for anyone whose found this off of tumblr and not from the Medium article I wrote. I suggest you read the article first so this doesn’t seem quite as panicked and messy as it actually is (and makes a little more sense).

edit (11/11): tw- harassment, abuse, medical abuse. I’m sorry to anyone this has triggered who didn’t come here via the Medium article with some idea of what this would be about.

edit (11/11): for everyone just reading this today. I had this written up for a friend a few months ago (closer to when most of this happened) not just today. So any references to yesterday or a week ago aren’t referring to November 10th or a week ago from 11/11/13. Sorry for the confusion. This was a panicked email sent to a friend wanting to know what happened. Read the article I published today if you want something a little more coherent and less emotional.

edit (11/12): Someone pointed out to me that I used the term ‘faculty’ incorrectly. Although no ctrl+F search brings up the term for me I’ll still go ahead and clarify that I do mean staff not teachers.

edit (11/12): I’m getting a lot of messages of two kinds - the first are of people being offended by my article’s title, telling me that art school didn’t ruin their lives and that things are just great at [insert their art school] so the title is wrong. It isn’t. 'My’ refers to me, and RISD is the art school in the title and rest of the article, not [insert any other school]. I also have very clearly stated that I’ve never had a problem with classmates or teachers - my classes were amazing at RISD and that wasn’t at all what I was talking about. The second kind of messages are from people from RISD (and two from other schools) of students and ex-students telling me how the same thing or a similar thing happened to them or one of their friends. This is the exact reason why I made this article, because even if I can’t find a pro bono lawyer or even if my petition is ignored, people whom this has also happened to are less alone and know that this didn’t just happen to them. Which is exactly what I thought before publishing the article: that no one would even read my main article because this kind of thing just doesn’t happen. Apparently it does.

(This was written in August) I just wrote everything from memory because I really don’t have the emotional energy to think or write about this any more than necessary. It was really hard for me to write this in a way that reads nicely or is succinct because it’s really traumatic to have to remember any of this. Unfortunatley, it’s long and kind of messy.

Early this year, at the end of January, I mistakenly decided to visit the school counselor at RISD. I had a really bad month and needed someone to talk to who wasn’t in my immediate group of friends. I thought I’d maybe ask for some sort of outside therapist recommendation as well since I vaguely knew that school counsellors tend to be apathetic. That’s what you do, right? That’s what school counseling centers are there for. That’s what anyone would do, right? But after a whole five minutes of speaking to the one and only counselor who seemed to work there, Wayne Assing (unlicensed Director of “counseling”), I could tell not a word I was saying was being heard. Being ignored wasn’t worth being late to class for, so I thought I’d get out, go to class, and maybe google someone in the area. That didn’t happen. Instead, when I said I had to go I was immediately detained á-la-almost-any-cop-movie, not given a reason other than that I had to wait there. I did, but my gut told me to run for the hills - this guy had been giving off bad and creepy vibes the whole time. After being forced to wait for what felt like forever an ambulence showed up.To give an example of how little of a clue I had of what was going on, the first thing I was was “why’s an ambulence here? Is someone sick?” and when I realized I was the one it was there for “but I’m not sick! I just had a doctor’s appointment over winter break and I’m fine. Is this a joke?” I had just explained a phobia of hospitals as a part of my really bad month that brought me to school counseling, so putting me in an ambulence to a hospital came off as a really sick joke.

The ambulance took me to a psychiatric hospital called Butler Hospital, a place that looked like a normal hospital from the outside. I kept asking why I was going to a hospital if I wasn’t sick. None of it made sense and I was scared - who just throws someone in an ambulence for no reason? I cried. I was held there for six and a half days. No human contact. Minimal food or water. Solitary confinement for no reason at all (I later found out that the counselor called the hospital and I guess just told them to confine me without explanation, and they did). All human rights were taken from me. I won’t go into what it’s like to be in a psychiatric hospital (without any psychiatric problem necessary to put you there), but most state prisoners are treated better. I cried almost the entire time out of sheer fear; no one would tell me what was going on. Both my parents eventually flew out from California to help bail me out, it took them three days, the main block being that the school wouldn’t let me back and for whatever reason this justifies keeping me in a hospital over just letting me call a hotel. After that the school gave me ten minutes to pack a bag and leave on the next flight out of Rhode Island. They made it seem like I’d be back in a week for spring semester (RISD has fall and spring semesters and short wintersession in between) so I packed a small backpack and left. I wasn’t allowed to go to the cafeteria to eat or say goodbye to friends.

In the next week my parents were called a number of times by the dean of students, school counselor, and dean of foundation studies. The dean of foundation studies apparently was really nice and understanding when my parents spoke to her, but it seems like she was quieted by the other two very quickly - we never heard from her again. The Dean of Students and the school counselor were assholes. That doesn’t even seem strong enough. When my parents asked, they both refused to speak to me, they harassed me, they taunted me by telling me that of course I’d be back in class for spring semester and that they’d like to speak to me the day before to make sure I’m a-ok. The counsellor threw a tantrum to my mother over the phone saying that I wasn’t allowed to return to school unless I was medicated, and that I should be. My mom asked why I should be, there’s no reason for me to be, and explained what the counselor should already know, that it’s illegal to force someone on any type of medication and it’s unsafe to force an epileptic such as myself on anything. The dean was even less helpful: she’d blatantly lie, and happily explain that nothing was wrong with any of this. When I finally spoke to her on the phone she laughed at me, called me names, and generally treated the entire phone call like a joke. Do you know the feeling you get when you know someone’s making fun of you behind your back? That’s the feeling I got from this phone call. I wasn’t allowed back to school for no reason whatsoever, and the formal medical leave letter that came in the mail the next day was dated while I was still in the hospital a week earlier. It was all a joke. The excessive amount of times the word “voluntary” was used in the letter almost felt like a sick joke.

So I spent the next six months researching educational, medical, and civil law since I knew something was wrong, and I finally was able to hire a lawyer. In this I tried for months to see my hospital medical records before finally getting them: complete and utter bullshit. The hospital’s side of the documents said the facts: I cried a lot, seemed really confused, seemed normal and healthy, “please just put this girl back in school” was said more than once before formally being stated under diagnosis “must return to school immediately”, and it generally seemed like they were just as confused as to why I was there as I was. Then I read the transcript of what the school counselor told the hospital to put me there: he said I attempted suicide three times with excessively detailed descriptions as to how (and the methods he made up were…things I don’t know how a person could live through), he made up a few medical disorders, and put in big letters that I must be isolated and certified (this is a term used for when all your civil rights are taken away from you, only doctors can certify people, not unlicensed peon counselors). I won the case, a mediation to get me back in school for summer session, and only had to sign a contract with the school saying that I’d seek any medical help outside of the school from now on and that if the school health center ever felt the need to check up on me they could talk to a medical professional who knows me first (terms to which I gladly agreed after all this) and generally just stay away from me.

Summer session was great. I had great teachers and classmates. Since I was enrolled in housing late (because of the case) I got a really nice single room too. The only problem in the beginning seemed minor: the school counsellor told me I had to visit him in the first week. This is kind of illegal and also goes directly against the contract the school and I signed, so I went and brought my mom along just in case. When he saw my mom the color drained from his face and he said I had to fill out a school paper trying to get me to say I had psychiatric problems. I filled out the name and address part but listed ‘none’ or ‘I’m fine’ for everything else, and didn’t sign the part that would allow the counsellor to have more or less complete control over my academic life (I read those agreement terms, as boring as they are). He told me I had to have a session with him. I told him that that’s a lie and isn’t legal and walked off into a great summer session course. Until five weeks later. I got a knock on my door while I was working on homework and skyping with the doctor I’d been seeing for all the stress and trauma this ordeal had caused me, and just got off the phone with a local doctor I was seeing just as a normal doctor occasionally. There was a knock on my door and I went to answer it, completely believing it was a friend whom I was expecting. It wasn’t. Four campus security cops were at my door and refused to answer my question as to why they were there (I don’t drink or do drugs or anything that might bring campus security to my door, why are they there?). Very quickly they said that I’m under arrest, threw me down to the ground, stomped on me, pinned me down, and I was promptly beaten up the way someone on WWE Wrestling might be, except I’m 5’2” and maybe 90lbs and there are four people beating me up. I screamed but I don’t think anyone heard me. As far as I could tell, some rogue cops were going to…do something bad like you hear about sometimes with other schools. My doctor on Skype heard the whole thing (until one of the cops saw my laptop and shut it). He nor my local doctor were ever contacted as far as I know (per contract). After the laptop was shut I was handcuffed and dragged to a nearby chair because I physically couldn’t stand. I was told to shut up and to stop asking questions. I was then told they were there to help me, but with what I wasn’t told. They said an ambulance was downstairs, and I knew who was behind all of this (but why?). My fears were confirmed very quickly when a phone was jammed to my ear (I wasn’t allowed to hold it) and the school counselor spoke on the other end. I screamed “why are you doing this?” and he said in the calmest, craziest voice “to help you”, I ignored that I never asked for or needed help in any way and shouted back “how on earth does beating someone to a pulp justify as ‘help’ in any situation?! This isn’t helping me, this is hurting me!” and before he hung up I got an empty “I don’t really care.” I was physically dragged to the ER from there where I sat in the waiting room of the psych ER for a few days (I wasn’t allowed to my Monday class) the level of fear and stress I went through in those few days was life shattering and probably really dangerous. The schizophrenic woman in one of the open rooms said she was going to kill me and my family at a constant screech for the full 48 hours, and when the doctor finally got in touch with the school counselor (and the counselor immediately said without reason to certify me, of course) he yelled at him and lectured him about calling 911 when it’s not an emergency. The ER doctor there wasn’t sure what to do with me since the school (again) wouldn’t let me back, and he couldn’t toss me out on the street at midnight. My mom had to fly out again and get me out, and thank god she went to my dorm first to pick up my laptop, phone, and a change of clothes because I wasn’t allowed back to my room at all. I was allowed back to classes on Tuesday, but I had to live with my mother in a hotel room way off campus. I was allowed back in my room once during finals week to grab some school supplies and all I found was that while I was gone my room had been trashed. My normally neat and tidy room had everything strewn across it: papers everywhere, desk lamp tossed across the room, wall mirror on the bed on the opposite side of the room, and as I soon found out, a good handful of my things were stolen. When I got out with some school supplies and another change of clothes my mom called the dean (who has already established herself as a scary pathological liar by blatantly lying in writing and in speech to myself, my family, my doctors, and my previously mentioned lawyer) to say how much these actions concern her - I was there and I heard the dean’s voice on the other end of the phone say all too happily “what’s there to be concerned about?” My mom cried. My teachers and classmates were appalled at what happened, but nothing could be done. The dean of students at one point was supposed to meet with my doctors and the school counselor and school lawyer. She told everyone on my side they’d be called into a meeting. There never was a meeting. She called me and told me “to just withdraw.” I went above her head and told my story and my fear for other students to the Vice President of the department. Three weeks later my old doctor received a very rudely written letter telling me that I’m suspended, I only found out about this because he called and asked if I’d received it. I never did.

Despite how afraid I am that I’ll only be harassed for whistleblowing.