Torie Sepah M.D.,
Forensic Psychiatrist
in California Prisons
March 2025, An interview with Torie Sepah M.D., a forensic psychiatrist at several California prisons.
0:00 – What You’re Not Seeing in the Headlines
1:30 – The Most Disturbing Patient I Ever Saw
2:24 – How Did He Even Get Something to Cut With?
3:17 – A Room Designed to Prevent Suicide
4:08 – Watching Every 11 Minutes Isn’t Enough
5:02 – What Restraints Really Mean
6:03 – A Shocking Emergency That Changed Me
7:05 – The Feeling of Failing Someone
8:16 – I Saw His Name Again Years Later
9:33 – From Psych Ward to Apartment
13:02 – What Happens When You Eat It
14:49 – Declared Sane After Trying to Rip Out an Eye
16:12 – 30% Are on Antipsychotics in Prison
17:39 – 500 People on Suicide Watch
19:04 – Waiting 3 Months for a Hospital Bed
20:58 – Group Therapy in Chains
23:21 – The Day He Took Out His Last Eye
24:42 – The Medication That Could’ve Prevented It
26:09 – Why It Was Denied Anyway
27:17 – Another Story You’ll Struggle to Believe
29:03 – Wound, Feces, and Riot Gear
31:07 – Why I Entered Alone
32:54 – The Fear Behind Psychosis
35:06 – She Could Hear What They Said
36:10 – The Psychiatric Bed to Prison Cell Pipeline
38:08 – Hidden Suffering Behind Walls
39:31 – Suicide Isn’t Always Loud
42:12 – Are These Lives Worth Saving?
43:51 – Mental Health “Awareness” Is Not Enough
46:17 – Behavioral Health Isn’t What You Think It Is
48:49 – Early Treatment Could Stop This Cycle
50:30 – Treating People Who Kill Their Children
53:30 – She Was the Most Hated Woman in Jail
56:01 – More Than One Victim
58:03 – How to Keep Someone From Ending Their Life
1:00:02 – Life Can Still Have Meaning
1:01:51 – Why I Stay
1:03:02 – A Prisoner’s Only Glimpse of Hope
1:04:51 – Why I Told Her: “You’re Worth It”
1:06:04 – Systemic Failure Starts Early
1:08:05 – Psychiatry as a Luxury?
1:10:01 – When Weed Triggers Schizophrenia
1:11:43 – Everyone Has a Psychosis Threshold
1:13:39 – Meth Burns the Brain
1:14:17 – Bipolar Disorder: The Most Lethal
1:16:55 – The Medication Shouldn’t Feel Like Medication
1:17:57 – What I Could’ve Done Differently
1:19:05 – Swallowing Things to Feel Something
1:21:02 – The Girl Who Survived and Still Died
1:23:37 – The Subway Sandwich I Never Got Her
1:26:57 – What She Was Really Asking For
1:29:59 – What She Didn’t Say
1:32:06 – The Blanket That Still Hangs in My Office
1:33:49 – Why I Stay in the Fight
1:36:01 – The Price of Bearing Other People’s Pain
1:37:04 – I’m a Master at Compartmentalizing
1:39:00 – I Can’t Make Small Talk Anymore
1:40:42 – The Blanket, the Oath, and One Life
1:42:11 – One Life Can Still Change the World
1:46:07 – The Best Ending Is When They Don’t Need Me Anymore
