Used 911 to Make Me Look “Crazy” by Karen McElroy

I’m 56 and I’ve survived childhood sexual abuse, run away and was trafficked as a prostitute between the ages of 15 to 18. Throughout that time I had been beaten, raped, arrested.

Never in my life have I been suicidal, yet three times ( since I started Adderall, and now Ritalin) my covert narcissist husband has called 911 stating that I am. Once I was asleep when the EMT showed up.

On October 10th, he called 911. He’s 14 years younger, 250 pounds, and he was holding me face down on the ground outside. The police showed up and handcuffed me behind my back. One much younger and bigger cop had his knee in my back and kept me restrained to the ground for 40 minutes.

Having a history of trauma, I panic when I’m being held down. I was pleading for them to flip me on my back. I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

They said, “If you are screaming, you are breathing.”

I have a pacemaker and weigh 110 pounds.

I was hyperventilating and when I tried to lift my chest off the ground they slammed me down

Two firefighters showed up. I begged them, told them flip me on my back. I’m not a threat to anyone. They just chitchatted until the ambulance arrived.

On the five minute ride to the hospital, they saw my shoulders. My hands were bleeding. I had a fat lip and was scared and hurting.

Six hours earlier I texted my advocate from the organization for prostitution survivors that I need a safe house and foster care for my three little dogs. I tried to tell the police, the EMTs then the hospital staff in the emergency department. Not one person showed me and kindness, no one would even talk to me.

I told them I’ve never been suicidal and I know my rights. I asked to call my advocate a hundred times. I told them I was scared for my dogs. They ignored me, barked at me, slammed the door in my face and when I put one foot out of the room, the “sitter” called a code grey!

They had huge security gloving up ready to restrain me because I disobeyed their orders to “shut up and sit down.” The doctor refused to take pictures of my injuries, did not ask any questions, did no assessment, and certainly no treatment. I had to ask for a bandaid.

They held me for 24 hours based on the lying husband’s smear tactics. Even the police report said I was not detained. The ” social worker” stood in my doorway after eight hours. Again, no assessment, no empathy, and said that my husband was calling over and over telling them not to let me out, so she was referring me to the mental health professional.

I have a degree in psychology and spent thirty years working with the mentally ill inpatient, outpatient, crisis response, and emergency crisis triage. I know mental health law, I know how to treat a person with dignity. I am skilled in de-escalation and patient-centered care. I was appalled at the lack of professionalism and the culture of discrimination and neglect towards the “psychiatric” patients.

No one heard me. No one wanted me to speak at all. They were bullies, from the cops to the nurses and the medical assistants. I was released by the mental health professional who sat down and determined that I was reliable, not a danger, and the abuser who tried so hard to have me detained drove me home.

As I was putting my key in the door, he casually mentioned that my 16 year old Yorkie ran away.

Twenty-four hours of being treated like a criminal, a hostage, and punitively ignoring me, I was beat up, and the very thing I was so scared of the entire time had happened. I spent four nights looking for him, two nights staying in the car freezing with my two remaining dogs.

I requested my medical records, 128 pages?

How does that happen when the only thing they did was re-traumatize me more?

Karen’s Bio:

Mental health counselor, thirty years. Married since 03…long history of bad relationships and trying to divorce a lying schemer.