Above is a picture of the Whitney building at the Royal Ottawa Hospital. This building
held the Whitney wards 3, 4, and 5. Whitney 4 ward was the two floors above the ground floor where the entrance is. The ground floor was floor 2. Whitney 4 is where I was first admitted to at the Royal Ottawa Hospital, my first psychiatric hospitalization. The Whitney Building was torn down last year in 2006 to be replaced with the new building which is called the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Center.
April 1972 (Royal Ottawa Hospital)
At the age of l7 years old, I ran away from my upper middle class home in Ottawa. My father was the director of a translation section in an
Ottawa federal department and had a high paying salary and my mother
was a housewife. I wanted for nothing material wise, I had the best of
food, clothes, yearly vacations, and lived in a big house that Paul
Anka used to live in at 87 Clearview Ave in Ottawa. I was not given
any love nor any respect by my parents who violated my physical and
psychological boundaries continually during my childhood. I was a very
frightened and nervous child in my home. I had no one to run to for
help or so I thought. My childhood experiences continue to haunt me to
this day.
My mother and father tortured my brother Chris and I - physically and
emotionally. I was tortured by my parents for l7 years of my life. My
uncle Lyman sexually abused me at the age of 4 years old. My father
was a wife beater and so was his father. My father's brother Gerry
molested his two daughters for years. My father would yell at me and
call me names and kick me and grab me and punch me.
My mother would strangle me, throw me down a flight of stairs, beat me
on the arms and legs, throw things at me, jump on me when I was
sleeping and twist my arms and legs, throw me into doors and walls,
slap me across the face, call me names and yell and scream at me. My
mother beat all the animals we had. She put my cousin Marcel's head in
a toilet bowl for soiling his pants, and beat my cousin Robin for
returning home with an an umbrella she gave Robin to use but it got
broken at school.
I grew up in a home where on the outside everything looked perfect but
on the inside it was chaotic and it was a very violent and unsafe
environment to live in.
My brother and I hid the abuse we suffered at home from most family
members and friends and from school. My mother threatened us should we
ever tell anyone of the abuse happening at home. My father and mother
did not use alcohol nor drugs but their behaviour was out of control.
Some family members knew of the abuse that was happening to my brother
and I but kept silent and turned a blind eye to the abuse. In the
1970s, child abuse was a taboo subject and rarely spoken about. These
days child abuse is covered in the media and it is not a taboo subject
anymore.
At the age of l7 years old with no money in my pocket and not knowing
about any community resources, I ran away from home in March of
1972. I called a high school friend and she let me stay at her home
with her brother while her parents were away in Florida. After about a
month while staying at my friend's house in Ottawa, her parents called
to say they were coming home from Florida and they did not know I was
staying at their house. My friend told me I had to go. I was homeless
and had no one to turn to. I was all alone with no one to help me. I
was a wounded soul looking for help to ease my emotional pain of
having been abused for l7 years by my parents.
The school psychologist at my high school called me into the
office.She asked me why I was missing so much school and I told her
about the abuse at home. She suggested I go to the Royal Ottawa
Hospital on Carling Ave and someone could talk to me and I could get
some help. So I agreed, not knowing what the Royal Ottawa Hospital was
all about.
I walked into the psychiatric industry for l8 years as I made my first
step into the Royal Ottawa Hospital in March of 1972. A psychiatrist named Dr. Arboleda-Florez
and a nurse were waiting to speak to me in the Emergency section of
the hospital. I told them the whole history of my family and the abuse
I suffered at home. They suggested since my nerves were bad I should
stay for a few days at the hospital and they would help me. I had no
money,and no one to turn to. I did not know about welfare, legal aid,
food banks or emergency shelters and never asked as I did not know
about these services, and whether they existed at all in 1972 in
Ottawa.
I was admitted to the Whitney 4 ward of the Royal Ottawa Hospital. I
was 125 pounds at the time of my admission to the hospital. Right away
I was given heavy doses of tranquilizers whereby I had no
co-ordination as I walked down the hallway and had to cling onto the
walls to walk, my vision was blurry from the psychiatric medication
and I had a dry mouth and I slept for 20 hours a day. I got up to eat
meals and to talk to my visitors. Often they had to wake me up as I
was sleeping.
While in the hospital, I signed papers that I was told "don't worry
about what you are signing". My vision was blurry and I did not know
what type of papers I was signing - probably drug study forms.
I gained 30 pounds in the three months I was there. I developed an
eating disorder on the ward that continues to this day as when the
snacks came by I would grab the cakes and cookies and used food to
make me feel better because I was locked up and could not get out. I
used food as a coping tool. I am seeing a therapist these days to deal
with my overeating disorder.
I left after three months and went to live my abusers, my parents as I
had no where to go. Living with my family got me depressed so I was
admitted to the Royal Ottawa again. This happened three times and
until February of the next year whereby I was threatened with "going
to Brockville Psychiatric Hospital" if you do not get better
On the Whitney Ward, I was on a locked ward and could not understand
why I was being locked up, what did I do to deserve being locked up? I
had bad nerves from having been abused severely for l7 years by my
parents. I had to line up for my medications like a herd of sheep. I
got angry and I told the staff what I thought. I was vocal, and loud.
I was protesting the way I was being treated. I was treated like a
child, talked down to, not believed, had my freedom stripped away from
me.
I would bang on my locker in my hospital bedroom whereby four
orderlies would come down the hallway and I would run away for dear
life and they would corner me and then drag me to my bedroom, and flip
me onto my stomach onto my bed. A nurse with a long needle was
standing there waiting to inject me with sedatives to knock me out for
quiet a while. This was called a "chemical restraint". I was not a
compliant patient, I was a shit disturber on the ward. I told the
staff what I thought of them and it was not nice language. I got many
"chemical restraints" at the Royal Ottawa Hospital.
Shortly after trying to hang myself in my room at the Royal Ottawa
Hospital in March of 1973 on the Whitney 4 ward, I was transferred by
ambulance to Ward H of the Brockville Psychiatric Hospital in Ontario,
60 miles from Ottawa. The huge complex was near a main highway.
Sue got her medical records last year from the ROH
I got my files from the Royal Ottawa Hospital last year in 2006. Here is some of what was on my chart:
I was first admitted to the Royal Ottawa Hospital (ROH) in 1972. I had run away from home because I was being mentally and physically abused by mother. I had bad nerves as I was homeless and had no money and had no one to run to so I could be safe and the high school psychologist suggested I go to the ROH to see someone and I did.
Dr. Arboleda-Florez who saw me in the Emergency ward. He asked that I come into the hospital to stay for a few days to settle my nerves. I did not know anything about psychiatry. I was only 17 years old and naive. I did not know of any social agencies to help me as my parents were in an upper middle class income. I never wanted for anything material.
I always had the best of food and clothes.
A few days of hospitalization I was told I was going to have landed up to be 3 months of being locked up on a ward a the Whitney 4 ward at the ROH and then started the 18 years of my being in and out of psychiatric hospitals in Ottawa and in Brockville, Ontario
In 1973 I tried to hang myself in my room at the ROH Whitney 4 ward in Ottawa and I was transferred to Brockville Psychiatric Hospital in March of 1973 and stayed there until September 1973 for six months on the locked Ward H.
I was labelled with 15 different psychiatric disorders given to me from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM book.) from 1972 to 1990.
There is no test nor scientific proof that mental illness exists. I believe the following disorders to be bogus.
------------------------------
Sue's given psychiatric labels were:
Agitated Depression
Adult Situational Disorder
Bipolar Affective Disorder
Histronic Personality
Hypomanic
Manic Depressive Psychosis
Marital Maladjustment
Paranoid Schizophrenic
Personality Disorder
Psycho Affective Psychosis
Schizoaffective Psychosis
Schizoaffective Disorder
Schizophrenia
Severe Psychotic Illness
Situational Reaction
I was given 14 different types of psychiatric drugs/medications at various times
GENERIC NAME
amitriptyline-----------------
chlorprothixene---------------------------------------------taractan
chlorpromazine---------------------------------------------thorazine
diazepam-----------------------------------------------------valium
fluphenazine-------------------------------------------------permitil, prolixin
fluphazine enanthate injections
flurazepam----------------------------------------------------dalmane
lithium carbonate-------------------------------------------lithane, lithobid, eskalith
methotrimeprazine-----------------------------------------nozinan
perphenzine--------------------------------------------------trilafon
somote-------------------------------------------------------- chloral
hydrate
thioridazine-------------------------------------------------- mellaril
trifluoperzine------------------------------------------------ stelazine
When the pills did not agree with me, the psychiatrist who I may be seeing at the time would give me a new psychiatric label and then give me a new type of medication to go along with it.
I was in most of the psychiatric programs except forensic, in and out of hospitals as an in patient and out patient
I have been free of psychiatry since 1990. I have not taken any psychiatric medication nor have I been admitted to any psychiatric ward or hospital and I do not see a psychiatrist. Since 1990 I have been seeing alternative therapists.
chlorpromazine----------------
diazepam----------------------
fluphenazine------------------
fluphazine enanthate injections
flurazepam--------------------
lithium carbonate---------------------
methotrimeprazine-------------
perphenzine-------------------
somote------------------------
hydrate
thioridazine------------------
trifluoperzine----------------
When the pills did not agree with me, the psychiatrist who I may be seeing at the time would give me a new psychiatric label and then give me a new type of medication to go along with it.
I was in most of the psychiatric programs except forensic, in and out of hospitals as an in patient and out patient
I have been free of psychiatry since 1990. I have not taken any psychiatric medication nor have I been admitted to any psychiatric ward or hospital and I do not see a psychiatrist. Since 1990 I have been seeing alternative therapists.
