Psychiatry Robbed Her Sister of Her Soul—Jasmine Got Her Back
The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) investigates and exposes psychiatric violations of human rights. Here is a story of one life saved:
Jasmine’s younger sister Sydney was a spunky one—creative, into the arts, and singing every minute. One of those kids that make you think, “How are you so happy?” And she was, until caught by abusive psychiatry.
“People kept telling my mom that my sister had ADD and that she needed to be on Ritalin and that she needed to be tamed and calmed,” says Jasmine. At the age of seven, Sydney was prescribed psychiatric drugs. “The drugs erased her,” says Jasmine. “I lost my sister. It was like her soul was taken out of her. It was the scariest thing I had ever seen in my life. She didn’t sing. She was quiet all the time. She was just gone.”
When Jasmine went to college, she majored in psychology, determined to find options for children other than psychiatric drugs. But within a year she wanted out. It was like reliving her sister’s “moment of torture” all over again. In asking for solutions, one professor pointed her to CCHR: “You need to go to this museum. It will change your world. It is what you are looking for.”
She did. She and her boyfriend, also a psychology major, visited the Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Museum at CCHR Int. When they walked into that first room, she knew she had found it. “I was blown out of the water because it was the side that I knew,” she recalls. “When I got to that section on kids, I broke down—I just started crying...I’m looking at my sister. I’m looking at what she had to deal with and nobody wanted to have that awareness or say anything like ‘This is not okay’.” Jasmine returned to the museum with her mother and then teenage sister. When Sydney saw the displays, that was it: she was done with drugs. Her stance was firm. “I don’t think any kid at seven years old should be diagnosed with anything because you’re just a kid,” says Sydney.
After eight years trapped—a medicated emptiness—it was an emotional conclusion. “I just embraced her,” recalls Jasmine, “and I told her, ‘This is your time. You are allowed to be free now. You are going to free your soul and you are going to be you and nothing is wrong with you.’ Because no one was acknowledging what she was going through, other than probably me.”
Sydney remains drug-free and has once again taken up singing. Both sisters are now outspoken CCHR advocates against psych drugging.
