Damaging Help

Teresa K. Leiden (pseudonym) came into contact with psychiatry three times: first when she was in school, then during her undergraduate and postgraduate education in Germany and the Netherlands. Suicidal thoughts following a high pressure to perform led her to seek help. However, she did not find assistance in psychiatry; instead, she was subjected to coercive measures, including a traumatic stay in an isolation cell. The search for help became a search for freedom. Teresa processes her past in the form of letters to a former doctor, reclaiming the authority over her story.