My late son Daniel was born on Saint Patrick’s Day 1991.
Unfortunately, at times, it seems like he never existed, thanks to the power of blocking unpleasant memories from the brain.
However, I want his twenty-one years on this earth to count; his life was not in vain.
I want other parents to be aware of medical kidnapping and the power the medical industry has over minors.
Parents, listen to your gut instincts.
If something doesn’t feel right in a medical situation, don’t blindly follow without knowledge. . . and just as important, know your parental rights.
Just days before Daniel’s 16th birthday, he contracted an intestinal bug that lasted several days. He had vomiting and diarrhea—and ate close to nothing.
Since he also suffered from Type I diabetes, his body began producing an overabundance of ketones that caused significant dehydration.
This is Daniel on his 16th birthday. Friends delivered balloons to the emergency department, and we were able to momentarily smile for the camera.
Daniel’s mental status became acutely altered, so my husband Kurt and I took him to the local emergency room.
The assessment there was he needed psychiatric care, so they sent him to an inpatient psychiatric facility on the other side of town. The medical staff at that facility had no focused training in caring for teens with juvenile diabetes.
They didn’t even have insulin on the premises—and I wasn’t allowed to administer the insulin I’d brought from home.
Eventually, a doctor ordered insulin from a nearby hospital pharmacy, but by the time it was delivered, more than twelve hours had passed. As a mother/caregiver who helped manage my son’s diabetes for years, I felt utterly helpless.
They immediately started him on two antipsychotic drugs.
We, the parents, were locked out of the facility except for a one-hour visit in the evenings and a two-hour visit on weekends.
Throughout the next six weeks, Daniel was injected with high doses of several psychotropic drugs in order to see how he’d react to them. The effects on his behavior were immediate and terrible.
The staff restrained him, repeatedly isolated him in a padded room, and continually fed him highly processed food while unsuccessfully attempting to lower his blood sugars below 350.
In the evenings, Kurt and I would visit a drooling, screaming lunatic crawling on the filthy floor.
Prior to this time, Daniel was an honor student who was polite and respectful—with the dream of becoming a pediatric surgeon and medical missionary to Papua New Guinea.
Each day that passed, he got worse.
They told us that they were a facility to treat the mind, not diabetes.
After six weeks of drug experimentation, a psychiatrist wanted Kurt and me to sign the consent form to administer a highly controversial treatment for minors: electroconvulsive shock therapy (ECT).
We researched the use of ECT on minors and refused to sign it.
Instead, we decided to bring Daniel back to the safety of our home in order to stabilize his diabetes.
He was released “AMA”—against medical advice.
The next day a police officer and a social worker were at our front door; threatening to remove Daniel from our home and return him to the psychiatric facility if we didn’t comply with an investigation. The alleged accusations were “life endangerment and medical neglect of a minor.”
Therefore, we were forced to hire an attorney at $200/hour to investigate medical records. Plus, our home was thoroughly inspected, including our refrigerator and the children’s clothes, and our other children were privately interviewed.
After the investigation, Child Protective Services dropped all accusations. The attorney determined that his life was potentially spared because we had removed him from the facility.
In Daniel’s medical records, the attending physician documented that he’d become “gravely ill” with dangerously high blood pressure and tachycardia. That doctor had requested his immediate transfer to a nearby emergency room—but nothing was done. Instead, Daniel remained in a precarious state of health.
The psychiatric facility dropped all medical bills for those six weeks of care.
However, Daniel was never the same after that time.
Throughout the next year he suffered from post-traumatic stress and was withdrawn and mute.
Eventually, he was treated for depression with more psychiatric drugs.
He was put on new meds that, once again created severe reactions—including hallucinations and attempting to gouge his eyes out in order to get rid of them, which caused his index finger to get stuck inside an eye socket.
[It was later determined by a psychiatrist in another state that the hallucinations were in part, a symptom of a deeper medical delirium—metabolic encephalopathy caused by high blood sugars. That, combined with tranquilizers that created drug-induced psychosis; and the outdated, barbaric use of restraints and isolation, his mind didn’t stand a chance to heal and recover.]
The next summer my husband had taken our other children to a family reunion in another state—and I stayed home to give oversight to Daniel.
I woke up on a Saturday morning and discovered one of the cars missing. Somehow, he’d taken a set of keys that I’d hidden away from him.
I later found out that he had driven erratically throughout two counties and had recklessly crossed a 4-lane highway a couple of times.
He was found naked; dancing and chanting in a stranger’s front yard.
Needless to say, their frightened neighbor had called the police. Daniel didn’t know his name. Thankfully, his medical ID bracelet was found nearby, so they transported him to a hospital instead of the county jail.
At that hospital, they started him on more psyche meds.
I brought him home that night, and he became increasingly agitated due to the adverse side effects of yet another experimental drug.
From 2am to 7am, I locked myself in my bedroom—fearing for my life.
Eventually, a SWAT team rescued me from the situation . . . but not without a lot of trauma and drama. Daniel was transported back to the inpatient psychiatric facility. There were no other options at that time.
It was back to more restraints and drug experimentation all over again. . .with the addition of solitary confinement. (The cinder block cell had a small window near the ceiling, and a tiny opening in the steel door that shielded him from humanity. His bed was a vinyl covered mattress with no bed sheets. I was allowed a brief visit to the unit daily; long enough to peak through the opening in the door and see him lying in a fetal position.)
Throughout the years, we were never warned about the various drugs’ adverse side effects: the agitation, the aggression, the mania, the tremors, the restlessness, the increased risk for suicide.
Instead, we were told to stay off the Internet. If we asked questions about them, we were assured that the benefits outweighed the risks.
Each passing year, Daniel’s mind slipped deeper into the dark abyss.
As a result, our family was forced to experience the horrors of a mind gone insane.
And, in order to protect his privacy due to the stigma and shame of mental illness, we were hesitant to reach out to anyone for help . . . so the ongoing silence compounded the agony and suffering for our entire family.
Had Daniel been put on a medical floor of the hospital when he was dehydrated and delusional at age 16—and been given IVs of fluids, proper nutrition and diabetes management instead of psychiatric drugs—perhaps he would’ve recovered. Perhaps today he would be a contributing member of society.
We will never know, because just before his 21st birthday, he was put on yet another “black box warning” medication.
He was an outpatient at a local mental health clinic, and the drug was prescribed. It was well known to increase the risk of suicide in teens and young adults; yet, as always, the side effects were not discussed with my husband and me.
Nor were we warned to be on the lookout for any unusual changes in behavior—even though we had younger children still living at home—which put them in harm’s way of sibling violence.
On the Friday morning before Memorial Day 2012, Daniel called the clinic. He desperately asked to see anyone who could adjust his meds.
Instead, he was told that no one was available to see him. I was nearby and heard the conversation.
Unfortunately, two days later, he lost the battle and died by suicide.
After the funeral, a letter arrived addressed to Daniel. It was from the outpatient psychiatric clinic—informing him of staff shortages.
However, Daniel no longer needed their help.
Addendum:
Eleven years after his death, while cleaning our garage, I discovered a poignant writing by Danie tucked in a Rubbermaid storage tub. The following is what he wrote about the local in-patient psyche facility:
Daniel: "There are a lot of evil things they are allowed to do there to kids and teens, and because it's behind locked doors, the general population never hears about the injustices that go on at places like that.
Then five staff members repeatedly held me forcefully face down on a bed, pulled my pants down, and shot me with a heavy tranquilizer.
The drugs caused me to hallucinate. I was awake, but I would slip into dream-like states of brain activity of nightmares--illusions that seemed real to me. I was scared _____________."
(It was in this heavily tranquilized state that he attempted to gouge an eye out in order to get rid of the nightmares.)
He was also sexually assaulted there (discovered posthumously in other journals).
Parents were only allowed to visit for one hour in the evenings, and two hours on the weekends. The rest of the time, we were locked out.
When we eventually transferred Daniel to the psychiatric unit of Cincinnati Children's Hospital, they said they seldom restrain kids and never put them in padded isolation rooms. Their endocrinology team worked hard to stabilize his blood sugars. Plus, I got to stay in the room with Daniel 24/7; they provided wonderful hospitality for my overnight stays in his room. They said the "care" he received locally was barbaric.
The brain heals in an environment of compassionate care and safety.
By the time he died, he couldn't even do simple math problems.
Abuse of any kind adversely affects and damages the brain--and abuse will certainly never facilitate its ability to heal.
God’s grace and time have healed my broken heart and crushed spirit.
However, I will never bury this story.
I will continue to share it on Daniel’s birthday in order to warn other families of the potential dangers of a medical industry who wields way too much power over patients.
Daniel’s voice was silenced, but I made a promise to him I'd tell his story.
This post may be shared.
If you are a parent, be aware that medical kidnapping is real. It can happen to anyone.
Emily Boller, artist, mother, and author of Starved to Obesity, lost 100 pounds more than fifteen years ago by eating an abundance of high-nutrient, plant-rich foods. Today, she’s certified in whole plant nutrition from the Nutritarian Education Institute. She’s on a mission to combine practical, no-nonsense and cost-effective tips—with easy to understand science—in order to help anyone escape the addictive grip of the Standard American Diet. And now, she’s on a mission to bring awareness to the suffocating and potentially deadly trap of eating disorders as well. Unfortunately, she lost a 21-year-old son to suicide in 2012.