripped of my rights purely because of my diagnosis.

A couple of years ago my fiance was being abusive, verbally and physically. At one point he hit me in the face twice and said he was leaving me. I panicked and went outside and put my car blocking his car in and tried desperately to talk to him, so he called the police, told them I had hit HIM, and that I was bipolar and was going to kill myself.

I assured the police and the ambulance that I was fine, and told them what happened, but because I was upset and he’d told them I was bipolar they ignored everything I said and took me to the hospital. They hospital didn’t have a psych unit, or a psychiatrist on staff at night, so they held me for about 8 hours waiting to transfer me to a psych hospital, and ran all kinds of blood tests. When I tried to refuse the tests they said if I refused them or refused to take off my clothes and give them my property they would call security, forcibly do all of it, record that I wouldn’t do it voluntarily, and I’d automatically be put on a 36 hour hold at the psych hospital based on regulations.

They wouldn’t listen to me, or talk to me, and just took all my clothes and phone and money and had someone in my room watching me. Eventually I got them to give my cell-phone back, and I persuaded my fiance to come and tell them he had been lying, and he did, and they said it was too late, and they couldn’t let me go now without a psychiatrist evaluation, and they didn’t have a psychiatrist.

Eventually I got transferred to the local psych hospital, and they evaluated me and let me go right away because I was clearly not in need of care.

“Great, so what’s the problem?” you say? The problem is that even though I refused to sign any of the paperwork and wrote on everything that I refused treatment and was not ill, I got billed for everything. Ambulance x2, tests, ER visit, doctor, SO much money. And I had no health insurance, and I have no family because my parents were physically and sexually abusive and I have no contact with them. My credit is ruined; I can’t move because my credit score is bad and no apartment complex will take me even though I have excellent references. I can’t get a new used car. I can’t get a loan or a credit card. And I STILL owe a ton of money to the hospital and doctor.

The result of it all was that, while I wasn’t suicidal before this episode, I became so afterwards, and did not and never will tell a doctor or a friend or anyone else because I don’t want this to happen again. Since then I lie to everyone about how I’m doing, and don’t talk to my doctor honestly, and am not getting adequate care because of that. But I would be better off dead than in debt and locked up. I’ve been in the psych hospital once, when I was suicidal years ago, and it’s the worst experience of my life. If I thought anything would cause me to get put back in there I would kill myself first. I got no therapy in there, got almost no food that I could eat (I’m vegetarian and have food allergies) other than bread, AND they wouldn’t let me have my asthma inhaler so I nearly died one night when I had an attack and couldn’t get to the nurses’ station.

My life and finances have been seriously damaged by people listening to someone who wasn’t even a relative about my mental health. The fact that this can happen to me just because my fiance was angry with me is INSANE, and allowing other people rights over mentally ill people’s lives and decisions would just make it easier for things like this to happen. And believe me, this kind of thing is NOT uncommon.

I appreciate that having a mentally ill person in your life is hard. However, I guarantee that actually BEING mentally ill is harder still, not least because people are always trying to take our rights away, and assume that just because we have bipolar disorder we must be irrational, psychotic, impaired, liars, untrustworthy, dangerous, ad infinitum.

Sometimes we get psychotic, sure, although I never have been. But a lot of mentally ill people function perfectly normally most of the time, and restricting their freedoms to protect yourselves is selfish and unethical. It makes more sense to set up your finances and legal assets so that some protection is built in for when they are psychotic. This can be extremely complicated if you’re married to them, certainly. But the onus is on YOU, not them. You can make choices, according to you much better than they can, so make them. If you can’t handle them, leave. I would rather my husband divorce me than that I live under his control and his whim and his mood just so he can feel safe in case I get manic. There’s nothing Christian about subjugating someone else just to make yourself feel safe.

But it seems clear that the issue rests more with the system not doing enough to recognize the gaps in care for seriously ill psychiatric patients and come up with solutions. Those solutions shouldn’t be to resolve the issue by stripping mentally ill people of their rights. Develop legal and financial and medical safeguards for families of ill people, but don’t give them autonomy.

We all need guidance,coaching and help within the human condition. When you watch someone dismantle 10 to 15 years of possitive growth and not listen to the advice that requires hard work and perseverence it is time for a wiser and more respected person to not strip rights away but to begin the questioning and behavior that leads to sustainable growth. My wife openly admits to being an ” I can’t” person. She also says that she is selfish. If someone openly accepts that they are the BP and that they are not open to working hard at a relationship in my opinion it is time for someone outside the BP to add some insight and forthought. These are the 2 things I have found lacking in the logic of my wife.

The box is very large with BP so sometimes it is good to have someone be able to act strongly on your behalf so you can first understand where the box begins and ends(reality/fantasy) and also how to think outside the box in healthy ways.

just some thoughts

When I was inpatient I found it interesting that they were so concerned about the chance I might be a danger to myself, and yet I was surrounded by staff who already were a danger to themselves. One nurse I’m thinking of was morbidly obese, smoked like a chimney, rarely got out of his chair, and ate quite possibly the largest amount of pizza I’ve ever seen a person consume. And even though heart disease is the leading cause of death, nobody said hey that nurse lacks insight we better force him into an exercise group and make him take his insulin. Clearly, he lacked insight or he wouldn’t have been so self destructive.

So, that’s how I come to the conclusion that forced treatment should only be used in the case of a person being a danger to others or if they’re not oriented X 3. However, the point at which patients become oriented is the point at which they must be allowed to make their own decisions.

Now even people without mental illness label are danger to themselves. They have high cholesterol yet they eat bacon and fries like there is not tomorrow. They are diabetics and nom on candies galore. People who just undergone knee surgery sometimes go on trip abroad in third world country where they be on the feet all day. They drink. Have unprotected sex. Go on low-carb diets and other diets that are harmfull to their bodies. In the end, many of these will end up dead or severly harmed – because of their behavior. Yet, nobody tries to intervene. How is it different from person with label who decides – when stable – that they DO NOT WANT to be “treated” because they feel more harm than good is done? Often the treatment is the problem. Contemporary doctors just give you a script. Here’s a drug for the problem. Side effect? There’s a pill for it. And this one is to lessen the side effect of the drug prescribed to treat the side effects of the first drug.

If one is trustful of their family, they should be able to sign a paper that allows the family to intervene. If not… well, their choice, their consequences.

One thing that’s interesting in this discussion (not directed at miastella but just in general) is that those who are so pro-forced treatment completely ignore the issue of abuse. It’s almost as if they think it doesn’t happen. In this overzealousness to forcibly treat, how do you protect people like me who realize that it is the treatment that is making them worse and want out? Had I not had the right to leave, I would still be cycling in and out of the psych ward, drugged up and nonfunctional. That’s not a life to me. So, how do you ensure that people who are getting worse with treatment can get out if you leave it up to mental health professionals and/or family? And how do you protect patients from family members like Rebecca Riley’s mom? They are lots of messed up families out there and we have to be very careful about who we give the power over other peoples’ lives.

Also, I meant in my previous post to write people who are NOT oriented X 3.