In this piece for Youth Ki Awaaz, Nibu Augustine recounts his traumatic experiences with psychiatry and the mental health system, including forced drugging and adverse effects, confinement in a psychiatric hospital, and religious prejudice on the part of hospital staff.
“This is what I dislike about psychiatry. It varies from culture to culture, unlike any other medical speciality. If your parents are aged and if they’re anything like mine, you’re stuck if they give your history. And if you are from mixed cultural background, it may not be easy for a psychiatrist to relate to some things.
If any of the psychiatrists had taken out the time to listen to what I had to say rather than get information from my parents, I believe I could have been off medication a long time ago.”
