2 deaths
per year
An average of two patients die per year as a direct result of physical restraints. Causes of death range from accidental strangulation to excessive chest pressure to cutting off blood flow to the head.
1,100
estimated sexual assaults per year
Approximately 65% of patients in psychiatric hospitals have been sexually assaulted at some point in their lifetime. Despite this obvious source of trauma, the system does nothing to prevent further assaults from continuing inside the walls of its facilities.
25 -47%
of restrained patients develop
clinically diagnosed PTSD
Although it's not uncommon for staff to joke about restraints, restraint training, and/or those they have to restrain, this "humor" is inapplicable to patients. Nearly 47% of those who have been psychiatrically restrained develop clinical PTSD from the ordeal.
"Make my love like a circle,
no beginning and no end."
~Brenda
What does "TW" mean?
Most of our Survivors' Stories contains the letters "TW." This stands for "Trigger Warning," a statement used to alert you of potentially distressing material. Please carefully read the list following the "TW" and assess your own boundaries before opening a story. Your personal wellbeing is our first priority at SecondAid.
Brenda's Story
December 29, 2003 - November 2, 2022
TW: self-harm, restraints
❝None of this should be happening. Treatment should have the positives outweighing the negatives, but that is often not the case.
This cause is so incredibly important and I hope my story helps people see how bad things can really be.❞
Be aware that the following stories contain many emotionally difficult accounts.
Please consider how proceeding may impact you be sure to prioritize your own personal safety.
Mira's Story
TW: suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, restraints, seclusion, injections, feeding tubes
❝When a child is suffering, the question is not: Why is this child failing the system? Instead, we should be asking ourselves: Why is the system failing this child?
The system changed me.
Now I am fighting to change the system.❞
Grey's Story
TW: suicide, self-harm, restraints
❝I hope the system changes for the hundreds of children in the exact same place I am in right now, who are just looking for someone who has their best interests at heart.
Someone who cares. I wish I could promise that a psychiatric ward would give them that. I really wish I could. ❞
Lyn's Story
TW: suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, restraints, injections, feeding tubes
❝My therapist recently told me: “These treatment centers don’t seem to care until someone dies under their care.” That could have been me. And yet, I still don’t believe that they would have changed anything.
The terrifying part about my story with psychiatric trauma is that this is not a unique story. There are so many children and adolescents (and adults!) experiencing what I went through, right now, as you read this.❞
TW: suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, restraints, seclusion, injections, feeding tubes
Maya's Story
❝If I received a more humane, compassionate treatment approach to help me stop self harming rather than restraints, perhaps I would have less trauma, fewer re-hospitalizations.
No one in the mental healthcare system deserves to be treated with violence, inhumanity, or abuse.
I miss who I was before the hospital, and it makes me sad that I will never get her back.❞
TW: physical abuse
Lyllie's Story
❝They beat me to the point where when I discharged they had to call an ambulance to get EMTs to put me on a gurney and take me to a hospital... I couldn't walk.
A third of my leg was black. Just straight up black, not even other bruise colors, just black. And that was just my leg.❞
TW: self-harm, restraints, sexual assault, seclusion, injections
Jo's Story
❝They picked me up and dragged me in. I was terrified, so I fought back. They held me down on the floor of the “quiet room”.
While being held down by all men, I was searched. That included having someone reach their hands in my crotch and check that I wasn't hiding anything. I was screaming and crying because that was so terrifying.❞
Anonymous Story (I)
TW: suicide, restraints
❝They talked over me... and told the nurses to inject me faster so that everyone could leave.
One of the security people said: "every time you struggle, I will make you feel some pain," and he would dig all his weight into my legs while I was screaming.❞
Anonymous Story (II)
TW: suicide, restraints, injections, vomit
❝My jaw and neck locked and I stopped screaming and just began to silently cry... Yet since I was in restraints, I couldn't sit up to clear my throat either. I started to choke.
That's when they finally let me up. Not when I was crying for help. But when I finally began to choke.❞
TW: restraints, physical abuse, injections
Kat's Story
❝My family has been forced to pay thousands of dollars for trauma therapy. I now need a service dog in order to be able to enter any type of hospital or doctor's office.
I'll probably never be the same again. I have terrible panic attacks and nightmares every night. All because hospital staff chose to abuse a fifteen-year-old girl who only came there for help.❞
Anonymous Story (VIII)
TW: suicide, self-harm, restraints, eating disorders, sexual assault, seclusion, injections, vomit
❝I need to hope that the system can change otherwise the people stuck there are helpless and hopeless. They are not lost causes, they are not objects to be placed in a facility that will ignore and abuse them, they are not “too sick” to be helped. They are people with families, friends, loved ones, pets, partners, and children, not animals to be dragged through hallways by their hair or mannequins to be tossed around with no regard for their humanity.
Mental illness is easy to refute, simple to ignore, and painless to mistreat if you don’t care about the bigger picture. It is not as easy to treat as a cough or a broken leg and it is easy to pretend it doesn’t exist. Mental illness exists. We exist, and we need better help than what we’ve been getting.
I am forced to have hope in the system for anyone who the system has failed, but also everyone who survived and thrived. Even for the people who may not know or understand but can sympathize, even the people who don’t believe in mental illness and need the education about this that so few receive. Mental health impacts everything.
I am forced to have hope in the system for them.❞
Anonymous Story (XIII)
TW: suicide, self-harm, restraints
❝I could only keep my one stuffed animal and was forced barefoot into an old police car. There was a chain fence between me and the driver. The seats were plastic and nobody told me how far away I was going, or really where I was going.❞
Anonymous Story (XV)
TW: suicide
❝She attempted to convince staff and therapists at the inpatient facility that she was both safe and stable, but because she wouldn’t tell the staff what they wanted to hear –– that she had actually been trying to attempt suicide –– she spent nearly two weeks there away from her daughter and partner.❞
Anonymous Story (XVI)
TW: self-harm, restraints, seclusion, injections
❝For my first two days there, I was having an anxiety attack. Multiple times during this I was partially restrained by staff, threatened to be sent into seclusion if I didn't stop crying, and told I was "disrupting other patients,” simply by crying. The staff would frequently laugh at the terrified look on my face.❞