Category Archives: Abuse
From Personal Trauma to Systemic Abuse, the Antidote is the Same
The same dynamics I experienced as a child–unpredictable abuse, bystanders who froze, and systems that protected the abuser–are now playing out on a much larger scale in the world. In medical systems, the same patterns repeat. People suffer abuse, neglect, … Continue reading
When Help Harms: How Welfare Humiliates the People It Supposedly Serves
I’ve had severe Complex PTSD nearly my whole life. In my young adult years, that meant a lot of financial instability. I tried my damndest to land and keep jobs, build a positive social environment, pursue education, keep my health … Continue reading
Protect the Predator, Protect the Brand: How Hospitals Foster Criminal Behavior
Like pediatrics, family medicine, and mental health, gynecology is a medical specialty to which predators are attracted. Each specialty gives abusers access to numerous potential victims. An investigative report by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution identified over 3,100 individual physicians named in … Continue reading
What is the DARVO Tactic, and How Can We Respond?
Predators and other abusers often use the DARVO technique, a strategy that maintains control by destabilizing others. DARVO stands for Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender. It disrupts the relational context that helps people stay grounded in truth and … Continue reading
How SEIU F***** Over Trauma Survivors
Several years ago, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) put up a website saying that they were looking for stories from people who had been gaslit, threatened, and otherwise abused by Universal Health Services (UHS), America’s largest psychiatric hospital chain. … Continue reading
Standard Treatment Is Abuse: What ChristianaCare Taught Me About Mental Health “Care”
It’s been seven years since a ChristianaCare physician lied, gaslit, and coerced me into agreeing to psychiatric hospitalization. Here, I share the grievance I filed with ChristianaCare’s Patient and Family Relations department two years later. As the system continued to … Continue reading
ChristianaCare Funneled Me to the Cuckoo’s Nest
On this day in 2018, I informed ChristianaCare hospital intern Dr. Crystal Kucuk through the patient portal that Lexapro she had prescribed a few weeks earlier, “makes me very drowsy and lethargic. When I take it in the morning, I … Continue reading
ChristianaCare Protects Itself by Protecting a Bad Psychologist
I told a ChristianaCare psychologist about a serious concern on June 18, 2018. I said I was having increased suicidal ideations (SI) since the prior visit. I told Alan L. Schwartz, Psy.D., about my father and difficulties with Father’s Day, … Continue reading
The Oysters of Betrayal: How My Father’s Cruelty Fed My Fire
As I grew up, I became increasingly oppositional to my father, who exhibited multiple symptoms of malignant narcissism and was likely a dark tetrad. In reaction, the man charged with my care targeted me more intently. I had the gall … Continue reading
A Deliberate Strategy to Harm Federal Workers
“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” said Russell Vought, the current administration’s director of the federal Office of Management and Budget. “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work, … Continue reading