Hello

[Twin Volition]

Hello, everyone.

My name is Arlen, and I'm so unbelievably glad this place exists. I'm 19 and have been multiple for several years now. When I found out, I had been trying to hide my other(s?) from my family for a long time until just last Monday when I had

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a very bad and bloody lapse with self-harm

that I couldn't conceal. (I read your section on the front page's reading room about "Coming Out Multiple," so I gather that I'm not the only one who tried to live in hiding, and that makes me feel a little bit less ashamed about it. So thank you, to the authors and all the people here.)

Just last Friday my family convinced me to see a psychologist, and I went, but he wasn't understanding at all. He called the paramedics and they took me and

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institutionalized me against my will and against my family's wishes.

The staff there treated me like an animal. Even when they admitted my cuts were infected, they refused to clean or treat them at all. They woke me up in the middle of the night to

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inject me with something

they wouldn't tell me anything about, even when I asked, and when I said I didn't want it, the male nurses

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held me down and injected me anyway.

(My mother later found out from one of the nurses that what they gave me was lorazepam (Ativan) and ziprasidone (Geodon), so I know it wasn't treatment for the infected wounds.)

We were just discharged last Saturday after begging the psychiatrist/evaluator in the psych ward to release us "against medical advice". I'm very happy to be out of such an inhumane facility, but I am still very frightened, ashamed, and depressed. We might be in therapy now, but I'm afraid they'd just put us back there. So right now we don't know what to do with us, but I do at least look forward to being a contributing members of this community.

P.S. - Sorry about the excessive spoilers; I just didn't want to offend/disturb anyone.