Her son was mistreated in a psychiatric hospital: "They want us to shut up"

TESTIMONY

Odile's son has been hospitalized several times in psychiatry because of his pathologies.

She tells about her career and her numerous supports in different reception structures.

Odile protests against the way her son was treated in a psychiatric hospital.

It evokes the mistreatment and humiliations suffered, as well as the threats of certain caregivers.

At the microphone of "La Libre antenna", on Europe 1, Odile says that her son has finally found respite and landmarks in a reception center in Belgium.

>> Listen to Odile's testimony in full here 

"My son Benjamin is 32 years old, he was born with a palsy and cerebral disability. At the age of 16, he contracted psychiatric illnesses. It led him to hospitalizations. Currently, the care is dramatic. in a psychiatric hospital. At the age of 13, Benjamin entered a medico-educational institute. It did not go well. At the age of 20, I put him under guardianship because he He had no idea of ​​money. He left, I couldn't do anything. He found himself in an association for the reintegration of people coming out of prison. He had known drugs. 

I kept fighting and managed to get him out of this place.

He lived in a relay house, and it was even more catastrophic.

I found my son in dire straits.

I put him in a nursing home.

He was angry because the others were more severely disabled than him.

I put my professional career aside from 2015 to 2018. He was followed at the medico-psychological center by a psychiatrist who listened to him too much.

Benjamin was in denial of his illness.

He wanted to work knowing that he couldn't. 

He hadn't been showered for several days

Benjamin was hospitalized again.

Always the same galley: mistreatment, humiliation, restraint and abusive isolation.

We, as parents, are threatened because they absolutely want us to be silent.

I found my son with bruises and in terrible shape.

He hadn't been showered for several days and he was in a urine-filled cover.

I alienated the team. 

I received threats from caregivers.

A caregiver even told me that he was going to file a complaint against my son.

Last fall, Benjamin called the police telling them he was being abused.

It made a scandal.

They deleted his cell phone and it earned him eleven days of isolation and two days of restraint.

When you know that your son is tied up and locked in a 10m2 room, it is very difficult to live with. 

In psychiatry, they are infantilized

The psychiatrist told me about Belgium in 2018. At the start, I didn't want Benjamin to leave.

I asked myself the question and got interested in Belgium.

I came across a small structure, a family center where there are about ten residents.

Benjamin arrived in Belgium on July 4.

It is also complicated for him to spend three years of psychiatry in a place where he is free, where we have to find benchmarks of freedom and autonomy because in psychiatry, they are infantilized. 

Benjamin manages to find his bearings.

He's starting to realize he's really good.

They do activities, they go to restaurants, bowling.

He does things he didn't do before, he tidies his room, he is interested in animals.

The care is respectful, the staff are attentive.

It is a very family structure where they put everything in place so that these young adults have a more or less normal life despite their pathologies.

>> Find Olivier Delacroix's Libre antenna in replay and podcast here

In France, disability does not interest anyone.

They take people who are not trained.

When you work in psychiatry, you have to know how to contain yourself.

Benjamin was humiliated.

I set up an association.

People testified about what Benjamin experienced: humiliation and abuse.

Courage, we have it.

We fight for them, out of love.

Thousands of families live it and choose, like me, exile in Belgium.

There are many families who do not speak out because they are afraid of reprisals against their loved one. "