The Gaslit Truth

Suicide Swatted: The Dark Side of Psychiatric Human Trafficking with Gina Fournier

• Dr. Teralyn & Therapist Jenn • Season 2 • Episode 69

Share episode

Send us a text

What happens when institutions weaponize psychiatric care to silence whistleblowers? In this eye-opening conversation, former community college professor Gina Fournier shares her traumatic experience with what she terms "psychiatric human trafficking" – a harrowing journey that began when she questioned academic standards at her workplace.

Gina's story unfolds like a dystopian nightmare – she was "suicide swatted" by her employer after speaking out, resulting in forced detention at a psychiatric facility where she received virtually no evaluation or meaningful treatment. The clinical certificates authorizing her confinement were riddled with irregularities, including one signed by a doctor who never examined her. Most tellingly, her release came not when she was deemed "well," but when her insurance coverage ran out.

The aftermath has been equally disturbing. Permanently labeled with code "48" in law enforcement systems, Gina describes years of ongoing retaliation, including additional suicide swatting incidents when she's sought justice from elected officials. Her testimony raises profound questions about the intersection of institutional power and psychiatric authority – and how easily mental health designations can be used to strip individuals of their credibility and rights.

This conversation isn't just about one woman's ordeal. It's a sobering examination of how psychiatric labels can be weaponized against those who challenge authority, particularly women. It's a cautionary tale about the dangers of involuntary commitment without proper safeguards, and the lasting damage such experiences inflict. For anyone navigating mental health challenges or supporting someone in crisis, Gina's message is clear: peer support might be safer than institutional psychiatric help, which too often causes more harm than good.

If this episode leaves you questioning the systems we've entrusted with our most vulnerable citizens, that's exactly the point. Share this conversation to help shine light on psyc

Halfway To Dead, A Midlife Spiritual Journey
Midlife is freaking hard. Let's flip the script.

Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Support the show

Are you tired of being gaslit and want to DEEP THROAT some more truth? We want to hear from you! Message us your gaslit stories at thegaslittruthpodcast@gmail.com

While you are at it, Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube @thegaslittruthpodcast.
Be sure to Hit that subscribe button and get alerts for more episodes!

Thanks for listening!

Follow Us individually at

Dr. Teralyn:

Therapist Jenn:





Jennifer Schmitz:

You may have been gaslit into being a victim of psychiatric human trafficking. Do you know what psychiatric human trafficking is? Neither do we, but we're about to find out. We are your whistleblowing shrinks, dr Teralyn and therapist Jen, and you have landed on the Gaslit Truth podcast. Today we have a very special guest, gina Fournier, de-classroomed community college tenured English teacher, who is going to tell us her harrowing story of the psychiatric persecution. The story is definitely not for the faint of heart everyone, so that is the warning you're going to get, so let's jump into this. Welcome, gina.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

Well, thank you so much, therapist Jen and Dr Terralyn. I am delighted and grateful. I just heard you about a week ago when you spoke with the so important Robert Whitaker from Mad.

Gina Fournier:

America and I was immediately emailing to say okay, she found some random link somewhere that I'm not even sure where she found it, and, like and like, scheduled herself on the show. Yeah, on a Wednesday.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

Who provided it to me. I said thank you?

Jennifer Schmitz:

Yes, well, we're happy to have you here, gina.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

Well, I am happy to have this opportunity. And what is psychiatric human trafficking?

Jennifer Schmitz:

Oh, my gosh. Yeah, we need to know this.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

I wish I wasn't the one to have to coin the term and explain it. So I was involuntarily civilly detained. I was locked up in a loony bin. I spell it like the Warner Brothers cartoon because the wardens are daffy duck. I'm normally a humorous person and hopefully I won't be crying during this session, because psychiatric human trafficking is nothing you want any part of. So you understand what human trafficking is and it's usually considered in terms of sex workers or maybe even forced factory work.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

But in the past few years the attorney general here in the state of Michigan currently her name is Dana Nessel she charged John Geddert, a gymnast instructor, with human trafficking in relation with the Larry Nassar story. You might recall the horrifying Larry Nassar story. He was the doctor who sexually abused hundreds, hundreds of female gymnasts in Michigan before authorities finally listened to the young women. So after Larry Nassar I believe it was timeline after Larry Nassar was charged and put in jail, the attorney general of the state of Michigan charged a gymnast instructor with human trafficking and the idea was that he told the girls you have an injury, you need to go to the doctor who's going to sexually abuse you. And the state of Michigan attorney general said that's human trafficking. You're going to use these girls for money. So I said wait a minute. I was suicide swatted.

Gina Fournier:

Can you wait before you do that, before you say that we need a definition of what that means as well? Suicide swatted.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

All right. Well, you've heard of swatting.

Gina Fournier:

No, like I had to look it up, I legitimately had to look it up. So we need to get basic, because if I didn't know, there's people that don't know it either. So go ahead.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

Yep. Swatting is when people make false calls to the police. They might say that house is on fire, they may say something, but whatever they say is wrong. They're trying to send a SWAT team type response to a home in order to mess things up and it's been happening in the last few years to politicians. It's been the news as SWATing, but I found the term online. Other people have been suicide SWATing. So in this case someone calls the police, calls the dispatch and says this person's suicidal. You better go get the crazy lady. My employer, my hostile employer can I name names? That's up to you.

Jennifer Schmitz:

It's your call, lady.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

Oakland Community College, the largest community college in Michigan, after a year of harassing me as a perceived dissident of reading about ridiculous things, reading, reading. I wanted to talk about how students weren't really reading. And this was way back in 2013 and before and it was before AI. I wanted to say you know, really, the students aren't reading. Shouldn't we talk about it? They're earning diplomas but they don't actually read. And now the situation is really bad, I believe. But anyways, that was perceived as dissidence because I said you know, the teachers need to tell the truth here. It's our job to tell the truth, but others weren't interested.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

So I was suicide swatted after a year of psychological abuse with the aim of ending my career. In that year, I was sent to two hack shrinks and even my lawyer said oh, you better go to the hack shrinks to try to keep your job. And I had no interplay with psychiatry. I hadn't sought psychiatry and I thought how would it make sense to go to the psychiatrist? How is this going to work? Isn't this just going to be a setup? And it was my own lawyer helped do me in. I paid him to mess up the case.

Gina Fournier:

I never should have gone to those high-achs ranks, who, of course, just tore me to pieces as far as, like, some employers telling you to go seek help, right Like go seek help and then using that help, seeking against you. I've even heard of employers who you have to sign away your I'm going to say your right to confidentiality within that help and psyche vows and things like that. Well, we do that a lot in the addiction space actually.

Jennifer Schmitz:

Yeah, I was just going to say that.

Gina Fournier:

But I was thinking mental health. But that does happen in the addiction space too, which is really interesting, because you're supposed to be getting help to be better and to show up to work, be better I'm air quoting that if anybody saw that but then it turns out to be weaponized against you. That very help that you got Is that what you're saying happened to you?

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

Absolutely, absolutely. The school hired an interim HR director just to take me out, and he had already gone to the Supreme Court to try and fire another community college English teacher, which he didn't succeed in doing. He didn't succeed in ruining the guy's life, but he had already used sexism as a tool to really beat up another English teacher and with me, he chose psychiatry as a weapon to take me down, and it was extremely effective. You can, as a male in power or a person in power, use psychiatry even in 2013 and 2012, and I'm sure, still now to dismantle a person's life, particularly if they're a female. My husband had just died from a long illness and I had no children of any age to defend me. I was targeted and psychiatry was used like a loaded gun on me.

Jennifer Schmitz:

So the suicide swatting that you were just talking about when you were defining this, so that became a part of the reality from the school and that they were making claims that you were unsafe, that you were a harm to yourself. So then those claims then led to some of these steps that were then taken, even in terms of going to seek out help for that.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

Well, the timeline is so messy, which is why it's hard. In an hour I couldn't even tell my story in one memoir. It would have to be up to the loony bin. And then what's happened to me since trying to get justice is even worse, which is why my bags are so bad today. So first, face to face, this guy said you know, based on nothing, you might be a school shooter. And my lawyer said that who's who. William McQueen, the SCOTUS tested teacher crusher. Interim HR director.

Gina Fournier:

Got it. Can you tell she's an English teacher? Yeah, Can you guys. Can you tell them just a?

Jennifer Schmitz:

minute. I mean, the descriptive words are just on point. And they are on point on our website, by the way. Everybody go check that out. It's so fascinating. I can't stop reading because it's just engaging. It's very engaging, but your descriptive words are fantastic. So okay, keep going.

Gina Fournier:

Gina.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

So this person said I had a lawyer sitting next to me and his jaw dropped. He had no recourse, because you can't defend against something that doesn't exist. They didn't do any like. There are tests. If you really think someone is dangerous, you can hire a firm and say do we have a school shooter here? None of that happened, but he only said that to my face In writing. He said there have been claims that you're acting erratically.

Gina Fournier:

No proof no police report. What does that mean? Acting erratically, Exactly.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

So for a year, from April 2012 till when I was suicide swatted, february 2013,. I was harassed with hack shrinks. I was eventually pulled from the classroom. I wasn't paid but I wasn't fired and they were trying to make me quit. And after they suicide swatted me February 22nd 2013,. Top cop gets on the phone to the dispatch crazy lady, go get her. And they came and got me and took me away for a week illegally. Then I did have to quit because you could not work for an employer that does this to you. So I was suicide swatted. Terry McCauley top cop was told by this HR director to call dispatch. I have the calls. He said. A woman with bushy hair. A woman with bushy hair.

Jennifer Schmitz:

See, this is the 80s coming back to haunt you it's the 80s.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

It's also sexism, which is still around today. I've never heard someone say I have bushy hair, curly hair, frizzy hair. My nickname in school was fro.

Gina Fournier:

I'm never bushy you're like that's a new one. That's not me. You're like that's not me. My hair is never bushy. You're like that's a new one. That's not me. You're like that's not me.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

My hair is not bushy, it's so ridiculous. It's curly and frizzy. Thank you, yes. So when you are a police officer, the chief of police for the state's largest community college, and you call Livonia Dispatch and say this woman's crazy, you better go get her they will. That is suicide swatting, because I literally wrote on Facebook I am trying to save my life and I heard the ambulance coming as I am typing. I am trying to save my life. I'm often sarcastic, but I was not sarcastic about saving my life. I wanted to sue and win the school, but my lawyer screwed up.

Gina Fournier:

So that's what you meant by your life, right, I'm trying to save my career, I'm trying to save me from this. This is the part that I want to talk about briefly, because context matters in everything. If somebody would have said what do you mean by I'm trying to save my life? You would have said everything I've worked for everything I do, my career, my essence, all of this. I'm battling this battle. You weren't battling a well, you were, and and you weren't a psychological battle to stay alive. You were. You were battling a physical battle to keep what you've earned Right. And so this is this is where I think people get so freaking, weirded out about. When somebody says I'm trying to save my life, well, that automatically means you're trying to end it, you know.

Jennifer Schmitz:

Yeah, but you know what? The system itself does no favors, which is why what you're describing, gina, like it's like the ultimate setup because, you're not going to have the chief of police or the dispatch officers that are going to sit down and really go into those questions. Okay, these are. That's not what's going to happen, because it doesn't work that way.

Gina Fournier:

But you know what I have in the course of my private practice. I have called the police for someone who I believed was actually suicidal, and they get there and they talk and they ask questions and they don't take them away.

Jennifer Schmitz:

Yeah, but is there a governing body behind that that's trying to set your client up? No, no no.

Gina Fournier:

But what I'm saying, that's what that's how I'm talking about this in terms of like a typical would be you would actually go there and talk to the person, right? Not just?

Jennifer Schmitz:

So that didn't happen for you, Gina.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

No, Um, I use the freedom of information access act, FOIA. I don't know if you're familiar with that. It's a really important tool where you can get police reports. They'll redact things that they want to redact and police reports are a nightmare to begin with. But I got all the police reports and they didn't have body cams on, but they had a dashboard cam. It was less than six minutes from the time they arrived and started circling. All of a sudden I had heard the ambulance. As I'm literally typing, I'm trying to save my life, I hear an ambulance in the background and I'm getting really scared. And then, not too much later, I see police circling my house on foot and I literally think they're coming for my computer on foot and I literally think they're coming from my computer.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

I've been posting all the documents on Facebook from the school. That morning documents had been removed from my Facebook. I have been hacked this whole time. I was hacked on that day. The school documents I had put up, for whatever reason, were no longer there and I was pissed off. This was just the start of over a decade of very suspicious activity. So I'm like I'm trying to save my life. I hear the ambulance. Cops are surrounding me. I said I want this to stop, and I meant I want the school's harassment to stop. I don't want my life to end. I just said I'm trying to save my life and I will win against the school. I am not suicidal, I'm brazen. I am not suicidal, I'm brazen.

Gina Fournier:

I'm not suicidal, I'm brazen and I have really good language skills.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

But if you don't listen they don't count and unfortunately I have really been engaged with about 50 police in my story, which you will not be able to hear many details, but I appreciate this. They're sexist, the police in this country, even the few females that I encountered extremely sexist.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

They just wanted to come and take me away. Now it happened to be snowing that day. It was February in Michigan. It took about 45 minutes to cross the town of Livonia, my hometown, from the home where I was renting to what I call St Mary Merciless Human Trafficking Mental Ward or the Catholic Fuckatorium, which has now been renamed Trinity Health. It's one of the largest, if not the largest, catholic hospital chain in the country, in something like 27 states, and, I think, a very big reason why I can't get anyone in politics to listen to me and help me, because the Catholics are too strong and there are ways that politicians can still accept secret donations in Michigan. I don't have proof for that, but I've been through way too much.

Gina Fournier:

Oh, I know diocese are very strong, like yeah the power, the power that they have over things, not just Catholic, but any denomination.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

And people still defer to the Catholics, especially when they have money, like they're building a new psychiatric something or another near the Grand Rapids area. And of course the politicians want to say you know, we're behind mental health care.

Jennifer Schmitz:

So, gina, you were there. For how long? I was there for a week.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

So it takes 45 minutes to cross town. I was assigned a psychiatrist and I'm skipping ahead a little bit I saw her less than 45 minutes in the entire week I was there.

Gina Fournier:

I believe that it took me more time to cross town.

Jennifer Schmitz:

I thought you were going to say about 20 minutes. I thought you were going to say 10, but anyway.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

In fact, this okay. So I get to the emergency room and they take me to a back door. Like why am I going to the back door? I'm taken into this area with no lights on. It's an office area with no people behind the desk, no medical staff and no patients, and I'm like what the hell is this? I'm terrified because it's like the setting of a horror show. You know how hospitals are overly lit and that's kind of obnoxious.

Gina Fournier:

Well, you've never been to this type of thing before. So yeah, there's automatic fear, Right? What are they going to do?

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

The first thing was address me. They had no intention of following the state of Michigan laws, which were written in 1974 and need a little updating. They had no intention of it and it was all like college students what was teaching? Running around undressing me, putting me in a room with a guard and no one ever evaluated me An intern, a first year intern and I had to look this up later. Nicole Shattuck talked to me for about three sentences and I said I hope you have a heart, mind and a soul. Unfortunately, she didn't. That woman shackled me, knocked me out with drugs. I was never evaluated by the white male who signed the clinical certificate. That's the legal paper form in Michigan. You need a clinical certificate by two doctors. The intern didn't sign one because she didn't have legal standing. But she locked me up without evaluation and she shackled me and knocked me out because I asked for phone calls. And she shackled me and knocked me out because I asked for phone calls.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

But, you're allowed, I don't know where my body was for five to six hours on February 22nd 2013. I have partied in my life. I'm not a major partier, but I never passed out in my life as a teenager or a young person where I didn't know where I was for five to six hours. Only criminal psychiatry has done that to me. So the police show up at my house about 10 am. I get to the emergency room, into the psychiatric ward like about 6 or 7 pm and I'm coming out of a drug-induced super and I meet my assigned psychiatrist who says, oh, you're still under the influence of the drugs. We'll evaluate you another time. Except she lied of the drugs, we'll evaluate you another time. Except she lied.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

She filled out the second clinical certificate that night. They timed it around 7.30 pm and she wrote it in pencil. Under what circumstances in 2013, could you imagine that a doctor would write a legal form which is also a medical report, in pencil? None, I have an idea. When I next saw her, this was a Friday. I didn't see her again until Tuesday. She told me she left for the weekend. Until Tuesday she told me she left for the weekend. I think she wrote it in the car driving to Pennsylvania in pencil. Yep.

Jennifer Schmitz:

State law says you're supposed to see this psychiatrist every day. So you didn't see this four days. You didn't see any four days I want see any four days.

Gina Fournier:

I want to say something, though, because I know it where we are like you might not see a psychiatrist over the weekend, like if you, if you are, uh, civilly committed, right, that's only you you won't get discharged on a saturday or sunday. You won't really see many people on saturday, it's like. It's like the only time frame that matters is monday through friday. You can only be in crisis Monday through Friday, cause that's the only time you're actually going to see anybody. So if you get a commitment for, or a whole that's, the weekend hours are don't matter, they're not part of it, you know she's got four days.

Jennifer Schmitz:

She comes back Tuesday and she's so.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

She's so strong in her ability to rape me over as I call it brain rape and break the law. She tells me she goes out of town, and I'm sitting there. By this point I realized I have to play the game so I don't call her out, I don't make a big scene, I don't throw a fit because I'm playing the game. By this point. Nothing the Catholics did helped me at all. There was no semblance of help. It was all harm Everything they did was harm.

Gina Fournier:

Well, if I had to ask you a question, what kind of help do you think you needed at that point? Exactly, that's right. That was my point.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

Yeah, the doctors, the psychiatrists, all moonlighted. No psychiatrist showed up until after 5 pm, even Monday through Friday. So during the day in this it was a small I don't know how large these things can be, but it was like a unit with two hallways that crossed and with a nurse desk in the center. So during the day I called them, inmates just wandered the halls looking for their doctors. Sounds just like a prison. It was because there were bars on the window and we never got to go outside.

Gina Fournier:

Even inmates get to go outside.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

We didn't get to go outside. Even inmates get to go outside. We didn't get to go outside. No exercise, no actual therapy. I called it coloring with the Catholics. At night, after supposed things like group therapy and the kindergarten art therapy, we would have a presentation. The first presenter I call her her first name was Teresa. I call her St Teresa. She was the most reasonable person there. She said check your drugs that they're forcing you to have. It's possible they could kill you with drug interaction. Make sure this hospital doesn't kill you.

Gina Fournier:

She's telling you to check your drugs Right.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

Mostly the nighttime presentations were ridiculous, like here. I am a college professor, a published author we would get. I call them mimeographs because remember the old days before Xerox was used, when I was at the Catholic hospital I'm sorry, the Catholic school associated with this Catholic hospital the mimeograph machine. I still have one, an eight by 11 piece of paper, different smiley faces with different emotions. You might be angry or you might be confused. So one presentation was like the handouts Are you angry? Are you confused? Okay, there were second graders.

Jennifer Schmitz:

And you during this time. Gina, just to go back to the drugs thing, because we talk a lot about that on the show the drugs that you were taking. What was it? Do you know what it was that they were giving you?

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

Well, they were giving me, they were trying to give me things like Depakote. I have that all written down. I have all my drugs.

Gina Fournier:

Did you know this at the time, though? Did you know, right, yeah?

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

Yes, and I didn't take the drugs. I didn't take the drugs. I didn't know about psychiatry. I didn't know about the ineffectiveness of the drugs. At best, placebos cause harm. Sure, I didn't know any of this, but I'm like I can't trust these, so you, you didn't take any of the medications.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

I didn't swallow them. They get you had to line up for the meds. Oh gosh, inmate following yep. But then I met a woman who told me they won't let me out. They keep telling me they're gonna let me out, but they check my blood levels and they say my, I don't have enough drug in me, which I think was bullshit. But the inmates were treated so badly. They were treated so badly. People were told we're gonna let you out. And then they didn't let you out. And I watched this game and I learned that I'm going to have to play this game and escape from this place. And really the bottom line is I got out after a week because the way it is, insurance pays for like five days and then you have to ask again. And they didn't bother to ask again. They said well, we've milked her enough.

Gina Fournier:

So wait. So ultimately, the danger to self didn't matter when the payer ran out.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

No.

Gina Fournier:

Then suddenly you're cured, miraculous recovery and let her out.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

Yeah.

Gina Fournier:

She's good to go now.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

She's good to go now, based on the fact that that I mean I didn't even threaten to sue them. They don't know anything. My medical records are so ridiculous. They're so scant. Basically, the woman who took off for Pennsylvania, my assigned psychiatrist just repeated what one nurse wrote in the emergency room. They just repeated the same stuff over and over. They don't have anything about my dead husband. They don't know that I went to Ladywood high school, steps away from this loony bin. Ladywood high school was built by the same Felicia nuns that built this, this hospital. I thoroughly reject Catholicism. This woman knew nothing about my life. This entire ward knew nothing about my life because they didn't ask Once they had my body. Me didn't matter, I didn't matter one bit. I was thoroughly psychiatrically human trafficked for money about $6,000 and change. They had my shoes. I didn't have a winter coat because the police abducted me in my pajamas. They wouldn't let me out. They made money off of me.

Gina Fournier:

Until they didn't. That's the trafficking part. Right, that's the whole deal.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

Once the money ran out, you didn't mean anything to them anymore exactly they would have had to ask again yeah, my Cadillac teacher's insurance and prove it. Okay, and by that time they knew they had broken the law on let's see. Friday, saturday, sunday, monday, tuesday, like the fifth day I was in, I met someone called the patient's rights advocate oh yeah, gross misnomer. As you know, jennifer Gorman, in my horrible story at this point I've complained so much to the state what has happened to her. The state has given her a job as the top patient's rights advocate at the state psychiatric hospital for the forensic criminal supposing not people in Saline, michigan. She has risen to the top based on my complaints. There's a lot of crap in my story. But so I meet her and she gives me the first clinical certificate, signed by Andrew Mazajka, and I have little golf pencils, because that's all you can have in the loony bin and I write on it who the hell is he? And I tell her who the hell is he and she immediately starts to cover up. She never gave me the second clinical certificate because she probably didn't have it yet, because the woman who wrote it in pencil on the way to Pennsylvania and back probably hadn't given it to her yet the day before I was sprung, the lawyer the court-supported lawyer showed up in her workout outfit in a hurry to make it to the gym.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

By this point, the inmates many of whom were regular customers who really this is so sad who just went there to get away from their family. People would go to get away to the Sticky Sock Hotel You've heard that, you know the hospital socks, sticky Sock Hotel, the Sticky Sock Vacation. People would go there to escape their families or their jobs. But then they would run out knowing I can't necessarily get out when I want to get out and I know I can't go in front of a lawyer. The other inmate said do not say you want to go in front of a lawyer, because I know what you're going to say you could be put on drugs, you know, locked away for even longer.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

So the lawyer shows up in her sweatpants and I'm like, no, I'm not going to pursue anything because this point I've been told they're going to let me out the next day because they're not going to milk the insurance anymore. No, they don't say that that very lawyer was being. There was like an expose as this lawyer getting involved into abusive conservative shows. So I'm certainly glad I didn't try to put my faith in this lawyer's hand. So the next day when I'm promised relief, my psychiatrist doesn't show up because no psychiatrist shows up during the day and a nurse I've never met said I'll just say no, there was no pretense of care did they even talk to you about like do you you want to hurt yourself?

Gina Fournier:

Do you want to end your life?

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

But at one point someone asked do you want your Catholic mother to visit Now? I was estranged from my Catholic mother at this time. It should be noted that the Catholic Felician nuns who built this hospital, who built Ladywood high school, also built the church where my mom attended, in which I was raised as a Catholic, and I said absolutely not. How much more pain do you want to give me? She made me go to Catholic school. I escaped Catholicism 30 years ago. Catholics have now held me criminally and are psychiatrically human trafficking me, and the last person I want to watch me in this pain is my Catholic mother, right. Yet one of the doctors wrote in his notes in broken English mother says she has cut down in the past. Cut down in the past what?

Jennifer Schmitz:

does that mean?

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

What does that mean? Does it mean slit her wrist? I have never slit my wrist. I have never cut down in the past. I said I was 48 years old. I said I don't want my mother involved. The Catholics didn't listen. I don't even know how they got her number.

Gina Fournier:

Well, I mean that's illegal anyway, Like they can't just call people on your behalf because it's your mom.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

I asked them to call my therapist. I was going to a therapist to try to help me deal with all this stuff. I asked them to call this guy. So this guy's name was Dr John and then he had like three consonants at the beginning of his name, so he just called himself Dr John. And then he had like three consonants at the beginning of his name, so he just called himself Dr John. So people didn't completely screw up his name all the time. I got written up for being crazy because I called him Dr John and they never did call him Dr John. What it's very common.

Gina Fournier:

I got to say it's very common for because I remember this in where we worked it's very common for psychology, for doctorates like me to do doctor and then their first name. That's a very common practice. So basically, anything you said or did was weaponized as being abnormal, weird. Off your chain, all of it.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

It was like in the morning I was still in my pajamas, I hadn't brushed my teeth, I hadn't taken a shower. I got written up for being disheveled. It was like high school. I got written up, it was used against me, I was disheveled and of course they love that phrase. Flight of ideas. Yes, it doesn't matter what you say they will use the phrase flight of ideas.

Gina Fournier:

That and word salad were two big ones.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

I remember they used word salad on me because usually that maybe that's with the um, supposed, um, schizophrenics and my supposed diagnosis was bipolar oh, interesting, you got a big, hefty diagnosis from that from a guy I never met right, and that's not even what the two hack shrinks from occ said. They said I had personality disorders. Of course they couldn't even you know in. Of course they couldn't even you know in their criminality. They couldn't uh, you know decide what the hell is wrong with this woman. And they couldn't, couldn't, accept the truth. Nothing, there wasn't. Yeah, I mean, I'm not perfect, but I wasn't suicidal, I wasn't a school shooter. I wasn't a danger to myself. I wasn't a danger to anyone else. I was able a danger to anyone else. I was able to take care of myself. They made it more difficult for me to take care of myself.

Gina Fournier:

And to prove it, yeah, yeah. And to prove it, because you didn't have access to showers like you would.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

Right, I didn't.

Gina Fournier:

You need a lot of cream rinse for this hair, I was going to say, and your bushy hair did not help you at all.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

I didn't have cream rinse.

Jennifer Schmitz:

You didn't have cream rinse. I'm just trying to figure out this is going to sound like such a naive question, gina, because you've been living this hell for so fucking long, but this whole time you're talking, I'm sitting here trying to figure out what exactly the threat was that you posed in the first place. Right, because the face.

Jennifer Schmitz:

I get the whole like reading thing right and like to the school, like making a comment about the students not reading. But what? What is the threat that they? That was trying to be covered up in the first place? Like, why were you such a threat to them?

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

You mean the school? Yeah, well, I had two bully teachers, or two or three bully teachers. It was a really Auckland Community College at the time had five campuses. It has four campuses now, okay. And so we had English discipline spread over four or five English departments and our English department had under 10 people in it. It was a really small number of people and, unfortunately, like three of seven were bullies.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

And Mr Online Shakespeare, who I will see in hell, wanted to keep teaching endless sections of online Shakespeare to students who, of course, I'm sure were not reading Shakespeare online at home alone. Right, positive, and he wanted to keep doing that. And union teachers hired after me wanted to keep teaching literature courses instead of the hard work of Composition 1 and Composition 2. Do you remember Bull Durham with my love Susan Sarandon? Well, she taught composition one and composition two, and so did I. But those are heavy lifting because you have to actually make them write research papers. That's heavy lifting. If you have a literature class and you just ask them to read your favorite author, that's not the same lifting. So I was up against teachers who wanted to control the teaching schedule. Okay, I was on, I was. I'm brazen. It was one against the others because the others fell in line. But I kept fighting back. I won the right to teach literature courses, literature courses. But I was going to file another grievance against one of my co-workers when they hired.

Jennifer Schmitz:

William McQueen to curse me. Okay, so, yeah, so you were the whistleblower and they weren't liking having any part of it.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

And I think this William McQueen guy, in my stupidity, in any compassion I have left in me, I think even he didn't realize how well his plan would work and how much he would not just destroy my career but destroy my life. Psychiatry can kill you. Yeah, yes it can?

Gina Fournier:

Yes, this reminds me of because you'd mentioned Mad in America and so you've written some posts for Mad in America, which is pretty cool, but the book Mad in America, when you're talking about how, right, how, if you guys haven't read Mad in America, please read the book. Only do it when you're in a good, healthy brain space, because it's a tough book to read. But when you're talking about like being, I'm going to just call it incarcerated. When you are committed about being, I'm going to just call it incarcerated when you are committed.

Jennifer Schmitz:

It's full asylum living. It's full asylum living.

Gina Fournier:

But you had to learn what to say and do, how to play the game. How to play the game to look mentally well. Well, I'm saying look mentally well because they wanted you to look a certain way and act a certain way and say certain things right To get out. It reminds me of some of those stories in the book.

Jennifer Schmitz:

Mad in America. Yes, I was going to say you're the first third of that book.

Gina Fournier:

Yes, when they would drown people until they submitted and said I'm not mentally ill anymore, I'm too tired to fight back, or I'm just not fighting back anymore. And then they'd be like fight back, or I'm just not fighting back anymore.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

And then they'd be like cured, You're good, and I'm like this is exactly your story, and not just your story, but I believe it's stories of many people. I've been fighting this but more recently, before the new administration, with the old administration, the department of justice opened a civil rights investigation into the state of Michigan psychiatric hospitals for very much what happened to me. I have been trying to get my elected officials Debbie Stabenow, Gary Peters, now Alyssa Slotkin to write new federal legislation about involuntary detainment. It should be tracked like criminal detainment so we know how many women versus men, how many poor black men versus rich white men are locked up.

Gina Fournier:

Bushy haired women versus straight haired women. Just kidding.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

Exactly, exactly, exactly, exactly. But no one will talk to me. No one will talk to me. There has been great effort to bury my story. What's happened to me since is even more unbelievable. Except you guys understand how bad it is inside psychiatry. My story outside strains everyone's credibility. How much crap you can receive, the retaliation is real. It is real. It is real. There's a group called Kiwi Farms. They're an international troll farm. They'll do things like when there was a mass murder in New Zealand. They put the footage of the murder online. They're known internationally and they also like to go. But the retaliation is incredible, including my elected officials. I will strain credibility. I have been suicide swatted by two elected officials in Michigan in the last few years and I tried to file police reports and I just got the police report back. Gina is a known 48. To assume is code for not case. Broad with pushy hair.

Jennifer Schmitz:

Yeah, yeah, psychologically not well.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

And he didn't write a report. I have been beat down like you wouldn't believe. I did not believe the crap. They jailed me to silence me.

Gina Fournier:

This, you know doing this to somebody is enough to make them unwell.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

Yes, very unwell.

Gina Fournier:

Yeah, I mean it's. It's enough to make a person very unwell and I think that's a risk, as you're, as you're talking, I'm thinking about. I don't know if you know much about the addiction space, but the the criminal behavior in the addiction space seems a lot like this, and so in Southern California, southern Florida, they've really cracked down on inpatient addiction treatments, but the mental health space really is left unlooked at. In my opinion. I don't think it's looked at enough as similar to the body brokering that goes on in the addiction space, which is what you're calling the human trafficking. Body brokering. Same thing it's when you bring in unwell people and you use them for their insurance benefits, and in the addiction space they often make them relapse so they can get more. So they were looking for you to relapse or be enough to have another stay Right. So I mean, because we trade people for dollars all the time Empower, empower, yep.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

One thing I was going to bring up. Oh God, there's so many little tidbits. I lost my train of thought. To be honest, that terrifies me because I assume that I'm going to get locked up for it. I'm in real danger, without equal protection.

Gina Fournier:

Hold on.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

What is it that you keep doing that people keep calling you for, like they well I asked my elected representatives for help with ag dana nestle to get an investigation, because the statute of limitations is 25 years for human trafficking yeah, so I'm still well within it and um. So I've been asking for help with that and they're really against it. They're really against it and I also have a lot of strange things going on. Like I said, with hacking For one year. I still don't know if it's incompetence or hack. I think it might be incompetence.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

I received, ironically enough, painfully enough, about 450 texts from like 15 to 20 supervisors at the local state jail asking me, as if I was a jail worker, to work overtime, trying to ask for help from Kristen McDonald-Revett and Dan Kildee for help with Dana Nessel to read and investigate. The Catholics admitted guilt in 2013, and I still can't get justice. They admitted guilt in writing that I wasn't seen every day by my psychiatrist. I have three sets of medical files that don't make you know. They're not aligned. The Catholics never released all the emergency room files For some reason. I got a copy of full medical records from the feds that totally proved my claims.

Gina Fournier:

But see, this is this, is this is that other conversation that I keep thinking about, like, and I know that you went in because of other things, but you were deemed mentally ill, mentally incompetent essentially, but can't even if you were, even if you were, even if you were suicidal at that time and mentally incompetent at that time. Let's just play that out. A person can't ever get better.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

Right, exactly, it's ridiculous.

Gina Fournier:

That's it. Ever get better. Right, exactly. It's ridiculous. That's, that's just it. Like this to me, this is part of the conversation is oh, once you've been labeled this, once you go inpatient for that, like that label sticks with you yeah, you're always, always a 48, you're always a 48 absolutely so.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

I actually I think it was probably incompetence, but I got a lot of texts, ironically, asking me to work in a jail after they failed me for not really stalking a cop up north. I have a lot of bad luck. I was talking to him, which I didn't do. I had to go to jail and lose that house to get out of that cop's reign. But you're right, it never leaves you. And, oh my God, I am losing my train of thought because I know that we've lost chronological order. Sorry about that and I don't have time to explain all my stuff, but my elected representatives refused to even look at the texts. They just said she's crazy, how could she be getting texts from a jail? And so one of them called the local loony bin and said will the local loony bin please call the police and ask for a welfare check? And the loony bin said well, we don't know her, but we'll call the police and ask for a welfare check. And the loony bin said well, we don't know her, but we'll call the police anyways. Hello, if I have money, I could sue so many people.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

So the police show up and they've been here before because I cry and I can, as a brazen female I can cry pretty loud and the neighbors are pretty close. So the police show up and they're just like oh, it's Gina, she's a no 48. And they leave. I call back Dan Kildee. I'm like I told you I needed assistance. Suicide swatting is the last thing I need. Dan Kildee sent another cop out on the same day saying I threatened his life. Now I wasn't arrested because I didn't threaten his life, but they are really trying to contain the harassment. And the same thing with Kristen McDonald-Bervet. I said I need assistance, I need assistance, what is going on? And she just skipped to. Let's contain her.

Gina Fournier:

You need to get the fuck out of Michigan. Is what you need? I do need to get the fuck out of Michigan is what you need.

Jennifer Schmitz:

I know I'm looking up 48 right here and I'm reading as you're talking. I was kind of curious to know what this all is. Yeah, it talks about the 48 is actually more. They're talking about the months in which there's legal or clinical context going on with somebody, but it talks about a timeframe that's used in a number put on people that is, a history of hospitalization, incarceration, violent behavior, noncompliant behavior with recommended treatment interventions as a factor to put like this code on somebody and what it means.

Gina Fournier:

I love the non-compliant part.

Jennifer Schmitz:

Yes, and of course the state of Michigan has an entire, you know, like there's a whole program that has put put together around this, this, this number, and how they get to it, michigan for the 48.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

Yeah Well, I will be talking to Troy Cunningham sheriff. I'm sure I've talked to him. The sheriff nicer than the guy they set out. I keep losing. The one thing I wanted to say I am really screwed up. I mean I'm 61. I feel 71. I was hospitalized for a week with asthma after I was suicide swatted more recently the second time by the politician. This stuff affects your mental being, of course, and it affects your physical being, of course, and I have a real problem. I just can't give up all of a sudden. I can't afford to retire. My future is dangerous. I will be homeless. I will be locked up again. I will be put, maybe best, in a nursing home prematurely. I can't just give up the fight, yeah.

Gina Fournier:

What does it mean about you to keep fighting?

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

I'm sorry say that again.

Gina Fournier:

What does it mean about you to keep fighting?

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

I cannot let the Catholics ruin my life in this way. I am oftentimes humorous and sarcastic, less so lightly, but Jesus raped me. Yeah, letting Catholics who believe in virgin birth and rising from the dead, which I believe to be delusional, fine if you believe it, but I believe it to be delusional. Catholics should have nothing to do with civil detainment. Zero, zero. They're delusional. How are they going to judge who's delusional?

Gina Fournier:

It's true. I mean, there's a whole spot about religious things in the DSM, isn't there? Unless it's a religious or cultural delusion and things like that.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

That's interesting yeah, psychiatry sprung from exorcism. It's so abhorrent that psychiatry is considered um in its biochemical state, uh, presentable. It's like we had lobotomy and then we all had lobotomies and we forgot about. Psychiatry brought us lobotomy. It's like people think, oh, it's all better now she must be crazy. She deserved it. Psychiatry never makes mistakes.

Gina Fournier:

Yeah Well, psychiatry has evolved right Like that's what I know what I mean like like we're not like that anymore. Psychiatry has evolved, psychology has evolved. I'm like but but yeah, we're still taught the same things from 100 years ago, you know how?

Jennifer Schmitz:

how is it like you're? What you're talking about didn't happen in 1930.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

Here, gina, like right and here's what I've been trying to remember. So in the last year a few women were told got ahold of some local reporter, wdib or something, one of the main stations out of Detroit and there was a doctor in the Pontiac, michigan area who was pre-signing clinical certificates, pre-signing, pre-signing so that the hospital could more easily psychiatrically human traffic people. Even that expose. The attorney general did nothing. The state of Michigan attorney general ignored it. How could she do that? And now what's going to happen to this DOJ investigation now that Trump's in? Well, probably nothing. But it is so hard. So people should know.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

Yes, if you need help, if you are suicidal, don't commit suicide. But you know what? Not a therapist, not a psychiatrist. Talk to a friend. Be very careful before you give up your liberty and call the police or go to a psychiatric ward. You might not be able to control when you leave. You might come out more harmed. I've been in writers groups. I read Mad in America. Chances are you will be more harmed and not helped. Peer support might be your best avenue.

Jennifer Schmitz:

Terry and I talk about that like offline. We haven't spent a ton of time in this podcast on that, but offline we talk about that a lot. And what's even more intriguing about it, gina, is that we are therapists. Right, we have this code that we follow and these ethics that we follow and these safety protocols that we follow, and the hardest fucking part is telling people sometimes to go do those things Because ethically we know that we need to offer them something, but we also know, like flat out, that most of the time it is going to cause more fucking harm to people.

Jennifer Schmitz:

And this is it you. What you are saying is um, at least for me and I can speak for myself that is such a hard space to be in to have to, to have to, to be in that spot where we are. Yep, here I am. We have a license on the line, we have ethics we need to follow. Just from a human standpoint, fuck the ethics. From a human standpoint, I want to give somebody advice that goes beyond what I can offer, just as the talk therapist here, to be able to help them, and there's what I want to be able to say to them. And then there's what the institution itself tells us we need to give people as resources, but those resources are super harmful for a lot of people.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

Super harmful.

Jennifer Schmitz:

And so I just want to applaud you for saying that, because that take-home message you just said, I mean even on the other end of it, coming from a therapist, I have a hard time with that space because I don't disagree with you either. Who do I go to? Who should I talk to? We had Angie Peacock on this show not too long ago. She said the same thing. Actually, we were on her show and she was rapid fire asking us questions about it. When is it appropriate to reach out for certain types of help? And I caught myself fumbling over the answer, because I know what happens when most people go into an inpatient facility.

Gina Fournier:

Because there's that, what do they call it? Cognitive dissonance? For us, like, there's that two competing things at the same time.

Jennifer Schmitz:

There's two things that we battle against. And yes, I want to be able to tell people who's close to you, who are your support systems, that you trust.

Gina Fournier:

But also where we are anyway, we have some really solid resources. So, if you're listening close to where we're from, there are peer support, respite places around us, which I think is pretty sweet, and I think those were developed probably as a response to the trauma that some people have endured in inpatient settings. So I think there's some of those places that are coming around and I know where we are. We're pretty resource rich and I get that in Michigan, maybe not so much or other areas of the country. But I think it's an important conversation not to dissuade people from getting help if you're feeling so desperate, but also to not weaponize lived experiences against someone. What you were going through was pretty terrible, right, stressful, awful, I know.

Jennifer Schmitz:

You're still living it.

Gina Fournier:

Yeah Well, I know what I was like when I was going through a stressful time like that, like I was pretty erratic, I was pretty off the chain, I was all these things, but nobody ever once thought to institutionalize me. That's fucking stupid. Like, instead, just talk to me Talk. Nobody asked you questions. Nobody asked you the questions that they needed to ask you. They just went off of somebody else who had a position of power, other people in positions of authority and power.

Gina Fournier:

Their word was taken over yours every time, and I think that's the slippery slope and that's the message and that's the power differential that we talk about quite a lot. Everybody holds power and we need to know that, and everybody holds their own agency and we need to reclaim that. So our time here is unfortunately coming to a quick close, which I wish I wouldn't, but it is. Thank you so much for sharing this. By the way, I love it when consumers come on. I think their stories are powerful and often like what this stuff happens still today? It's 2025. The answer to that is yes, it does still happen and it's 2025, which is why Jen and I show up to you every single week bringing you another episode of the gaslit truth so that we don later.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

I am still fighting for justice and I am the object of incredible retaliation. At one point, the Catholic hospital a security guard called me, trying to scare me off my claims, and said the FBI were following me. I can't even get an answer if the FBI were ever following me.

Jennifer Schmitz:

It sounds nuts, they weren't.

Gina Fournier:

They got bigger fish to fry.

Jennifer Schmitz:

Yeah, I'm just saying, there's you know, national security and shit. Not this little frizzy-haired French last name woman from Michigan.

Gina Fournier:

They're not Nope.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

I have developed a psychological penis slicing machine and for all the white men who have made my life hell, it will be psychologically installed and they will dream every night until they're dead that Jesus with the crucifix will enact the revenge. Because I'm going to go real. You know she's going rogue. She's going rogue. I'm going to go rogue in. You know she's going rogue. She's going rogue on my house. Jesus raped me. It's a metaphor for non-evaluation by Dr Andrew Zajka. As a modern female, I should not be mistreated this badly and have to wait this long for acknowledgement and justice. For the truth, the guy didn't evaluate me. I was psychiatrically human trafficked. I am not the danger, I am not the crazy one. My society is crazy and dangerous with Catholicism, psychiatry and corruption.

Gina Fournier:

Well, if you've hung out with us for this long on the Gaslit Truth podcast, please like, comment, share, subscribe. Only give us five stars. And if you on the Gaslit Truth Podcast, Please like, comment, share, subscribe. Only give us five stars. And if you have a gaslit truth that you would like to share, please do so by emailing us at thegaslittruthpodcast at gmailcom.

Dr. Teralyn Sell:

And that's a wrap.

Gina Fournier:

Thank you both very much.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Dr. Teralyn

Co-host
Head Shot

Jennifer Schmitz

Co-host
Head Shot

Dr. Teralyn

Guest
Head Shot

Gina Fournier

Guest
Head Shot

Jennifer Schmitz

Guest