It Takes Grit | Chloë Kilroy | TEDxYouth@SHC
The speaker, a young survivor of the mental health system, argues that current psychiatric facilities often treat patients as problems to be controlled rather than individuals whose narratives matter. She draws evidence from her own traumatic hospitalizations and the subsequent development of the "Grit" platform, which aims to shift the focus from compliance to personal story. Her core message is a call to revolutionize the industry by validating lived experience.
## Speakers & Context
- Speaker: Young adult, survivor of mental health institutionalization.
- Event: TEDx Youth talk.
- Context: Shares tips and personal experiences regarding psychiatric hospital stays and the failings of the mental health system.
## Theses & Positions
- Psychiatric facilities often view patients as *problems* to be managed, rather than individuals with complex needs.
- True patient care requires validating the individual's story and experience, which the speaker believes the current system fails to do.
- The goal of the industry should not be simply compliance or making progress to be released, but rather genuine rehabilitation and understanding of trauma.
- The speaker believes the system can be revolutionized, citing the development and efforts behind the "Grit" platform.
## Concepts & Definitions
- **Behavioral Center:** The specific facility where the speaker was hospitalized in November 2016.
- **Conflated patient with problem:** A description of how nurses treated patients—as issues to be corrected—rather than as individuals.
- **Bodily autonomy:** The right of patients to control their own bodies within the care facility.
- **Trauma compartmentalizing:** The process the speaker adopted after leaving the hospital, involving suppressing difficult memories and emotions.
- **Grit:** A mental health site aiming to provide kids and young adults with a pathway to success that focuses on mental illness without stigmatizing it.
## Mechanisms & Processes
- **Monitoring/Control Mechanisms in Psych Wards:**
- Nurses confiscating personal items like journals due to perceived risk of self-harm (e.g., using metal rings to slit wrists).
- Implementing invasive procedures without patient consent (e.g., IV sticks during sleep).
- Enforcing rigid rules designed to isolate patients and ensure survival *through the night*.
- **Institutional Communication Failure:** Patients communicating urges to self-harm or harm others were routinely told they simply needed to "work through it," regardless of the diagnosis (depression or schizophrenia).
- **The Site Creation Process:** The speaker engaged with her therapist, who was curating an interactive mental health site composed of two parts: *Grit* (recounting stories of hospitalized kids) and *This is about you* (a portal for identifying illness/coping).
## Timeline & Sequence
- **November 2016:** Speaker's hospitalization at the Behavioral Center.
- **Prior to Nov 2016:** The speaker's initial suicide attempt, followed by four and a half days in the ICU and one day on UCSF’s mental health floor.
- **After release from initial incident:** The speaker struggled to adjust, leading to a realization that the system was flawed.
- **Post-hospitalization:** The speaker connected with other former patients, leading to the emotional realization upon the death of peers that the system was failing.
- **Present Day (Time of Talk):** The speaker is a junior, engaged with the arts, and continues to work on improving the mental health industry via the *Grit* site.
## Named Entities
- **UCSF:** University of California, San Francisco (Location where the speaker stayed post-ICU).
- **Behavioral Center:** Specific psychiatric facility where the speaker was hospitalized in November 2016.
## Numbers & Data
- **November 2016:** Month of hospitalization.
- **Four and a half days:** Duration spent in the ICU.
- **One day:** Duration spent on UCSF's mental health floor.
- **16 kids:** Total number of patients the speaker met on the unit.
- **Ten phone numbers:** Number of contacts the speaker managed to keep.
- **24 hours:** Timeframe for the incident where the speaker was told she wasn't ready to leave the facility after expressing distress.
## Examples & Cases
- **Roommate's warning:** The roommate advised the speaker that nurses often conflated patient with problem.
- **Nurses' treatment:** Nurses imposed strict rules and violated boundaries in hopes of ensuring patients survived the night.
- **The core argument from peers:** "Every day... at least one patient would reattempt suicide."
- **Communication failure example:** Both a patient with depression and one with schizophrenia were given the same advice: "just needed to work through it."
- **The site's initial component:** *Grit* recounting stories of hospitalized children.
- **The speaker's aspiration:** Directing the site to focus on "correcting the wrongs of the mental health industry."
## Tools, Tech & Products
- **Grit:** Mental health site developed with the goal of showing pathways to success while addressing mental illness without stigmatizing it.
- **This is about you:** A portal component of the mental health site designed to help people identify mental illness and coping strategies.
## References Cited
- No external sources cited beyond personal experience and the therapist's professional guidance.
## Trade-offs & Alternatives
- **System Approach:** Attempting to make patients "amount more" and "express their feelings" in a controlled setting vs. living with one's lived experience and creating external support networks.
- **Approach to Treatment:** Medication/survival focus (the system's current method) versus acknowledging trauma and enabling personal narrative (the speaker's advocated method).
## Counterarguments & Caveats
- The speaker acknowledges that she still finds it difficult to control her mental health and that some triggers require medication, noting that going "off of medication can be tricky."
- The speaker admits her own journey is ongoing, stating that the work on *Grit* is "just a starting point for a much larger conversation."
## Conclusions & Recommendations
- The speaker recommends the evolution of mental health care toward systems that are transparent, narrative-focused, and actively seek to revolutionize the current flawed structure.
- The speaker's personal success—curating her life around the arts and achieving success (e.g., showing at New York Fashion Week)—serves as evidence that change and thriving are possible outside the prescribed medical model.
- The final call to action is for the audience to join her "fight" to change the industry.
## Implications & Consequences
- Current system practices can lead to deep psychological damage, causing patients to leave feeling "mangled both physically and mentally," not just managing symptoms.
- The failure of the system to see conditions worsening when the speaker felt worse implies systemic negligence, not personal failure.
- A paradigm shift is needed where institutional care validates and incorporates the patient's lived story as part of the healing process.
## Verbatim Moments
- *"I don't expect a nurse to check you in to actually care about what you need to do to cope."*
- *"She's afraid that the minute she stops looking you'll use the metal rings that hold your papers together to slit your wrists."*
- *"No patient should actually expect to have rights to their bodily autonomy when they're in a psych ward."*
- *"You're mentally ill so you would probably squeeze whoever you were hugging to death. It's a security risk."*
- *"They want to make sure that you're making progress and if you convince them you get to leave if you don't you're guaranteed another week or two in the loony bin."*
- *"The nurses often conflated patient with problem."*
- *"We were all painted with the same brush stroke all giving talks about how we could just live happily if we tried."*
- *"I needed to go home."*
- *"This betrayal in patient health isn't anything new."*
- *"Grit which aims to provide both kids and young adults with a pathway to success focuses on Mental Illness but doesn't stigmatize it."*
- *"I hope you will join me on my fight."*