I can't stop

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2 1/2 years ago I had an incident in a locked ward in a psychiatric hospital where I had to stay for 14 days. But legaly alowed without the judges permission is just 72 hours in my country. I didn't know that at that time. Afterwards I suffered under extreme claustrophobia and anxiety.

Now I'm in the situation that I want to come over it, but I can't stop asking the psychiatrists WHY they did that?
But I wouldn't get any more answer I already have.

I don't know what to do.
I want to stop, but I can't.

Would putting in a complaint to the authorities help? I think you need recognition of what they did, and some sort of recourse to be able to move forwards from this. The autistic mind is an obsessive mind, I would feel the same. In fact I do, I am still fighting to move past an injustice that happened to me about 3.5 years ago, and the way I am doing this is by formally complaining. I now have the assistance of a mental health advocate as it's become too difficult for me to do this alone, but I am not giving up. Emotionally, if you can't get restitution or resolution in reality it's almost impossible to move past it.

The thing is, after a terrible accident in January (a friend died in a car accident and I called short befor the psychiatric hospital, but they didn't send any help) they are nice and I was allowed to see my old room again in the locked ward, what was important for me and even talk to the second director of the clinic.
But I wasn't able to talk to the psychiatrist who did that to me and the psychiatric hospital can't really help me there, becaue he is now working in the neurology (what's a different hospital) and doesn't answer any of my questions in the written form.
I thought about going up there, but I was scared and wasn't sure how to find him, because it's a very big hospital.
He propably even doesn't remember me anymore I guess, so I'm not sure if it would help.
And other than that I've a psychiatrist in that psychiatric hospital now whom I can ask any questions (I'm NOT his patient, he is just there because of the stuff that happened to help me to come over it), but he also doesn't have an answer for everything why the other psychiatrits behaved that way back than. He is very nice actually and I chose him kind of, but he doesn't really have a clue about autism, but is very patient.
So the psychiatric hospital doesn't want anymore that something like this happens again, that's why I have the feeling I have to go on, but somehow I'm still scared and have the feeling not all questions have been answered and I just can't stop that feeling.

I'm so sorry this happened to you. There is such a lot of injustice in the world.

I have an idea. What about making a website (there are companies that have templates that you can make free ones from) and campaigning to stop this happening to others. This will give you some catharsis. You could set up a section on the website for others to tell their stories, then when you have enough, contact the horrid psychiatrist in official form (perhaps make your letterhead (if you have a website with some name e.g. "Autistics Against Injustice" or "Raziel Campaign for Mental Health Protection" etc. and it's easy enough to make a letterhead with logo on an word processing software. Open Office is a free one if you don't have Word and they have a website with templates you can download. If he believes you have an organisation behind you he might listen.

Also, complain to whichever organisation the psychiatric institution answers to, whether that's local government, central government, any official body overseeing, policing or having a say in what happens in mental health in your country. If the institution can't help you themselves, they must be answerable to someone. What about contacting the official organisation the bad psychiatrist is registered with. In the UK we have the GMC (general medical council) and a variety of organisations for psychologists and psychiatrists.

May I ask, what happened to you?

I think I have so many flash backs at the moment because of this, because I move at the moment and how it seems changing rooms triggers it.
My idea is an "advance health care directive" what you can also write in my country because of psychiatric situations. There I could name a person that represents my legal rights while I'm in a psychiatric hospital and so on. So they can't really take my rights away that easily anymore.
Other than that I'm thinking about writing the neurology a letter and tell them that I tried to contact that doctor because of an incident in the past, when he still worked in the psychiatry. But I'm not sure about it.

I don't know if whe have anything like GMC in Germany, I just know that most psychiatries know hardly anything about ASD and that's how this all happened I guess.

But the thing is that I actually like to stop!

My situation is not along the same lines as yours. It was the NHS failing to diagnose me, whilst telling me I had autistic behaviours they gave 3 ridiculous (and easily disprovable) reasons as to why they said I didn't meet the diagnostic criteria. It's a long and complicated story, and I am still struggling to get them to recognise my diagnosis. After seeing them, I saw a non-clinical AS expert who found I did have AS, then I was privately clinically diagnosed by a very experienced clinician, which was subsequently corroborated by his consultation with one of the top AS experts in the country (a colleague of Simon Baron-Cohen). I have been through a complaint to the clinic, a complaint to the NHS complaints department, because the clinic refused to see me again despite a mountain of evidence an application to the NHS funding panel for an out-of-area assessment to be reassessed which was refused. I tried to get them to recognise my private diagnosis direct, but they are refusing because it would undermine their expertise (in other words they will not admit they were wrong even in the face of a majority of independent professional clinical evidence, strong genetic evidence, medical evidence etc. because of professional snobbery - despite the fact that the NHS Charter states they must put the wellbeing of the patient first).

I suffered the start of a nervous breakdown last year because of the strain of it all, and am now medicated because of it. I have been accused by members of the NHS of being "obsessed" about having a diagnosis of AS (huh!) all because I am trying to get justice. It has a knock-on effect because one of my children has AS and I am fighting the NHS services as they have also admitted autistic behaviours in her but are leaving her DX as inconclusive and genetic link to AS is something that must be taken into account in the assessment process.

I am also suffering PTSD about something unrelated to the above (although which I do suspect is related to me being victimised because of having AS) that happened to me 2.5 years ago, so I do understand the emotions of what you feel.

Well, than you should tell them that this obsessive behaviour is part of your Asperger's.


I also have the feeling that psychiatrists can't easily addmit that they've been wrong.
In the one psychiatric hospital I was, I stayed ambulant afterwards for therapy, because I had to be in therapy because of "gender identity disorder" to get my surgeries and when the expert reports came from independend expert who had a totally different opinion than the hospital, they just kicked me out back than.
I was released with NO diagnoes, just several suspicions and that after nearly two years. Now I'm just there occationally to come over all the terrible things that happened there and they just start being nice, after my friend died in January. I'm not diagnosed there(!) with anything anymore, because it's not going over the insurence and they do this for free at the moment. They don't want to get sued after my friend died, but they also don't want to addmit that they've been wrong, so I don't have anything there anymore.

But I also have a normal psychiatrist who doesn't work in that hospital and there I'm diagnosed normally and go there regulary.

The thing is that just a fiew psychiatrists in my country have real knowledge about AS and HFA. Back than in the psychiatric hospital they didn't belief me and thought I just acted and wanted to have attention, well they didn't think that anymore after my friend died, but after that it was a bit late...!

...if your friend dying was their fault then I hope they do get sued.

And I'm sorry for your loss.

I think psychiatrists are the most up-their-own asses profession in mental health (or maybe the world ). It's the "God complex".

For me, obviously I can't deny having an obsessive brain...like you say, that's par for the course with AS, but I never complain without valid reason and the system of complaint exists here for people to use - if the are going to accuse of you being obsessive just for exercising your rights and using the system they provide to do so then what's the point of having the system at all. Without the NHS recognising my diagnosis I do not in their eyes, have a right to reasonable adjustments, no legally recognised disability, can't be included in statistics which contribute towards provision of services, don't have the protection of a variety of Acts protecting people like me etc. etc. If I went back to work I would have no right to claim reasonable adjustments from an employer either. This isn't some meaningless crusade, I have genuine reasons and they have been horrendous. Aspies are usually strongly against injustice and very honest, (both of which apply to me) so for me, for them to call me a liar in effect, is soul destroying. It's also the fact that they are annotating my medical records with lies that I only found out because of false claims my GP made. They all share the same system. I read someone else say this on an autism website about public bodies in the UK smearing their name and I thought they might have been exaggerating..now I know it's true. Their lies have gone into my autistic daughter's assessment of needs report - which I am also having to suffer the stress of refuting. If you saw all the evidence I have for being on the spectrum: genetic, medical, clinical, intellectual (spiky profile) etc. you would laugh at how incompetent they have been. And my GP (who knows nothing about autism) believes them because they are fellow professionals in the system. I have realised that no matter what laws, official guidelines, proof, evidence that you have, it's all nothing in the face of people with that power. They would rather see someone suffer than lose face. How they can sleep at night I don't know.

I can't proof that, the police was involved. The problem is that he drove off with his car shortly after this and officially it was a car accident. It couldn't be proofen that it was suicide and if you ask me it was kind of a combination out of different factors.