i have a story that i've never really been able to tell anyone and im sorry if it disturbs anyone i just need to tell someone. it happened last april. some background:
i grew up in an abusive household with parentification of the children, covert incest, violence and psychological torture, etc.
one night last year my little brother (he's physically bigger than me) injured the bones in my foot while i was at home visiting from college. he was angry and stomped on the top of my right foot. it's just a violent home. i hobbled to my car and drove to a friends house to spend the night so i could get out of there.
when i put my foot up on the couch to try to go to sleep ,all the blood rushed to my foot and i was in excruciating pain.
i went to the hospital and texted my mother (who has been putting me in psychiatric hospitals since I was very young, and is generally a vicious person towards me emotionally, telling me to kill myself, etc.) to let her know i was going to get x-rays because i knew something was seriously hurt.
after being admitted through the ER someone came into my room and pulled up the rails on my bed to "transport" me somewhere. i was very scared and confused.
they had told me my mother had called in and told them i was "dangerous" and needed to be admitted for psychiatric evaluation. i assume she did this because she was ashamed (she has a very shame-based personality) that i had sought treatment for the violence in our home and wanted to punish me.
i was told i was not allowed to leave the hospital, strapped to the bed, and wheeled into a locked corridor. i became visibly distraught, crying and panicking while trying to explain that i was there because of my injured foot.
i stood and tried to exit the locked corridor and six men with guns came to strap me to a board by my wrists and ankles in an empty locked room with nothing else but the board. my chest was constricted with a strap and i sobbed pleading for help, i couldnt breathe. i resisted as best i could, as i knew this would end in more medical abuse, but it culminated with a fully grown man pressing his full weight using his knee into my spine (i am a 115 pound female) while shoving my chin into the board. i was given a shot of something, i don't remember what happened after that, all i remember is waking up the next morning.
my foot was in a boot. i was forced to take 1500 milligrams of depakote and also seroquel every day for a week where i was involuntarily institutionalized. this was while school was going on so i was missing college. each morning i was awoke at 7 am to have blood drawn to have my "drug levels" checked. apparently i was diagnosed as some sort of manic bipolar because of my rage and fear at my current situation.
nobody mentioned anything about the fact that my brother had done this to me, i received no therapy, i got no x-rays. what i did get was battery charges for fighting back when i was initially incarcerated.
when i left, the boot was taken back from me, although my foot was still in pain. when i got home i continued to take the depakote because i was unaware of its side effects and just assumed i needed to. i was limping a lot and the right side of my body felt depressed somehow, constricted. my face also looked markedly different. i googled and learned depakote is actually an anti-seizure medication that can ossify your bones. never in my life have i felt such a darkness in the pit of my soul when i realized what had been done to me.
as the year went on the pain in my neck, jaw, back, and right knee became worse. i constantly have to self-adjust my back throughout the day in order to take full breaths. i have a slight limb length discrepancy and have acquired nystagmus.
it's also worth it to mention that i go to school full time and work full time so i have been suffering this while grinding myself to dust trying to stay alive on a financial level, and stay away from my parents by continuing school. it's been emotionally hardest because of the looks people give me who used to be my friends when they see my disabilities.
when i told my therapist who i'd been seeing for three years about this episode, who has never diagnosed me with anything, he pulled out a dsm and told me the words "fictitious disease by other" while my heart cracked in two. he had tears in his eyes.
since the incident i've suffered panic attacks. my psychiatrist, who i see for anxiety, has removed the bipolar diagnoses from my chart, added ptsd.
i have been in pain for a year and tomorrow i have an appointment with a spinal specialist. i'm not sure what they will say. maybe they can just tell me nothing's wrong because that would be the humane thing to do at this point or because admitting otherwise would be accepting that part of their medical group was complicit in medical abuse. i'm not trying to be dramatic or say that none of this is my fault i just want someone out there to hear me. who can you say these things to?
my heart isn't broken. my heart is shattered.