Before Lansing law enforcement and hospital administrators illegally forced me into a psychiatric hospital which led to 3 weeks of wrongful imprisonment and nonconsensual medical torture while all of my belongings and emotional support cats were stolen (five days before my landlord’s written notice said I had to be out)- there were about 6 hours of police harassment, battery and discrimination that occurred between the time I was illegally removed from my  apartment and when they put me in an empty Lansing City Hall jail cell where they refused to give me soap or toilet paper while I continued to experience autism meltdown and PTSD overload.

Police Violations Continued Past Apartment and Jail Cell Into Hospital Exam Room

After being completely violated in my apartment and in the jail cell, I was then transported, in handcuffs, to Sparrow (University of Michigan) Hospital where cops stood in my open hospital doorway, further insulting and harassing me while I sat handcuffed in the exam room.

After what felt like several more hours, the cops finally removed me from handcuffs and left but hospital staff said I needed to remain in the hospital until a nurse admin determined “where I should go.”

Blood Overdrawing and Theft, Along With Illegal Psych Ward Imprisonment

Before the nurse admin could evaluate me, other Sparrow nurses forcibly drew and overdrew my blood without consent. After multiple stabs and draws, my arm was bleeding so much that one nurse had to change the bed sheet.

After everyone had finally left me alone for a few minutes, it was past 9 pm. I turned off the lights and turned on some peaceful television music. I requested non-caffeinated tea, but the hospital didn’t have any, so I drank some warm water. I had tried requesting my noise-cancelling headphones at Sparrow, but they only offered disposable earplugs (it was better than nothing).

With the lights off, warm water, and relaxing TV music, my body finally relaxed enough to draw some doodles and write poetry while I continued waiting for the nurse admin.

At least another hour passed, and I started relaxing enough to possibly sleep.

I didn’t get to speak to the nurse admin until after 11pm, after a full day of physical, emotional and mental trauma and abuse. When she did decide to see me, it was over a computer screen that other nurses wheeled into the room. By that time, I was so exhausted that all I could think about was needing rest.

Naturally, I explained that I was exhausted and needed rest before I could be evaluated for anything. This seemed to shock her. Her immediate reply was, “Do you know who I am?!”

I was honestly so alarmed by her aggressive response that I got out of bed to get the unit nurse to help explain I just needed to rest for the night before any observations or evaluations.

When we got back into the room, the nurse admin had signed off. I was then taken to the Sparrow psych ward where a nurse said I could sleep for the night and find out more in the morning.

The next morning, I was informed the admin made the decision to admit me to a Detroit psych ward at StoneCrest Center, and that’s where I was taken, against my will, strapped to a gurney in the back of an ambulance and assaulted multiple times a day for 3 weeks.

Forced Into Detroit StoneCrest Psych Ward and Medically Tortured Further

At StoneCrest, I was forcibly drugged with multiple pharmaceutical drugs, primarily Haldol, which has been used to experimentally treat Tourette syndrome and psychosis. This was after Dr. Bens Sandaire “diagnosed” me without seeing me once and after nurses labeled me “delusional” for praying out to non-Christian gods during a terrifying encounter.

Haldol was an entirely different level of fuckery for my mind and body. I tried multiple times to explain my negative reactions to the medications, and with each protest, I was labelled more and more “unstable” and “unsafe” for my own sake and society.

With Haldol, it was like my brain was constantly screaming, as soon as I woke up in the morning, and I had to constantly keep the Sparrow ear plugs in my ears. I couldn’t sleep easily at night, either.

On the drug, my eyes felt like they were going to come out of my head, and it was hard to sit still or think. After a day or two of being on Haldol, my mouth started having uncontrollable random spasms. I reported the torture to doctors and nurses, and they insisted I was being delusional, “unaware” of my “illness,” and needed to be medicated more.

By the second week, I was receiving court-ordered forced doses of Haldol (and other meds), 3 times a day. If I skipped a time to line up for meds, I was quickly tracked down by staff and given painful shots, including tranquilizers, and/or put into a publicly video-recorded isolation room.

I also had a substantial amount of blood stolen from me at StoneCrest. It was overdrawn again to the point that it left even more bruising from the previous blood draw injuries at Sparrow.

Surprisingly, StoneCrest allowed me to keep the earplugs Sparrow had given me, which was thoughtful considering they wouldn’t allow me to request dental floss (despite my disclosed long-term and pressing dental issues) and I never got to go outside once in the three weeks I was illegally imprisoned there.

Staff also stole my only pair of underwear several nights into my stay. While a staff attendant was washing the only clothing outfit I was left with, she decided to pull my thong out of the dryer, come into my room at 2 o’clock in the morning, scold me for wearing a thong and then took it away.

As someone who legitimately wears thongs for body-comfort health reasons and because the only pants I was left with were leggings, I tried to explain this to the staff member. She became hostile and then four other staff members surrounded me to join in on the scolding. They literally mocked me as I begged for it back so I could continue comfortably practicing yoga (and just being comfortable in general).

I spent the rest of my confinement in extremely uncomfortable and disposable bulky underwear, without access to a menstrual cup which I require. Because of this, I was also forced to wear thick outdated pads that caused a yeast infection.

Survival Through Almost-Forced Silence

I finally gave into almost silently existing through the extremely long days of being in a “community room,” sitting around a broken television surrounded by over-medicated strangers, while I felt myself losing control of my body and brain. I took refuge in coloring printouts and broken crayons, and when I was feeling a little motivated, I tried to remember how to play solitaire with a deck of about 45 cards.

I also had a roommate named Ash, an MSU-educated and opinionated woman who was being forcibly medicated against her will and violated further every time she protested. Although we didn’t see eye-to-eye on some things, her fiery spirit helped pull me through some of the worst times after staff and nurses violated me. She said she was illegally being held there, too.  

She used the playing cards for tarot, and we found common ground on that. We also both studied public policy in university, so we talked a little about that, too.

Yoga also helped. Immensely. From the very beginning of the entire experience, stretching my body was one of the most therapeutic survival tools that got me through.

Imprisoned One Week Longer Than Medicaid Claimed It Would Allow

The release process was a traumatic cat-and-mouse joke of a game, too. After a week and a half of no answers about getting out, I was told Medicaid could only keep me there for two weeks. After two weeks, however, they said I couldn’t be released because I had “nowhere to go.”

The only reason I finally got release was because I own an old house in the state of Michigan (8 hours north of Lansing and Detroit) and my UP-neighbor acknowledged that he could meet me at a bus stop.

Only Released Due to Land and Property Ownership

If I didn’t own an old and dilapidated $14k house 8 hours away in the Northwoods, the court was going to leave me in the facility indefinitely because the state said StoneCrest couldn’t let me go because I didn’t have a residence in Lansing anymore (because I was illegally evicted).

This was also after multiple failed attempts to petition getting myself out and after submitting multiple human rights violation complaints on the paper forms next to the desk where we had to line up for meds.

Bringing up the little house I own up north was my last-ditch effort to survive. And legally, it was the only card that worked.

After my “social worker” finally told me StoneCrest could get me a ride to the UP, the state car coordinator turned around and said they couldn’t go that far. However, the law requires the facility to release back to any Michigan location, so the only option to leave was to then take a 16-hour bus ride alone from Detroit to the rural western UP after 3 weeks of medical, physical, emotional and mental torture. And of course, with zero knowledge about the whereabouts of my cats or belongings in Lansing.

Meanwhile in Lansing, my Fountain Place apartment landlord put all my belongings on the street and the county animal control stole my emotional support cats, one of which I never got back and had for the entire 10 years of his life.

This was even despite my multiple phone calls to Ingham Animal Control and Fountain Place (while I was in confinement) about desperately needing my beloved emotional support cats and literally all of my material belongings.

All Belongings and Emotional Support Cats Stolen

By the time I escaped StoneCrest, I was told I had no way to get anything back. I was blessed to get one cat back with the help of a former neighbor, and I’m thankful for that, but I’ve lost so much. And it’s so much more than just my belongings and cat.

I used to have so many books. My laptop, my old cat’s ashes and urn, all my clothes and furniture, all my photos, memories and souvenirs from travels I once took. Any gifts anyone had ever given me. All physical medical records, legal documents, religious jewelry, deceased family’s belongings, my passport, birth certificate, academic records, and everything in-between. Anything a person might need to survive or maintain critical thinking skills, happiness and independence- it was all stolen while I was forcibly drugged with Haldol and other medication that was causing me to literally lose my mental competence and physical autonomy.  

Freedom From Medical Torture

As a condition of leaving StoneCrest, hospital staff injected me with LITERALLY a 4-week supply of Haldol via an excruciatingly painful arm injection and made me promise to continue taking the life-threatening medication with months-worth of pills.

Recovery from Haldol was terrifying but cannabis and shrooms saved my life, without a doubt.

As soon as I got to the UP, I immediately stopped all pharmaceuticals forced into me at StoneCrest, and I went back to the proven-safe and effective cannabis that I have been successfully using to treat my autism and PTSD for almost 15 years now.

Even with the help of cannabis and a few micro-doses of psilocybin mushrooms, however, it still took over a month for my legs to stop twitching from restlessness in short car rides or for me to fully sleep through the night. Without weed and shrooms, who knows how long I would’ve continued suffering on that level of extremities.

Again, all of this was after MULTIPLE disclosures of my ADA-protected autism and PTSD which simply required my noise-cancelling headphones and a holistic health approach to care. Not a single Medicaid-funded medical provider, cop, or judge would acknowledge this, though.

Instead, they literally labeled me “insane” and nearly killed me for it.

Thank the gods for land and property ownership that my father literally fought against me purchasing.

Otherwise, I’d be braindead today, with my teeth still unflossed, illegally imprisoned and fraudulently-misdiagnosed in a Michigan state-run facility, while my abusive family members convince the world I was institutionalized for “medical issues.”

Ongoing Healing and Pending Lawsuits

Again, the healing has been A LOT. And I’m still working through it with a licensed private therapist.

As part of my healing and to begin taking legal action, I recently requested my StoneCrest medical records. There is a literal quote of me saying, “Leave me alone! Leave me alone!”

They’ve refused to release the video records though.

I specifically asked for the recording they have of me in the isolation room where they injected me against my will after my first medication refusal, on full video display (for staff and other patients) at the nurse’s front desk.

That was the first time I realized the seriousness of what was happening to me there.