Hann’s Franciscan Children’s Hospital Unit 1, Worcester Recovery Center & Hospital (CCU), Arbour Hospital, and Metrowest Psychiatric Unit Testimony

Trigger Warning: suicide, self-harm, eating disorder, restraints

Hi, my name is Hann (any pronouns) and I would like to share my story of being a victim to institutional child abuse. I would never wish the trauma I went through on anyone. I would consider this time period the worst time of my life and to this day it detrimentally affects me.

I had my first suicide attempt in February of 2021. I had a failed attempt to overdose and was sent to Franciscan Children’s Hospital after recovering in the ER. I was neglected constantly and staff racially discriminated against me among other white patients. They had apparent favorites and fooled around with them when other patients including myself needed help safety wise. I ended up being unsafe as a result on many occasions because they ignored me whenever I was struggling as I was Asian.

I was supposed to leave for an outpatient partial program within my first 3 weeks but ended up staying 4 months because many patients and staff started being racist to me and I got a lot worse. One staff member, who was white, gaslighted me telling me I had no reason to be upset and that no one was being racist to me when they were as people on my unit continually made numerous racial assumptions about me that weren’t true. I wrote a letter to her educating her about how racially insensitive she was and she later was forced to apologize but was very insincere. I went to the human rights officer at least 8 times throughout my stay to try and stop the discrimination and racism but she was never able to help in the way I needed.

My safety became so bad I was under constant supervision and had to have a one-to-one staff member with me constantly. I couldn’t use the bathroom or bathe by myself which was so humiliating especially because I had trouble during bowel movements and became heavily constipated because of my medicine, I couldn’t be in my room alone, was restricted my clothing options, had to have a safety blanket which was so uncomfy, and had to be watched till I fell asleep. Some one-to-ones never watched me like they were supposed to and hung out with their favorite patients instead, while neglecting to take care of me. Due to this, I was unsafe numerous times while they were supposed to watch me.

One time I was trying to suffocate myself and my one-to-one laughed at me, mocking me telling me my attempt was never going to work. She waited till I was blue and choked until she tried to stop me. She sat there watching me try to end my life without intervening or making an effort to stop me. This should have never happened and she should have helped me. When I felt unsafe, staff told me to go into the quiet room knowing I would self harm or try to kill myself there and didn’t stop me. I was restrained multiple times and was forced to take a sedative against my will. This felt very violating as I got no say and they had complete control of my body; but this was minor compared to the restraints at my next hospital.

One time when I was ice diving as a coping skill, while my face was in the water, a staff member pushed my head farther down grabbing me by the neck forcefully to keep me under. This made me hyperventilate so much and I was panicking immensely. He later belittled me, talking down to me, shaming me for my values. I had a severe self harming problem and constantly found loopholes to be unsafe because I was never being watched when I should have.

My parents were lied to everyday about my safety and they were only told an ⅛ of what actually happened. It wasn’t till I got out of the hospital that I found out they only knew a sliver about my safety and I was a lot more unsafe than they were told. My doctor invalidated me and told me I was making up my mania for attention when this was far from the truth as I had manic episodes quite frequently.

Most of all, I was denied help for my eating disorder. I spent months starving myself and began purging and told my psychiatrist how bad it was and they did little to help but put me on a one-hour restriction after meals which didn’t stop my restriction of food. Other patients got help for their ed’s and got to see a nutritionist while I was denied any help my whole stay. It was notably obvious how little I was eating and staff never wrote about my lack of food in my notes or made an effort to try and make me eat more. I left the Fran severely iron deficient with concerning blood levels, calcium deficient, and my eating disorder got much worse which put me on the waiting list for Walden Residential, an eating disorder hospital. This would have never escalated to be so bad if I had gotten help when I needed it most to begin with. Thankfully there was one staff who I really bonded with here that was my favorite staff. I knew I could always come to them when I needed help most and they would always understand and validate what I was going through.

I was discharged and transferred to the CCU Long Term facility after the Fran. This facility was known to be the highest level of care and safety in the state. Little did I know it would be the most dangerous one. From day one I was strip-searched and overly examined for self harm/scars, being treated like a prisoner when they touched me. I was quarantined in a room for 5 days which really was pure isolation. I had to wear the same clothes for all of those days and wasn’t regularly fed and went hours without food or water. The staff forgot about me and lacked to check in on me. I had to sit outside of my room if I needed something because they said they would come help and never did. I didn’t even get to shower until my third day in isolation. After I got out of isolation I discovered just how unsafe my unit was. I got really close to some of my peers there which was the only upside.

People were restrained up to 8-10 times a day for fighting, safety issues, and most of the time things they never should have been restrained for. Patients were physically pushed to the ground by 20+ men surrounding them while being injured, while also being injected with booty juice (Haldol sedation). The way the staff talked about the patients while restraining them was despicable as they treated them animalistically. My closest friend refused to go to school one day and then got restrained for no reason when he didn’t provoke violence or was a danger to himself. The staff’s direct response when someone was in crisis was to jump right to restraining people instead of using patients’ coping skills. However, on multiple occasions I got hurt because of how violent some of the patients were. I watched people constantly try to hurt themselves and end their lives in front of me, mirrors were constantly broken. The staff at the CCU treated us all like animals and we were belittled constantly. All of the coping skills I used before coming to the CCU to stay safe were forbidden at the CCU and were frowned upon.

When in crisis, the only thing I could do was sit on the porch they had. They didn’t allow me to use any of my skills that helped me because they were afraid I was going to suffocate myself with a fidget toy. All of us were constantly neglected and treated like prisoners being denied help and they did nothing and failed to help me when I was struggling. Staff on checks would see me crying and continually walk past me without making sure I was ok or humiliated and made fun of me telling me I had no reason to cry. Most of the people hired had little psychological experience in the psych field and just went on their phone the whole time or humiliated patients like me.

The worst situation here was when I had to hold down my friend because he was self harming in the community and was having a really bad dissociation episode. I was being kicked and hit and I was trying to keep my friend safe so he would stop hurting himself. The staff just sat back and watched, neglecting the situation at hand and didn’t do anything to stop him. I should have never had to be in that position or had to go through that when keeping him safe was not my responsibility. I was immensely triggered from what happened and had to put myself last in this situation. Additionally, certain staff members inappropriately forced their religious beliefs onto us and we were lectured when most of the unit including myself wasn’t even religious. I ended up reporting a really racist staff for harassing me when I was trying to stand up for someone else. I got no justice in the end for this and the staff was only banned from our unit until I left. The food we ate was inedible and it made me feel very ill.

Whenever someone needed help medically, they were refused more serious help. Someone broke their hand and was denied real help until he begged them crying and hurting himself just to get it looked at. Due to how much everything I witnessed scared me, I began lying about my safety and desperation to get out as soon as possible from day 1. Staying safe was really hard for me and I was in a state of shock my whole time there. I was afraid to ask for help for anything because of how much the staff didn’t care about the patients. I was told I would be there 6-12 months and I got out in 1 with the help of my parents. I had severe panic attacks everyday and felt so alone. I cried to my parents during our 2 twenty minute phone calls everyday. When they visited me, I begged my mom to take me home with her and she could do nothing but watch me in pain because she had no say. It was nothing like how it was advertised to us and my parents regret sending me there everyday.

No surprise, 2 days after being discharged from the CCU I was back in the ER for another failed overdose. I ended up at Arbour Hospital Psychiatric Unit which was just as bad as the CCU. I was forcefully strip searched there as well made to feel like an animal again. The first night I was there, I was told I couldn’t get my medicine because they said it was too late to put in an order for it. Me and my roommate stood up for ourselves and refused to go to bed without our meds. Going cold turkey would be detrimental to me and when I finally got my medicine at 12 am, it was the wrong dosages and the wrong medicine. Giving the wrong medicine should have never happened and is a serious violation that affected me for the worse the following days.

I was only at Arbour for 5 days because I left on a 3-day because of how bad it was. I found out I was the only patient there who WASN’T homicidal and that made me feel so unsafe. My roommate threatened to kill me and told me how she was going to kill me so I switched rooms. One patient snuck in a blade and was planning to hurt someone. Other patients sexualized me and sexually harrassed me and I was constantly fearing for my safety and was paranoid someone was gonna hurt me. Over those 5 days, my wrong medicine left me having panic attacks and shaking violently while my mind was spiraling constantly. I called my mom sobbing every minute possible begging her to come pick me up and to make this end. I felt so unsafe for my wellbeing at this hospital and the staff made me feel like I was a burden on them whenever I needed something.

They neglected me too and were outwardly rude to the patients as was the CCU. The Arbour was extremely dirty and when I took my shower I had nowhere to put my clothes but the floor. The visits were 15 minutes long with little privacy and my mom had to drive far to the hospital every time she visited. My treatment team was absolutely awful and my psychiatrist tried sending me back to the CCU. He told me everything I was going through was my fault and blamed me for my attempts, while the social worker invalidated me constantly and was so obnoxiously rude. Thankfully I was able to leave on a 3-day with the help of DMH Massachusetts because my parents and them tried all they could to get me out as soon as possible. My mom later submitted a formal complaint against the hospital and doctor.

My last hospitalization was at MetroWest Psychiatric Unit. The minute I got there I was strip-searched yet again but sexually assaulted by the nurses in the process which haunts me to this day. All of the staff were a lot older and were not up-to-date on teens and their “old fashion way” did more harm than good.

At the time, I went by they/them pronouns and they misgendered me constantly and made no attempt to refer to me correctly on purpose my entire stay no matter how much I told them and tried to educate them. Unfortunately, we were religiously lectured about how God is the solution to our problems yet again here when we shouldn’t have been.

The most concerning thing about my stay was watching someone be strapped down in one of those restraint chairs. Those should be banned as soon as possible and it’s sad to see hospitals still using them considering how sadistic they are. Seeing the fear in the patient’s eyes as he was buckled in haunts me. Seeing others restrained has got to be one of the most triggering things ever and causes me to be quite disregulated . We couldn’t go outside and the only “outside” space was surrounded completely by walls and was on carpet so we were so isolated. The staff marked down the percentage of how much we ate and when I didn’t finish my meal because I struggled so much with eating they would question why and wouldn’t believe me when I said it tasted bad. 2 patients from this hospital prank texted me and humiliated me when I got out of the hospital pretending to be someone I know and pressured me to do something I wasn’t comfortable with. Luckily I got out of here in a week, even though I picked up old habits and lied my way out by saying I wasn’t suicidal. I knew how the system worked to get out and I did everything in my power to get out as quickly as possible even if I had to lie and my safety proved otherwise.

It’s been a year since I’ve been hospitalized and to this day I fear getting help again because of the psychological, verbal, and physical abuse I went through while in the hospital. There were many times this year when I should have been admitted again but I continue to lie about my safety and hide it to this day. I suffer from complex PTSD and have elevated paranoia and nightmares on a daily basis due to the level of trauma I underwent. A year later, I am constantly on edge and have many triggers associated with the hospitals. I get claustrophobic easily as I was confined to small spaces for so long and I get constant flashbacks that leave me in a cold sweat. What I’ve gone through has truly traumatized me and will continue to be a barrier I face for the rest of my life. I don’t go one day without thinking about what I went through. Nonetheless, I won’t let my trauma and abuse define me as a person.

I will continue to share my story until I get the justice I deserve.

I am a survivor.

I refuse to be silenced again.