Journeys in Mental Health: The Free Mind and the Restraints

In this ‘Journeys in Mental Health’ blog, we hear from Dr Xiaofan Yue at Huangshan University who shares their experience since 2023—encompassing a period of mania, illusion, and subsequent hospitalization, to January 2026, having been featured in 70 news reports as a mental health researcher…

Content Warning & Disclaimer: The below content includes the discussion of topics that some may find triggering, including suicidality, psychiatric restraint, and abortion. Please engage at your own discretion. All of the views expressed are that of the author and do not represent the views of PLOS Mental Health, PLOS, or any affiliated Editors. The content is for storytelling purposes only and does not serve as professional medical or mental health advice.

Introduction
Do I have a microphone in my hand?
Why was I strapped down like a prisoner?
The experience stays with me
My resilience grew from the pain
My Choice
Can I find my inner peace with my vulnerable body?
A Manifesto: May the world be gentler to me.

Introduction

From Foucault’s Madness and Civilization to my own experience, the lifting of restraints echoes with the low growls of countless souls throughout history. My deepest fear, pain, and resilience are explored within this blog. My previously unheard voice and the screams of other patients under medical restraints are woven into this narrative. The powerlessness, humiliation, and degradation from my hospitalization experience were engraved in me and influenced my post-discharge life. Addressing the constraints of structural violence and paternalistic condescension, I ask not for a favor, but for the appropriate lifting of restrictive measures from our bodies and minds.

“I’m not crazy. It’s not something I need to apologize for”. I said to myself.

Do I have a microphone in my hand?

Like many other young people, I felt a deep sense of loneliness, and then I turned to binge-watching, which bordered on addiction. Subsequently, I wrote an article titled “Binge-watching addiction as an emotional regulation strategy for coping with loneliness“, which featured in 70 news outlets worldwide. This “microphone” handed to me by the news outlets inspired me to conduct further research into my inner self. I then contacted a psychiatrist who kindly encouraged me to use my own narrative as a methodological basis—applying the concept of “the self as method“. Why would he want an ordinary person like me to tell my stories? I didn’t know. I asked AI, and it responded that retaining such vivid memories of restrictive measures following Modified Electroconvulsive Therapy (MECT) is rare; it only happens when you have acute perceptiveness, which describes me perfectly. Empowered by the media attention and the encouragement from that psychiatrist, I am now ready to share the story of my life.

Why was I strapped down like a prisoner?

The story I want to tell begins in 2022, when I was 27 years old. At that time, I was a PhD student who tried Piracetam to boost my productivity, but it failed to spark the intellectual insight I sought. The COVID-19 virus spread rapidly in China in December 2022. Much like those afflicted by germaphobia, I became “virus-phobic” and didn’t leave the house for two months. During my two-month self-imposed lockdown from January to February 2023, I experienced “delusions”, accompanied by racing thoughts, heightened emotional states, grand ambitions, and a “God’s-eye perspective”. I felt an overwhelming compassion for all human beings and a hatred for evil, becoming much more talkative than usual. 

In February 2023, my symptoms became apparent to my family and friends. In March 2023, fearing that I was suicidal, my family tricked me into a locked psychiatric ward. As a young person with strong subjectivity and agency, I tried to resist with all my might. However, throwing a clinician’s cup and pulling my aunt’s hair didn’t lead to an escape, but to medical restraints. Even as a child, I couldn’t bear to witness a chicken being slaughtered. How could I possibly be suicidal and take my own life? Yet, nobody believed me; instead, they suspected that I was in a cult that could induce suicidal thoughts. They projected their own anxiety and ignorance onto my mind and saw me as a mentally unstable person who needed to be forcibly managed. Being strapped to the bed and realizing I couldn’t move was the most devastating moment for me, and for any free spirit who retains the memory of such an experience. After that experience, I realized freedom was the most important thing. Like health, freedom is something people only truly value when they realize they could lose it in an instant. On that bed, the vulnerability, powerlessness, and insignificance overwhelmed me, and that feeling has persisted ever since.

Like health, freedom is something people only truly value when they realize they could lose it in an instant.

While restrained, I called for the nurses, asking to go to the toilet simply to be free from the straps, even if only for a moment. However, calling for the staff several times and waiting for a response didn’t lead to freedom, but a bedpan placed beneath me. I relieved myself, and then, she picked it up after a few minutes of me calling for her. They were pretty cold, I thought to myself.

I calmed down, accepting the immobility. Staring at the window and the large communal bathroom, I found my peace. I have always loved open spaces; even a large bathroom was soothing enough for me. Later, I fell asleep with the help of sedatives. I thought only patients could perceive the nurses’ ruthlessness, but to my surprise, my uncle, who hospitalized me, felt the same. He said the clinicians (in the total institution) were more like the “crazy” ones than the patients.

I thought I was in an asylum; pleading for a clinician’s favor to leave the hospital seemed like a dream. But my uncle said if it were an asylum, I couldn’t be released. Yet, during my time in the hospital, I felt I never would be. I asked the clinician repeatedly when I could be released, and so did the other patients. The clinicians didn’t answer.

The 20 days in that hospital were the shortest time my family could negotiate with the clinician—shorter than the stay for another patient who had been there for several years and had been sent by her family, who wouldn’t pick her up. During those 20 days, I heard the screaming from the room with patients under restrictive measures. All the other patients like me looked very calm and numb to the screaming. I don’t know if it was because of the psychotropic medications we took, or if we simply felt powerless against the clinician’s will. Being a patient here means you are under the management of clinicians, who have ultimate control over your body. So how could you voice an objection to the piercing shriek, even though empathy is engraved in our human nature?

Being a patient here means you are under the management of clinicians, who have ultimate control over your body.

The experience stays with me

I am able to remember this partly because engraved in my brain is a combination of acute perceptiveness, intellectual capacity, and a good command of language. Today, I harness these strengths as a researcher in mental health, striving to find peace and happiness in my life. The excruciating experience drove me to dig deeper into myself; I came to experience myself as both the observer and the observed. But a deep fear remains inside whenever I live alone. Can I still be my watcher if I lose all logic and reason and descend into delusions? I can sense my emotions being easily triggered by all the cues picked up by my highly sensitive radar.

Being sensitive and perceptive is a “defiled bliss (有漏之乐)”, better than numbness (无记) and ignorance (无明). Many people who undergo MECT procedures lose their most painful memories of the hospital. Unlike others, I vividly recall dressing in hospital gowns and entering the treatment room with full awareness (觉知) and clarity (明).

The room was large, housing about twenty beds. We could clearly see others lying there, being treated. In my childhood, I feared needles. But there, I was forced to witness others’ procedures, like pieces of meat on a chopping block—no privacy, no autonomy, and no subjectivity. I meekly waited for my turn. You may ask how a rebellious person like me, who possessed a high sense of agency and full autonomy in my previous life, could become so meek. At the time, I could not figure out how to escape or say no, thus I surrendered the decisions of my life to the clinician. I was at the clinicians’ mercy (or lack thereof).The powerlessness and humiliation are still engraved in me. Today, I have entrusted my existence to a higher power, without any fear of death, for I conquered that fear while lying there, submissively undergoing the procedure.

In April 2023, after being discharged from the hospital, I apologized to everyone who had witnessed my manic speech and tried to behave like a “normal” person. Any display of excessive anger might be interpreted as me “going crazy” again, as my mother warned me. After my discharge, I didn’t strive to join the ‘elite’ or work as hard as others who chased titles or money. After earning my PhD in 2024, I pursued a lectureship in Huangshan—a scenic place where I could leave behind the big-city hustle that might overwhelm my sensitive radar, or worse, trigger another manic episode. My biggest fear is being treated as a “crazy person”, an accusation hurled by a man who honked his horn continuously until I shouted back at him. Our encounter occurred as I felt depressed, shortly after I passed a psychiatric hospital.

I have always admired the “Notorious RBG,” who championed women’s rights. In the grand ambitions of my manic phase, I yearned to make a social impact like hers. Yet, it seemed like a dream I could never reach with my vulnerable and sensitive constitution.

My resilience grew from the pain.

Since 2023, I have conducted marketing and psychology research centered on observations of myself and my friends. At the time, only a small group of scholars had noticed my studies. On January 21, 2026, it felt like people suddenly turned their gaze towards my research on binge-watching—a topic born from my own self-observation. After being interviewed by major international news outlets, I fell to my knees and wept. 

When I shared this exciting news with my family, one suspected it was a scam, and another dismissed it as an act of vanity yielding no financial gain—forcing me to defend my sanity and insist on its value. In that moment of kneeling and weeping, I saw the wildest ambition of my illusional period come true: making a genuine social impact. The AI explained to me that individuals with high potential possess the cognitive capacity to model future possibilities, utilizing their knowledge base and executive functions to manifest those visions into reality. 

Some people may take credit for such media attention as their own. I see it differently. I see this as a microphone handed to me, a chance to share my perspective that people can have great potential even though their dreams may seem illusory to others, and even when they are labeled “crazy”. I want to tell others that people can have “grand illusions” (or so-called dreams) and live up to them, just like me.

The indignation of the marginalized may lie in the structural violence and paternalistic condescension. Individuals with the label of mental illness are often seen by some as social detritus, just as young people in modern China call themselves “beasts of burden” (牛马). This self-objectification (as opposed to external objectification) leads to submissiveness and powerlessness in this era of involution (a hyper-competitive environment). Marginalized individuals were treated like disposable cogs in a machine rather than as human beings deserving of equal treatment. 

With my high empathy, I suffered when others suffered. Once, after one of my friends told me his most tragic life story, I became him in my dream and suffered just as he did. My mind is like a radar, processing emotions from others while lacking a strong defense system. I see into my pain and others. I witness the media’s festive fanfare and the cognitive dissonance of my friends and family at the same time. My loved ones are under the weight of current occupational demands, while securing new employment remains difficult. Their resilience lies in their constructive selves and the hope for a flourishing life; my resilience stems from having experienced the deepest pain, and my decision to gather enough strength to cut through stigma and fabrication. I want to set an example for individuals with psychiatric histories by demonstrating that you can be excellent, not “crazy” (My psychiatric history was erased because my family pleaded with the clinicians and did not want this record to affect my future career). 

My Choice

The choice to narrate my lived experience with existential autonomy is rooted in compassion (悲悯) for myself and others. Kindness, or what we term benevolence, acts as a formidable force for healing—a universal resonance echoed in the Taoist principle of aligning with the natural order (道法自然), the biblical testament that “love never fails,” and the Quranic axiom that the reward for goodness is nothing but goodness itself. My reverence for transcendent forces, including Nature and Agape, gave me the clarity to sense that if a kind young person like me were made to suffer, the cause of suffering may lay within the world outside, not within ourselves. 

The structural imbalances can overshadow these universal values. The diminished empathy often found among those in power, coupled with the powerlessness of the marginalized], systemic imbalances of power, the loss of individual agency, and the deep-seated social disciplining of traditional culture, may explain why both I and those around me suffer. The hubris of institutional authorities (one of the Five Poisons according to Buddhism) and their lack of empathy toward others still exist. For the marginalized, succumbing to an oppressive environment may not lead to vitality, but to withering.

The choice to narrate my lived experience with existential autonomy is rooted in compassion (悲悯) for myself and others

Can I find my inner peace with my vulnerable body?

In March 2023, while I was in the psychiatric hospital, my father’s second wife referred to me as a ‘useless person’ (废物). One month after my discharge, I tried to switch my medicine. Lithium Carbonate and Olanzapine had caused me physical revulsion, brain fog and drowsiness. Even though I didn’t want to go back to that same psychiatric hospital, the lack of psychiatric departments in the majority of hospitals led me back to the same one. That hospital was old with 1990s-style décor; the atmosphere was depressing. I waited in a long queue, standing back to back with other patients. When I finally consulted the clinician, the patient right behind me, who was anxiously waiting, suggested a different medication to me. The clinician interrupted him, saying, “You are not a doctor; don’t say anything.” She didn’t prescribe a new type of medicine for me, so I contacted a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) practitioner and chose to shifted to Traditional Chinese Medicine that doesn’t have as many side effects.

From August 2024 to 2025, as a young lecturer, I knew my speciality lay in research, not in administration or teaching. My insistence on focusing primarily on research was seen as “unmanageable” and “unqualified”. My candour (直心) and authenticity (本真) were mocked as if I were the child who pointed out that the emperor had no clothes. My belief in Christ was hidden, as the “God’s perspective” was previously seen as mania by my family and might have been viewed as an anomaly by the authorities. In October 2025, my dwarf hamster—which I had raised from birth and had given to my paternal half-sister—died of sweltering heat and dehydration due to my father’s neglect

In August 2025, I underwent an induced abortion, which my father described as a “loss of face” (丢面子) for him. Witnessing my younger cousins’ anxiety and depression throughout their school years, I felt unable to provide a nurturing environment for my child. While consumed by the demands of my early career, I made that decision. I postponed the procedure until two days after my thirtieth birthday, because my mother’s friend told me that I shouldn’t endure the pain by myself by doing it on the exact same date. On August 26, 2025, my father’s friend was the one who accompanied me to the procedure because my father was saddened and angered by this innocent mistake. After the procedure, this friend of my father refused to ride in the same car with me because abortion was seen as an unlucky omen by him.

I thought I was the only one who had undergone an induced abortion, but I was wrong. A conversation with a friend of my mother’s, now in her fifties, revealed that she had about six abortions in her youth due to a lack of contraception and sex education. My mother also mentioned that she had several abortions after having me, and treasured me as her only child. My mother is now a mental health educator and a therapist, and her love for me has always been greater than my father’s, who shared my grandfather’s belief that a boy is preferable to a girl. My life is a mixture of passionate joy and some sorrow, a state of defiled bliss.

I stand awed by Huangshan’s scenery, yet saddened by the suppression of my opinions and emotions. I try to contain myself, concealing my anger at institutional and patriarchal authority, even though this compliance compromises my subjectivity and agency. I was taught by others to follow the safest survival strategy: remaining silent and voicing only “positive narratives”.

Unlike those who are less sensitive, threats and humiliation elicit profound physiological reactions and traumatic memories in me. My friend once advised, “You need to find something else to do, instead of being so sensitive.” But suppressing my feelings and behaviors is a struggle, especially with my “sensitive radar” constantly picking up signals. I have been seeking solace in the natural landscape of Huangshan, following the teachings of Zen Buddhism (禅宗), and deepening my research into mental health. However, I realized that personal health is a convergence of sociology, psychology, and biology.  The suppression, humiliation, and threats I endured under structural violence eroded my inner security and kept my “fight-or-flight” system chronically active, leading to the dysregulation of my autonomic nervous system—a condition that persists as I write. Having had my inner security shattered, I am now striving to rebuild it from the debris by harnessing my sharp, yet vulnerable radar.

… personal health is a convergence of sociology, psychology, and biology.

A Manifesto: May the world be gentler to me.

During my hospitalization, I met several kind fellow patients who suffered from depression due to external adversities. The woman I mentioned, who had been in the hospital for several years, was eventually picked up by her family after she slipped me their phone number and I called them. Their unheard voices were heard by me and living with them during that time gave me a sense of warmth that I had not experienced when living alone.

As a highly perceptive youth with a logical and assertive tone, I was an easy target for mockery and invalidation. The pent-up anger or feelings of humiliation stemmed from external threats to my ego. 

As a former psychiatric patient, I have heard the most excruciating screams and experienced the most profound moments of powerlessness of my life. 

As a mental health researcher, I realized that I could not find a solution to soothe my insecurity through academia alone.

Thus, I choose to speak up in a soft but determined voice: “Nothing about us without us”. The underlying message of this manifesto is that structural violence needs to be overcome by a much stronger force rooted in empathy and love. All I ask for is not a favor, but the lifting of restrictive measures from the body and the mind. It is my hope that, after the lifting of these restrictions, people like me can feel the light breeze and warm sunshine, with our sensitive radars receiving gentle messages sent by the world.

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to my family, friends, and mentors for their love and support. Cross-cultural education in Beijing, Washington DC, and Malaysia, coupled with the kindness I have encountered, has fostered my universal perspective. Reverence for Taoism and the Divine gives me the resilience and courage to narrate my lived experience. I am grateful for the pain and the gentleness in my life journey. Thank you.

PLOS Mental Health would like to thank Dr Yue for sharing her journey with us. Accounts like this are the reason this blog series was launched – to harness the healing power of storytelling, which requires flexible formats beyond peer reviewed content.

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