Personal Stories

These are personal stories and it is not assumed that ERNI Declaration Signatories will share any opinions expressed in the story.

If you have a story you would like to share with us, please get in touch with us at ernimovement@gmail.com. All stories are subject to the following editorial guidelines; 750 word maximum, people and organisations must not be identifiable, and content must fit with the ERNI declaration.

Jill Kesti

My name is Jill Susan Kesti. I am a 46 year old woman who has been presumptively labelled with “Bipolar” since 1999 and I have been hospitalized 13 times in 23 years.

In 2013 I lost my 12 year job and career due to a hospitalization, went on Social Security Disability, and used the time I gained to research the Consumers, Survivors and Ex-Patients of Psychiatry (CSX) Movement. I began to resist the psychiatric medical model I was being treated with and considered that I may not be ill after all.

On 1st November 2016 I entered a state of extreme emotional distress. I was brought to the ER (Emergency Room) by Police and was forced catheterized (medically raped). I spent two days in the psychiatric ward, extremely traumatized. After my release, my General Practitioner gave me two drugs for the back pain I was experiencing from the catheterization (both of which can cause “psychosis”). I again spiralled into extreme emotional distress, resulting in two more weeks at the psychiatric ward in December 2016. My beautiful disabled three-legged cat, Mazzy, died alone while I was incarcerated.

This led to my first Assisted Outpatient Treatment Court Order (AOT) to take neurotoxic psychiatric drugs against my will from December 2016 to November 2017. I woke daily to delivery people pounding on my door who watched to make sure I swallowed the drugs.

In August 2017, I started to fight back. I created “Coalition To End Forced Psychiatric Drugging” on Facebook, building 1000’s of memes and a safe space for CSX people to get information. I began recording the torturous daily deliveries and posted them to my YouTube Channel.

I was in a terrible relationship and ended up in extreme emotional distress (wanting him gone), and was involuntarily hospitalized in July 2019. An AOT Court Order was once more issued, and I again faced the daily horror of the deliveries and neurotoxic poisoning of my body. It destroyed my chance to have children, and thus completely severed the relationship.

Last year, in June 2021, my doctor lowered me from 3000mg to 750mg of Depakote OVERNIGHT. I again spiralled, was handcuffed and taken 500 miles to a psychiatric ward, and spent 26 days locked up. I lost my eBay business due to banned cell phone use, and my cat, Mr. Larry Lily, alone at home, was unable to be caught and died on 17th July 2021 after I finally rescued him. I am now on a yearlong Court Order until November of 2022 because of this iatrogenic-caused hospitalization.

In hindsight, my story is one of extreme emotional distress (trauma) and of iatrogenic and substance-caused episodes. Discovering the “Emotions Are Not Illnesses Movement” was like a lifesaver to me. Finally, people were agreeing that throwing dangerous neurotoxic substances at emotional distress was causing severe disability and early death. Finally, people were signing a declaration of like-minded believers that the psychiatric medical model is causing more harm than help, and that we must change it. Finally, people of the CSX Movement were being connected.

In closing, I feel I must mention my passion and driving force, which is to end mass/school shootings. I truly believe, after experiencing what I consider to be daily torture for the past six years in the coercive mental health system, and 18 months of severe psychiatric drug withdrawal, that forced drugging, and the drugs themselves, are playing a large role in the shootings.