From The Sacramento Bee: “I don’t know what it’s like to be an immigrant kid, to travel alone to an unfamiliar country or be separated from my family at the border. But I know what it’s like to experience forced psychiatric treatment as a child.
I spent much of my teenage years in psychiatric wards. It starts with the hands of strangers all over you, holding you down. You are stripped and given an injection. You feel like you’re losing control, being locked up in your own body.
Overmedication of children with mental health conditions or other disabilities is common in institutions. Human Rights Watch has documented such practices in Russia, Serbia and Brazil, where our researchers have frequently found children lying like zombies in the middle of noisy facilities. In most cases, the purpose of overmedication seems to be discipline and convenience for the staff, rather than treatment.”
