I Trusted 911

Okay I've got it... OAKLAND, CA PROBABLY 2000

After I called 911 for swallowing a bottle of Remeron, I started to lose control of my body and feel funny. My trust in everyone I knew had been broken and I was fragile. My elementary school visit from a police officer had told me "Whenever you need help call 911." So I stumbled to the phone called for help and waited. The African American police officer was compassionate and I felt better. She gave me to the ambulance paramedics. When they strapped me in I immediately relived the mental damage my father did to me and started to cry. One of them looked at his partner and twirled his finger around his ear, the sign for "She's crazy." The main paramedic put a Hannibal Lector mask on my face because I was crying and scared. The look on his face as he put the mask toward me was he wanted to hurt me. Being strapped in was reliving all the trauma my father put me through. When I didn't want to swallow the liquid charcoal, the Hannibal Lector mask paramedic told me that I had to and the medicine I had swallowed stopped my heart.  He had the time of voice and attitude that I was bad for overdosing on pills and needed to be punished. They took me to a hospital where again I was tied to a bed. My hospital gown opened revealing my breasts. I cried and said "No" and the nurse told me "no" like he was disciplining a child not to question their elder's intentions. It was obvious the people who worked there liked control. The nurse liked the fear in my eyes when I asked how long I would be there and she said "I don't know".  I was in terrible pain and fear and the only thing that relieved it was drifting off to sleep. She kept saying "You need to stay awake." To say she was emotionally distant and clinically detached was not enough. She wanted to prolong my pain. The lady in the room next door to me was screaming in pain... the sound wasn't human. She sounded like an animal groaning in pain. I kept hearing the sound of a rubber band snapping. The staff people in the room with her laughed and told her to relax.

One nurse finally had mercy on me and explained I was on a medical 1330 which meant that I could be held for 3 days. They transferred me from that nightmare hospital to Alta Bates which was not nearly as scary. When they released me I was a wreck. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't stay still, I had to keep moving or I felt like my mind would die. And the hard thing was I couldn't tell anyone about it. Who would believe me? Anyone would tell you that getting professional help was supposed to be help. The lesson I learned from that experience is NEVER call 911 never ask for help. I wished with all my heart I had never called 911 and had died. The nightmare of living in my head was worse than anything I could have experienced.

St. Louis 2010

My parents joyfully put me into the psychiatric system. My father who came THIS close to abusing me sexually. My father who raised his arms to heaven and told me he was like Jesus Christ because he could love my mother who was unlovable. My father who stood in front of my mother and told her there was blackness oozing out of every hole in her body. Dr. Peter L. Zhang read affidavits from my parents, talked to me for 5 minutes, observed me and diagnosed me with schizophrenia. He made getting along with my mother a condition of getting out of the hospital. My mother who repeatedly forgets my father's abuse of her, looks up to him for guidance, and talks about him like he is a hero or a god. Dr. Zhang forced me to take Olanzapine with a huge nurse to hold my arm down and another to inject it into me. I tried to open a dialogue with him... Ask if he could get to know me and my history enough to know why nature and spirituality were so important to saving my life, why I had huge reservations about western medicine and why I couldn't swallow pills (partly because of a suicide attempt in 5th grade). He wouldn't even let me talk about it. He said 'You will comply"

St. Louis 2019

I've left Dr. Matthew S. Wilson 3 written messages about negative side effects from Olanzapine (heavy slow walking, shaky hand, mouth so dry I can't stand it). It's been 4 months and he refuses to call me or write back. I have called him 10 times to ask him why he has not completed my guardianship removal paperwork that my mother gave him 4 months ago and no matter how many times I am told by his staff thatI will receive a call I never get a call back. Now check THIS out. In order to finish tapering off Escitalopram I need one more Rx but they will not give it to me unless I make an appointment. I made the appointment so I could get the prescription, but then I decided I don't trust the doctor anymore so I cancelled it.. What do they do?  THEY CALL MY MOTHER - MY LEGAL GUARDIAN TO TELL HER I MADE AN APPOINTMENT AND THEN CANCELLED IT. 4 months of waiting and this is what they can pick up the phone for? They didn't even call ME. My mother and I have given them my number 4 times. It's like they were telling her on me. This has made it clear to me my doctor never wants me to get better.

Sabrina Lin