Anyone ever been institutionalized?

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I was thinking about this today, because this what has happened to my older brother.
He is in his early 40's, and has been in the care of the state or private institutions for about 15 years. He was formally diagnosed with clinical depression, alcoholism, and a bulimic eating disorder. Back then, Asperger's was not even on the radar, but he meets nearly all of the diagnostic criteria, and I have no doubt that he is on the Spectrum somewhere. His story is the epic mishandling and misunderstanding of the AS condition.

He never really was able to take care of himself independently and never had any friends. He spent some time in jail for alcohol-related offenses and had some issues with suicidal behavior. He went off to college and basically had a breakdown, that culminated in him being committed to a psychiatric hospital in the wrong part of town... The kind with a barbed-wire perimeter and heavy sealed doors. I remember I went to visit him there, and he told me about the deranged and truly insane people on the inside that he was forced to live around.

Now he lives in a group-home for mentally handicapped people and recovering addicts. He's forced to take some chemical cocktail that is supposed to keep him from relapsing on the alcohol, but it effectively cancels out most of his higher-order thinking capabilities and dulls his personality. He's a hollowed-out shell of the intelligent and artistic guy I grew up knowing.

In reality, he is a gentle and interesting person, who never had a chance... because he was mislabeled, abandoned and never given the assistance he actually needed. Had someone around him understood something about Autism back then, his life might not have gone to waste the way it has.

If you or someone you know has had to go through something like this, please share your stories.... thanks

Forcing him to take any medication is illegal in most states without a special court order. I recommend inquiring abut this with your department of health and human services, or whatever you call the agency that regulates mental health services there, and find out if that is legal. Drugging him up to keep him from drinking doesn't make any sense. The only way he is going to get better is if he confronts his addiction. You'd think a place that cares for the dual diagnosed would know this. He may be having his rights violated and it sounds like there is a possibility that he is being drugged to be kept sedate or for mind control. If possible, consider trying to move him to California.

Well, without going into TOO much personal detail on public boards:

I started being institutionalized at age 17. At that time it was mostly for depression, this is the age when my differences actually started causing me problems. I spent two months in complete "lockdown", and after that another four months supervised 24/7 by a nurse. I really did enjoy the structured time. The locked psychiatric unit made me feel very secure, with it's routine and safety, and it was exactly what I needed at that point. However I got transfered to an adult unit when I turned 18, they also had me on a crazy concoction of drugs. I one day got sick of it, and started refusing to take my meds. They started coddling me and treating me like a bad child, or something. I was so angry. I also went through a horrible withdrawal period from the drugs, and I was violently ill, hallucinating, vomiting, fever. The nurses refused to help me, they thought I was "faking". That was when I developed my aversion to prescription drugs.

After that, I spent age 18-21 living independently, but I was an inpatient 3 days a week at the hospital. Once that was done and I was on my own, I crashed badly. I was addicted to multiple substances, I forgot to eat and wash, do laundry, take out garbage. Long story short, I ended up in the ER, and then I went back to a halfway house. That got me back on track.

Shortly after, I ran into a highschool boyfriend (who is now my husband). He and our son are what keep me going now. They are my structure, and my husband is my caregiver. I am so thankful to have them, and I am truly happy in my life now. I hate to think where I would be if I hadn't met my husband.

When I was in my 20's I was afraid to see a psychologist about my depression and to find out why I am different because I was afraid they were going to medicate me then lock me away in a mental institution. It was not until my 40's that I saw a tv program that discussed the autism spectrum that I was confident that is what was wrong with me that felt it was safe to see a psychologist I regreat not doing it when I was around 25.

I feel like you people 10 years ago.

If things keep going the way they are for me I'm considering asking to be institutionalised for severe anxiety, mild depression, mid funtioing autism, growingly severe OCD and body dysmorphic disorder, right now what I'm doing just isn't getting me anywhere.

I've been through some things a bit like that, but not nearly as bad.

Psychiatry is an evil institution. Psychiatrists as individuals, at least the ones I've met, are mostly not evil, and mostly mean well. I spent about a week or two in a mental hospital, but was allowed to discharge myself (against advice).

I've also been through some other stuff, a kind of alternative institutionalisation, which taught me that "antipsychiatry" can be as bad as psychiatry, in its own way. Both have damaged me.

I pretty much think the whole world is mad. Indeed, the human world has always seemed mad to me, right from when I was a small child, but I tried to keep the madness at bay, and partially succeeded for a time. Now, I'm an almost total recluse - living in an institution I've created for myself, you could say.

I "broke down" at 19, and now I'm 59. I may be a burnt-out case, I'm not sure.

I want to tell my story, but it's long and complicated, and I still don't know the best way to approach the task, or even if it's feasible.

P.S. It's all one big institution, and the lunatics are in charge.

Yes... 7 months in the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute (Aug 16, 1977- March 3, 1978). There wasn't any such thing as Asperger's, and they wrongly had diagnosed me as paranoid-schizophrenic. So many holes in that theory, that I still can't figure out how anyone with an MD/PhD could have conjured that one up, except that the State of California had to pay for it. I guess they needed a "textbook" name for the reason, or something. As early as a year after that stint in the nut house, I was formally diagnosed as NOT having any form of paranoid schizophrenia, as many subsequent doctors have concurred.

Charles

My parents wanted to institutionalize me, but they couldn't afford to do so.
I don't know whether to be happy that they didn't lock me up in a nut house, or upset that I wasn't worth spending money on.

i got arrested and put in a place like that because I wrote a suicide note (that they gladly "thought" was a homicide note) and I ended up staying a week and a half. 1500 bucks a night, and it wasn't exactly a hotel. I had to take cold showers, they changed my medication without the proper authority to do so, and the first day there they threatened to strap me down because some old crazy nut complained that I was "starting trouble" because I had the nerve to walk in front of the TV. I got put in the drug abuse unit because I had one beer the night before. (Any excuse to make money) I was in a room with no pillow (in case I try to suffocate myself, what happened to the homicide note?) and the bathroom was locked (in case I try to cut myself with the glass in the mirror) Apparently it was OK for me to kill myself by bashing my head against the wall though, because although there were no blankets or pillows on the bed, there were four walls to choose from. It's true that the patients are saner than the doctors.

I would have sh!t in front of the door so they would have stepped in it.

I have a lot of friends who have been arrested they told me if I ever was taken to the holding center never no matter what tell them you are suicidal or want to hurt anyone. I also will not make talk about my Aspergers they might strip you in front of everyone and put you in a suicide suit.

Yes, and I believe you have assessed his situation/circumstances very well. Sadly, he is now in a place where the blind and deaf can only do the best they know to do for the crippled one ... and then the state pays for it all from the pockets of the remainder of us and everybody is supposed to pretend we all are all happy.


Absolutely.

Personally, I was spared from what has happened to your brother, but just barely ... and only because my mother once stood in court and begged a judge to not force me into one of those places ...

... and in days now long gone by, that is exactly what some A.A. members (and even some of their non-alcoholic friends) actually did for others like themselves.

Institutionalized includes being in a mental hospital, correct? I've been in one twice, for 3 months each time.

It was for bipolar disorder, and I was lucky that it was actually not so bad for me, they never strapped me down. They did take away anything pointy or hangy, but eventually I got some of it back.

My first psychiatrist during the first stint inside put me on a med that wasn't working and was basically making me a zombie. It was horrible. I tried to ask her to try something else, but she said I was being ungrateful and that she knew best. I still had the presence of mind to go over her head to the head psychiatrist, and while I guess that got me labelled as difficult, it still got me in with a decent doctor.

The second time I was admitted it was not so great, it was in an older and more hardcore section of the hospital. I spent three months in there and then a bit of time in an 'alternate mileau' stepdown unit.

One thing I hated would be when the nurses would fling the door to my room open and bellow "So, are you hearing any voices today?" Most of the time I was still in the right state of mind to care what other people thought, and I didn't want the entire unit to know my business.

Ever since that debacle with the first psychiatrist I've been nervous talking to doctors. It's hard for me to assert myself.

If only it would have been safe to reply, "Yes, a really horrible voice - yours!"

Ha ha ha. I wish.

Or,

"Yes, a really horrible voice - yours! And now I'm going to make it be quiet. "

Note to self: do not antagonize the mental health staff and make them think you're crazier than you are...

Nope, I've never been institutionalized. I've never come close to institutionalization, but I might be seeing a psychologist/psychiatrist to evaluate the possibility of aspergers or *whatever* else in a few months. So, I'll probably be institutionalized in someone's chair for several hours, lol.

I assume institutionalized is another word for hospitalized. I was almost institutionalized when I was 12. But my parents decided neah and took me home.