Invisible Medical Errors: A Story of Forced Psychiatry and the Fight for Voice

By Andy M.

Invisible Medical Errors: A Story of Forced Psychiatry and the Fight for Voice

Before everything fell apart, I had done something most people never do:

I was interviewed by Canada’s national intelligence agency. I had made it through multiple stages of the CSIS recruitment process—including psychological screening—and was told I was a serious candidate. I was calm, articulate, and confident. And I had also already lived and worked abroad with the United Nations. My life was moving forward in remarkable ways.

That was just a few years after my first experience with psychosis in my early twenties. I had already overcome a mental health crisis, rebuilt my life, and thrived. I finished a Master’s in Europe and was preparing to take on more ambitious roles abroad after two years in Asia with the United Nations. I was no longer on medication and was doing well. I had moved forward. But the healthcare system hadn’t.

Back in Canada from abroad in 2010, I began volunteering with a Member of Parliament while searching for my next career move. I felt it was time to check in with a psychiatrist—not because I was unwell, but because I wanted to reflect on difficult experiences I’d had working internationally. I’d lived through political unrest and hazing in a foreign workplace and just wanted to talk it through. I was in peak health, physically and mentally, and simply wanted to be heard.

I never imagined asking to speak with a psychiatrist would result in being forcibly hospitalized.

When I showed up early morning at the outpatient clinic, I was told the psychiatrist was working at another site that day and I should go there. When I arrived, I was directed into the emergency department. Within minutes, I was locked in.

I hadn’t hurt anyone. I wasn’t in distress. I was calm and clear. But a form was filled out declaring me a danger to myself or others. This form—called an F1 in Ontario—stripped away my right to leave. I was transferred by ambulance to another site and told I would be held over the weekend until I could see a psychiatrist.

On Monday, I was assessed by someone I had never met before. After an hour—at most—he determined I lacked decision-making capacity. Not because of any erratic behaviour, but because I disagreed with his opinion that I should be on medication. He claimed I didn’t “appreciate the fact” that my condition would worsen if untreated, even though my recent life experience clearly said otherwise.

I had already proven I could recover and thrive without medication. I had completed graduate studies abroad. I had worked for the UN. I had been stable and independent for years. But none of that mattered. A box had been ticked. And that was that.

I tried to protest. I grew angry. In a moment of desperation, I damaged a computer monitor. I was immediately placed in mechanical restraints—strapped to what felt more like a table than a bed—and given an intravenous sedative. I was kept like that for six hours, drifting in and out of consciousness while staff monitored me. When I was finally unrestrained, I remained in the same small room, alone.

My attempts to express myself were twisted into “behavioural issues.” When I poured urine on the floor in protest or dropped my meal tray in frustration, it was documented as instability. When I challenged the decision-making process or asked for transparency, I was seen as “lacking insight.”

Even the notes reflected a troubling bias. They described me as having a “history of delusional-driven violence,” referring to when I had once banged on a window in hospital years earlier, demanding to know why I was being held in isolation. That act of frustration was stripped of context, like so many other clinical notes, and used to build a case against me.

Ironically, one of the details that may have contributed to how I was perceived was my mention of having been interviewed by Canada’s national intelligence agency. What had once been a source of pride—something that showed my stability, capability, and potential—was instead interpreted as a delusion. Yet I had made it through multiple stages of the CSIS recruitment process, including psychological screening. That experience had shown me what it was like to be taken seriously, to be evaluated based on merit and facts. In contrast, my psychiatric assessment dismissed my history and achievements, seeing only illness where there was none.

As a Patient Safety and Quality Improvement professional now, I’ve reviewed hundreds of charts. I know how easy it is for confirmation bias to take root. Clinical notes become “truth,” even when they’re speculative, misleading, or outright incorrect. Once written, they become the lens through which all future behaviour is interpreted.

Eventually, after three weeks of being held involuntarily, a nurse warned me that the police could intervene if I didn’t agree to take medication. I gave in. I agreed to start treatment—not because I believed I needed it, but because I was exhausted and powerless. A few weeks later, I was discharged.

The damage was done.

I had entered the system voluntarily, seeking a one-hour conversation. I left drugged, traumatized, and demoralized. Everything I had built—my confidence, my physical health, my career momentum—began to unravel.

In the following year, I gained over 100 pounds. I started smoking heavily, drinking nightly, and spiraled into a deep depression. I lost touch with friends and avoided forming new connections out of fear and shame. I didn’t share what had happened—not with colleagues, not even with some family. I felt invisible.

There was no system to correct the errors that had occurred. My complaints were dismissed. My documentation remained uncorrected. The same institution that had held me for weeks without justification never acknowledged a single mistake. No apology. No accountability. Just silence.

What followed hospitalization was a slow, painful rebuilding. I started from the bottom again—volunteering, taking short-term contracts, and eventually moving to a new city for work. I lived alone, often isolated. I struggled to connect with others, emotionally and physically. Relationships were fleeting. Joy was muted. It took years before I began to feel like myself again.

Eventually, I found a path forward through the field of patient safety. I now work in Quality Improvement and Patient Safety, drawing directly on my experiences to inform how we assess harm and ensure accountability. I walk past the same hospital that held me every time I go into the office. It’s a reminder—of what happened, and why I continue to speak out.

That’s why I joined Patients for Patient Safety Canada.

I want others to know that harm in psychiatry exists—and it often goes unacknowledged. I want to push for safeguards: oversight for forced treatment, accountability for inaccurate documentation, and true listening when patients speak up. I want people to stop assuming that resistance to treatment is always a symptom. Sometimes, it’s survival.

To anyone reading this: please understand that forced care—especially when unjustified—has consequences. It can destroy lives just as easily as it can save them. We need systems that are flexible, humble, and willing to admit when they get it wrong.

I don’t share my story to shame healthcare providers. I share it to ensure we change the game—for patients, for providers, and for those who still fear speaking up. Let’s build systems that listen. Systems that learn. And systems that never confuse silence with safety.

Invisible Medical Errors: A Story of Forced Psychiatry and the Fight for Voice

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