Who are the people in mental institutions?

All over the world millions of people live in long term mental institutions. Most of them did not choose that way of living. Many of them are de facto and de jure arbitrarily detained in those places. The living conditions may vary from place to place, nevertheless the majority, if not all of the „residents” of these facilities face neglect, physical, sexual and verbal abuse, forced drugging, inhuman and degrading treatment. The conditions are often life-threatening. These institutions are generally located in the middle of nowhere. People living there are the most invisible human beings on the Earth. Many of them are, in fact, not citizens either, as inhuman guardianship laws deprive them of exercising their citizens’ rights.

Who are they? The „lucky outsider” could think that they are insane, brain diseased, dangerous or fully incapable. Campaigns led in the spirit of the medical model could reinforce that view.

Nevertheless, if you are brave enough to visit such institutions, and if you are allowed to enter and meet people there in private, you will change your mind. I did. I am a psychiatric survivor and as an activist I regularly visit long term mental institutions in many countries. And whom I meet there are just like me. And like you.

You can meet – among other deprived persons – refugees, trauma survivors, homeless people, children, women and men who ended up there because of poverty. People with physical disabilities, persons belonging to marginalized ethnic, racial, religious, sexual or other minorities. Human beings who have had social, emotional, traumatic crises, who faced social exclusion. And who have been offered a place in an institution and coercive medical treatment to „fix” them, or rather, to make them invisible.

I could have easily ended up in such a place if I had not had the strong support network around me.

The „lucky outsider” must be aware of all these. And help us have rights to exercise our rights as other people can. A good way to help is to support the emerging new Convention.

Nothing about us without us.

Gabor Gombos