survival4035

Sounds like you don't have a relationship based on trust. The awful "side effects" of psychotropic drugs are well documented.

It doesn't sound like your brother finds the "help" helpful.

I have a sneaking suspicion that many unhoused people have had terrible encounters with the mental health system in the past -- they were treated against their will, traumatized, belittled, made to take psych drugs that potentially caused permanent damage to their health and cognitive abilities, given ECT, and then either went into hiding from the system or were spit out by it. I often imagine that many people who are living on the street are simply terrified of the prospect of being force treated again -- more afraid of that than of the dangers presented by their current situation.

Do you know if any statistics exist that would prove or disprove my hunch?

Thanks for all you do to fight for those of us who were labelled.

It sounds like a terrible situation and I don't know what the solution is. I had a brother who suffered similar cognitive issues but the treatment (Haldol and Thorazine) didn't help. He left the county to escape it and I never saw him again. It's too bad that while your brother was "in treatment" (being medicated), he didn't form a trusting relationship with his treatment providers. At least, it doesn't sound like there was someone in the system who he trusted? Forgive me if I'm assuming. Very often, in my experience, prescribing is the focus of treatment, when what is needed is relationships built on trust and respect.

Not everyone who speaks out against forced treatment is uninformed. This is a dismissive and unfair characterization. Many of those who speak out against forced treatment do so after experiencing it themselves, or watching a loved one go through it, and live with long term damage from it. Many who have experienced forced treatment wind up terrified of anyone or anything that represents "the system".

And when they start hearing how many others this is happening to and how many people have been lied to about psychiatric diagnoses and psychiatric drugs (and ECT), they become vocal because it is a human rights violation.