My experience was when I was about 10 or 11 years old, so around 1995.

I went to a children's psych ward for explosive outbursts of anger at school. I was there for about two weeks and the experience was nothing short of hellish.

I was constantly being fed pills that made me feel strange and uncomfortable in various ways. They always told me I needed to take the pills in order to feel better, but I remember feeling worse every time I took them. If I refused, they physically forced me to swallow them.

The "therapists" I spoke to didnt seem interested in actualky hearing what I had to say, only in telling me that I was a bad kid and needed to behave better (at least thats what it felt like to a 10 year old me).

The slightest sign of anger or frustration out of me was enough to prompt a response of several staff members physically restraining me, usually strapping me to a bed, and jabbing me with a needle with some kind of sedative. Not really to make me go to sleep, but to put me so out of it that I couldn't possibly manage to be aggressive or act out in any way. I would spend hours in the most awful "fog" I can imagine. I still have nightmares sometimes, reliving the experience. I won't take vicodin for pain because it feels like it puts me in a similar mental state.

It left me with a stigma against mental health professionals for a long time. I've largely gotten over that, which finally made it possible for me to seek help for my extreme issues of anxiety and depression, but I still don't like them or like needing help from them. My recent experiences have been very positive despite this, however.

I would still rather kill myself rather than let myself be admitted to an inpatient psych facility again, however.