Some words are more than poetry — they’re survival, resistance, and truth-telling all at once. This poem, Unlock the Psych Ward Doors, is one of those pieces. It serves as an anthem for everyone who has endured psychiatric incarceration, carrying the collective voice of those who have been silenced, restrained, and forgotten inside hospital walls.
Why I Wrote This Poem
Psychiatric hospitals are often called places of care, but for so many of us, they became places of fear, punishment, and disempowerment. My own experiences — being stripped of identity, forcibly medicated, and locked away — left wounds that therapy alone couldn’t heal.
This poem emerged from that pain. It is my way of giving language to the injustice and naming what so many of us have lived through. It’s not just about my story — it’s about all of us who have been told we were “patients” when in reality, we were prisoners of a system that called itself safety.
Unlocking the Doors Together
The words unlock the psych ward doors are more than just a metaphor. They’re a demand:
- To end coercive practices.
- To recognize the harm done in the name of “care.”
- To build community-based, peer-led alternatives where healing and dignity come first.
That’s why I created the Unlock the Psych Ward Doors support group — a place where survivors can gather, speak freely, and find solidarity outside the system that harmed us. Together, we are unlocking more than doors; we are unlocking the possibility of a world where support does not mean incarceration.
For All of Us
This poem belongs to all of us who have carried these scars. My hope is that it can serve as a rallying cry, a comfort, and a reminder that our voices will not stay silenced.
Because the truth is this: we don’t need fixing. We need freedom.
Unlock the Psych Ward Doors Anthem
They called it care, but we were caged—
Punished for our pain and rage.
Draped in gowns, no name, no voice,
Stripped of having any choice.
They called it safety while they tied us down,
Destroyed our light as we were bound.
But hurt won’t heal in a medicated haze,
Crushing our will in traumatic ways.
Unlock the psych ward doors— don’t force us to stay,
Don’t lock us into being forgotten away.
You can’t silence our cries for light,
Or force us to be “fixed” and drug us ‘til we’re “right.”
We weren’t broken—we were betrayed,
No more quiet, won’t be afraid.
Rise with anger that softly roars,
Truth in hand—we unlock the psych ward doors.
