Institutional and systemic failure

Being harmed or mistreated in a psychiatric facility or mental health setting

Being harmed, mistreated, or re-traumatized in a psychiatric hospital, residential treatment facility, or mental health setting. Treatment that felt more like punishment. Staff who used their power against you rather than for you. A system that was supposed to help with your mental health and instead made it worse.

Being harmed in a place you were sent to for healing bends the compass that points toward help. If treatment felt like punishment, or the staff's power was used against you, wariness of the entire mental health world is a sane response. This fellowship is not that system. Nobody here holds power over you, which is exactly the point.

What can follow an experience like this

No two people carry the same experience the same way. These are some of the effects that people with this experience often describe. Having some of them, all of them, or none of them says nothing about how real what happened to you was.

PTSD After certain experiences, the brain can get stuck, replaying what happened through flashbacks, nightmares, or sudden intense reactions to things that remind you of it. Hypervigilance The nervous system that learned to scan for danger all the time. Trust issues Trust that was broken, repeatedly, by people who were supposed to be safe. Shame Not guilt about something you did. Depression Not just sadness. Anxiety The background hum of dread that is always there. Problems with authority The original experiences with authority figures, parents, teachers, institutions, abusers, shaping the automatic response to anyone who holds power. Hyper-independence You can give endlessly.

Nothing on this page is a diagnosis, and nothing here decides what is wrong with you, because nothing is wrong with you. Something happened to you. This page exists so that when you are ready, you can find people who understand it from the inside.

You do not have to carry this alone.

Bridge of Hope Recovery is a free, anonymous, peer-led fellowship for trauma survivors. Meetings run throughout the week by phone, by video, and in person. No cost, no waitlist, no one asking for your real name.

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