In My Own Words

Dear NAMI-Tyler,
I joined the NAMI organization in 1993.
I was still a patient in Terrell State Hospital serving a 2 year commitment. I had been admitted to Terrell in 1990 following a suicide attempt and several months of severe unremitting illness including psychosis and suicidal/homicidal thoughts.
I asked to be sent to Terrell. I realized I had no insurance and my mother was footing the expensive costs of a private local hospital. I had no idea what I was letting myself in for. The first time I was attacked was by a staffperson for throwing my cigarette lighter down the hallway of the women's side of the acute ward. Evidently this was part of their "treatment". I had already gone totally wild in the seclusion room without my meds. Before I got in Terrell I had gotten out in the middle of the highway trying to either get hit or get help. Fortunately, someone stopped and rendered aid.
But, unfortunately, for me, Terrell back then practiced a treatment called PMAB. It consisted of restraints of out-of-control patients. So, several times without knowing why I would act out and would be restrained by the muscular young men and women staffpeople who would physically restrain me by pinning me down. Other patients felt sorry for me. I now realize I was being picked on for some reason. Why I don't know. Now I realize I repressed those memories from my mind but that they recently surfaced so that finally I could deal with them. Their repression is what cause a great deal of trouble in my life for the last 19 years. Just yesterday I read in the NAMI-California Connection newsletter that restraint and seclusion have zero therapeutic value and may cause "great harm and even death". And California is trying to do something about it. I think it is about time. And I can finally deal with the problems that those repressed memories had caused me all those years .
The reason I joined NAMI in 1993? So future Terrell State Hospital patients would not have to go through the horrid treatment that I suffered at the hands of people that were supposedly there to help me.
Sincerely yours,
Karma Conaway