Survivor, Innercept 2017-2019

“Was referred out to the USA from Singapore after I got misdiagnosed so many times, and due to being diagnosed with DID my psychologists at the time decided that sending me to the US would be the "best thing." These same psychologists also stated that "being transgender is a mental illness" in all of their reports about me, and that happened in 2016. I was first sent to Polaris in Los Angeles, and though at the time I remember telling my therapist there that I "felt like the place was a fancy prison," when I compare it to my other experiences it wasn't extremely traumatic (but I understand that it still probably affected me somehow).

After trying to kill myself at the program, I was then sent to a ward at UCLA, and when I was released from the ward and sent back to the program, it was decided for me that I apparently needed long term "care." What I experienced at Innercept included attempted conversion "therapy" for a week by staff and management not caring, staff lying to us about us sexually assaulting another resident as an excuse to put us in the isolation room for a whole month (and we actually believed it for about a whole year, yikes), and staff starving - I say this because the pain of being hungry was intense - all residents and forcing them to over exercise. Punishing residents for self harming and not complying with staff by forcing them to do manual labor - I remember when I was sent to the isolation room I would be forced to do "deep cleaning" and at one point during the winter I was forced to shovel snow. Among other things, like not allowing me to go the local psych ward when I'm having a breakdown and self harming and asking to go to the ward because it's much better than Innercept, and management treating staff horribly and firing them over stupid things - like "giving the residents too much food.' Most staff was sleep deprived - in some cases often they'd only get an hour of sleep a day. Your "therapist" - they don't deserve that title - also read and censored all your mail going in and out and shredded anything they didn't like. If you expressed anything about how much suffering was happening at that place, that would be shredded and then your "therapist" would lecture you in your next meeting about "you're not allowed to bash the program."

A resident who dealt with medical issues due to their eating disorder was refused medical attention, the plan by the facility was to reward the resident by giving them coffee if they brought their heart rate up to 120bpm for 30mins at a time, and the resident and other residents (including me) saw this and knew how horrible it was. My private journal was read so many times by staff and management against my wishes, and was used to punish me. Another resident and I have a CPS report, though it legally doesn't mean anything it's just a notice, because we were in a relationship together and I wrote about how it brought me joy - just regained enough memories to put together that at one point he actually passed letters to me that contained the lyrics of a song, directed at me, and at one point he actually believed it. The song was Jambi by Tool, and the thing that gets me is that this means he actually had hope in the situation (when I didn't). I also know that eventually he resided himself to doing manual labor if that meant not having to interact with any other students - they, staff and the program, took that hope away from him. In my personal journal that was supposed to be private, even though I have since then learned that staff do this (read private journals) to all residents. Many things from my stay there have been stolen, not just by residents. Anyways another thing, also at Innercept, I and another resident witnessed another resident, in the isolation room (the "room" was a 2 bedroom place with no doors and a "living room" with a table, all locked to the outside world) who ran from the program - the situation was that the staff supervising all of us tried to talk to him calm him down (as he was freaking out) and this escalated into the resident banging on the window and finding a way to open it, breaking the lock and screen, while the staff was like "hey buddy, don't do that" and only after did the resident escape did the staff go outside the room to try to "collect" the person. The resident managed to escape from the program for 2 whole days, but the police did eventually find him, and he was sent to juvenile detention (juvie), only allowed back onto campus under supervision and carefully crafted sessions of "reintegration" after some time at juvie. I knew another resident, and the only evidence I have that shows she existed is a paper box with positive affirmations for us, with art on the box. She was a nice person to me, and put positive affirmation on papers with art and taped them on all the walls of the isolation room to help herself, and that was nice. Yet the staff did not listen to her and didn't support her, so she ran, and because of how the staff responded, she was then sent to juvie. I do not know if she is still alive. I do not know if any residents who I knew are still alive, except for the ones I do know updated things about (which are very few of them).

I managed to get out of Innercept after about a year of being there because I got into actual fistfights with staff and management, so eventually they kicked me out and sent me to the local psych ward (Kootenai Behavioral Health), and from there I managed to convince my mother to get me out of there (but in order to do so I was forced to agree with going to another facility - this time at UNI at the university of Utah - because someone did come to escort me there). I managed to do this because a nurse there let me have phone calls with my mother, against the wishes of George, everyone's psychiatrist at Innercept and the founder of the program. UNI was better I think, but still horrific, but then again I'm not entirely sure if it was better or not. Spent the majority of my time there in their isolation room, which was a 4 walled white room with metal restraints on the ground. Was in their CAT program, and was there for at least 2 months. Got out of facilities in the USA and arrived back in Singapore on Oct 31st of 2019, as eventually somehow I did comply enough to get out of there. I don't remember or know how.

However, in March of this year I was sent to the local ward here in Singapore (the Institute of Mental Health). I do not wish that on anyone, I was at the C-class ward and there was a bug infestation. There was no air-con, and there were no social workers there - just doctors, nurses, and psychiatrists. Apparently the protocol they have is when they, staff, restrain people, they have to wait until your heart-rate goes down to an "acceptable number" before they can un-restrain you, which makes no sense (automatic fear responses exist), and I don't know if this is actually true due to how doctors actively were more than okay with this and when I was restrained I was told to "be quiet" before I would be unrestrained. And this would happen for simply "walking weird" down a hallway, for an example.” - Anonymous