"Nobody wants my daughter, anywhere": the struggle of relatives of psychiatric patients, faced with a system at the end of its tether

Testimony While mental health has been proclaimed a major national cause, the most seriously affected patients feel completely abandoned, in a psychiatric system without resources. Anne-Cécile, mother of Angélique, diagnosed with borderline and drug addiction, tells us about her fight to save her daughter, "ten years of hell."

Interview by Elsa Vigoureux

Published on August 19, 2025 at 12:00 p.m.

In the emergency room waiting room of a hospital in eastern France, in January 2023 (illustrative photo). Anne-Cécile recounts the wandering from one medical facility to another: “We waited three hours, only to be told that we had to return to Sainte-Anne, where we waited from 6 p.m. to midnight…” — In the emergency room of a hospital in eastern France, in January 2023 (illustrative photo). Anne-Cécile recounts the wandering from one medical facility to another: "We waited three hours, only to be told that we had to return to Sainte-Anne, where we waited from 6 p.m. to midnight..." SEBASTIEN BOZON/AFP

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“ Angélique is 27 years old, she suffers from borderline personality disorder, also called borderline, coupled with a severe drug addiction. Which is often the case with this pathology. It is this addiction that must be treated as a priority, to then try to stabilize the illness. We had a place in a clinic specializing in addiction, but Angélique used drugs there, around the anniversary of her father's death... So she was excluded. I found her in Paris, on July 4th, in very bad shape. She had taken heroin, swallowed an entire pack of Valium. For three days, we were taken here and there. Angélique didn't belong anywhere, and I insisted everywhere.

I took her to the Tarnier site, dedicated to psychiatry and addiction, attached to Cochin Hospital. The intern sent us to the psychiatric emergency room at Sainte-Anne Hospital. And the Sainte-Anne emergency room, in turn, referred us to Cochin Hospital. We waited three…