Elliot's Story 

I was first put into the psychiatric ward when I was ten-years-old. It was after I found out that I was adopted, or more accurately why I was adopted. My father had broken eight of my ribs and my right leg when I was three months old. He had also molested my older sister when she was five. 

 

I was taken into the ward because I said I wanted to kill myself and brought a knife in to school. At ten-years-old, I was stripped completely naked, and prison searched by two male nurses. I am a girl. I had to give them all my clothes including undergarments, spread my butt cheeks in front of them with no cover, and squat and cough. They saw everything. I was ten. 

 

When I was eleven, I went back into the ward. It was only supposed to be a three day stay but I ended up there for a full month. Every day for those four months they would watch me use the bathroom, eat, shower, and sleep. It didn’t differentiate between if it was a male staff or a female staff. So I’ve had male staff members when I was eleven watch me use the bathroom. And shower. 

 

Not to mention at this one month stay, they would strap me down to a bed and give me a tranquilizer every chance they got. The first time they did it was because I stood up on a chair. Another time is because I wasn’t falling asleep fast enough. Another time I wanted to use the bathroom. My behavior and depression and anger only got worse from those days. I was only finally able to fix myself when my parents went to court to get me out of there. 

 

Since then, I’ve suffered many sexual assaults. One inside of a residential program where a staff member, male, when I was twelve, pulled down my pants unnecessarily and touched my butt while restraining me because I didn’t want to go to school.