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A thank you letter

recoverymaybeLeave a comment

To the psychiatric ward staff who check in on me when I’m struggling.

To the staff who don’t give up even when I don’t verbally respond.

To the staff who listen when I talk.

To the staff who check for the yellow/red cards in my door’s window to see whether I’m ok, or too anxious to ask for help.

To my care coordinator who’s always on my side, even when getting me sectioned (not sure how that works, but it does).

To the staff who try to help again even if I won’t always (be able to) accept it.

To the staff who ask me what’s wrong when I act oddly rather than assume I want trouble.

To the staff who do their best to avoid me having another meltdown.

P.S. I know not everyone has a good experience, and it isn’t rainbows, sometimes they mess up, or do something normal that triggers me badly. Moving my stuff for any reason, but they know not to do that now, and avoid it. Being on a ward isn’t a good experience, but I do appreciate the staff who help me cope.

P.P.S. The staff won’t get to read this, but I just wanted to write it out anyway.

Informal, or not?

recoverymaybeLeave a comment

My section 2, compelling me to remain on a psychiatric ward for 28 days (or until discharge, whichever is sooner) is going to expire next week.

I’ve been told that I can’t go back to my flat, yet, but if I agree to stay on the ward (and not go missing…) they’ll make me an informal patient, otherwise I’m going to get section 3 applied to make sure I stay, probably for another week or so, not the full 6 months!

I know that being informal would give me a lot more freedom, no more limits on leave, I just have to sleep in hospital and take medication at the right time.

However I don’t feel able to agree to stay, or agree to not go missing, as I 100% do not want to be here. The main reason for not going missing at the moment is that I’ll just lose my leave (up to 2 hours, unescorted, a day now).

With a section at least it remains perfectly clear how I feel about being in hospital, and no-one can expect me to react as if I want to be in a ward.

Mind you, the staff did get pretty surprised on the second day I was in my current ward, and they had been “too busy” to take me escorted off the ward so I tried forcing my way through the main door. Something about “that’s not the kind of behaviour we expect from you” – referencing the fact that on the previous (voluntary) admission a while ago I hadn’t done anything disruptive.

That’s it for tonight. Guess I’ll find out what I do next week.

Although I guess if my (very active) conscience would just switch off I’d just “agree” to a voluntary admission and use the freedom to go missing. It does interfere with lying to get something I want done a lot!

P.S. Sectioned or informal doesn’t feel very much like a choice…

(Satire) Trapped in a government facility

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This post doesn’t reflect reality (or how I perceive it), it’s just an extreme interpretation of being put and being on a psychiatric ward. Twisting events so it seems like I’m a prisoner on a military black site. I had a friend not want me to discuss me being hospital, so I started thinking about other ways to express it, and this idea came up. The abusive relationship is with OCD (Ocd), treating it like a person.

1535 29-01-2020. Withheld phone call, offering support escaping my abusive relationship with Ocd.

1600 29-01-2020. Picked up in a black vehicle and taken to a state assessment centre.

1630 29-01-2020. Assessment begins, lasts hours, with two active assessors and one unknown operative watching proceedings.

1830 29-01-2020. I agree to stay until an elite assessor can arrive to finish the assessment and paperwork.

0020 30-01-2020. Elite team arrives, official designations AMHP and a Section 12.

0130 30-01-2020. Escorted to small discrete vehicle for transport.

0200 30-01-2020. Arrival at facility only known by an obscure identifier. For my ongoing safety from active operatives I cannot be any more specific. Operatives here dress in blue or green outfits. Those in green seem to be minions of those in blue, and try to extract information to hand over to the blues.

(unknown) 30-01-2020. Assessment by facility director. Given fake sympathy (it wasn’t fake in real life, but this is a fantasy version of events, so I can twist it 😛), and directed to take unknown (I did know) medication to curb unwanted behaviour and simplify my management (I think you get the idea at this point, the staff were great, but twisting stuff you can make it seem like anything but that).

1500 30-01-2020. Escorted around the facility. Staff member following me was jumpy, unknown cause. Possibly determining whether physically assaulting be would be necessary to avoid repercussions from their bosses was necessary.

2230 30-01-2020. Compelled to take two unidentifiable tiny white pills. Sleep came easily after consumption.

0815 31-01-2020. Facility staff, bang on the door to and then enter my unit, with another white pill, and wait for me to take it.

1200 31-01-2020. I start my hunger strike.

1220 31-01-2020. After harassment, agree to consume a sandwich.

(the time blurs)

1400 04-02-2020. Top security, but a shower has broken drainage. This is a government facility after all.

1450 04-02-2020. A red clothed staff member reports the flooding to a green. From what I could see reds cleaned up any mess caused by the questionable activity of greens and ensured the director never had to worry about seeing the effects of their orders.

1510 04-02-2020. Plain clothes operatives put me in a nondescript car for facility transfer. Something about “more appropriate care” elsewhere.

1530 04-02-2020. Traffic cleared in advance to smooth the transfer, I arrive at another facility (can’t identify it here for my own safety).

1420 05-02-2020. Haven’t breathed open air in so long that I attempt to force my way out of the main door. A blue at the door uses non-lethal restraint to prevent me going an inch outside.

1430 05-02-2020. Muttering between blues and greens about that “we said we’d look into letting you out” to try and make my breakout attempt seem unreasonable.

1910 05-02-2020. Deputy director of the new facility directs blues and greens to do short escorted trips outside the containment wing. I’m not about to run from the escort – I have no wish to face down a capture squad.

1920 05-02-2020. Access to food supplies from outside the containment wing. These are superior to those on the wing. Pricing is exorbitant though.

2000 05-02-2020. Ocd is granted access to me for the millionth time since I was detained. Blues and greens seem unaware (at least when I feel too guilty about it to tell them) they keep letting Ocd in or ever making its torture of me worse.

2330 05-02-2020. Ocd, in cooperation with another detainee prevents me from using my designated bed, even though the bed has no visible reason to prevent use.

0040 06-02-2020. A blue and green issue me another bed elsewhere in the containment wing to ensure I sleep without Ocd getting in the way.

1500 06-02-2020. Taken off site to complete mandatory paperwork from the DWP. Rumor is that those who work for them are heartless monsters, and their overseers are pure evil (😛).

2230 06-02-2020. Can finally go to sleep as the last pill of the day has been issued.

0800 07-02-2020. Got to take another pill at this time, as per usual. I was asleep!

1000 07-02-2020. I secure access to my phone after losing access previously (due to needing to leave it with staff to charge). Limited connectivity only lets me transmit this log. If you find it, please get me out of here – they might have lost the paperwork but I exist!!

P.S. Writing this was fun. I am on a section 2, so don’t have a choice about being on a ward, and I do get regular escorted leave now, at least since a psychiatrist, a director, directed the nurses, blues and heath care assistants, greens, to make sure it happened, even if they were “busy”.

Life on a ward, with severe OCD

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I do not want to be on a ward. Who does? I guess me less than some as I’m sectioned. Although somehow I went onto a ward voluntarily in the past!

I’m here because my OCD has become so distressing and disruptive that I managed to concern my local CMHT a lot.

My daily routine, so far is:

  • Wake up in the morning, then not get up as I don’t want to feel any contamination anxiety.
  • Say I don’t want breakfast (08:15) when a member of staff asks (I do, just can’t face down the anxiety of getting stuff off a shared food trolley, contamination).
  • Get up when a nurse comes along with meds, and take them (10:00-ish).
  • Wash my hands, and partway up my arms.
  • Clean my teeth.
  • Ask a staff member for my phone – it’s been on charge in the locked office overnight, for those who don’t know, possession of cables is prohibited as they are high risk items.
  • Do stuff on my phone until about 11:45, or 15 minutes before lunch time.
  • Hang around the dining area to try and get my cutlery before anyone else, and get to the front of the lunch queue. Fail? Not having a hot lunch, maybe sandwiches instead, the staff seem to notice and supply them so I have something…
  • Water? Do I have an uncontaminated cup and can face down using a shared sink. Spoiler: nope.
  • More phone stuff.
  • Now I’m fed up with my phone, at approx. 15:00 and ask (and get) escorted leave to the hospital shop (getting a sandwich, bottled water and a chocolate bar) and a short walk.
  • Water? Yep, got a nice clean bottle 😁
  • Next mealtime, same as before, waiting from 16:45. If I can’t get desert before my anxiety (contamination and noise) overwhelms me, I’ll just skip it. So “wait 5 minutes until everyone else is served” is the equivalent to telling me no!
  • More playing on my phone, and possibly taking a nap as there isn’t anything better to do.
  • More meds (I do have meds in the middle of the day, but can’t remember when).
  • Sleep, I finally knock off sometime between 09:50 and 11:30.
  • Flashlight through the window of the door in my room, staff checks, which never, ever, wake me up 😛

Don’t have a change of clothes on me. Was not planning to get sectioned when the home treatment team (part of the mental health crisis team) assessed me on Wednesday (it’s Sunday as I’m writing). Fingers crossed I’ll get unescorted leave, or at least longer escorted leave, to visit my flat tomorrow and get some. I’m not a fan of having other people go into my flat to get stuff. Don’t know why…

Oh, and I haven’t told my parents I’m here – it feels too embarrassing to be in hospital for anxiety. Trying to kill yourself is easier to explain.

I’m on medication again technically voluntarily, but more because I don’t want to see if they’ll inject me if I refuse. I am aware that I’m struggling with my OCD, a lot. Having memories of agitation and feeling suicidal from a past med that I took for all of 36 hours is making me want to avoid medication, can’t any longer though.

Bye for now. Sleep incoming… Unless there’s something pointless I can do on my phone instead, got 2% left. Sleep it is, probably, I’ve still got 2% 📱

It can always get worse…sectioned

recoverymaybeLeave a comment

I’ve been sectioned under section 2 of the UK mental heath act. That means I’ve been placed on a psychiatric ward without my consent.

This is a result of my OCD becoming too disabling; with the anxiety taking priority over sleep, eating and drinking water – I got some of each, just not a normal amount. Oh, and my flat was a “bit” of a mess.

The idea that my OCD would become so bad that I would end up on a ward, or that a section would even be applicable to OCD was inconceivable to me. It didn’t even feature in my imagined worst case scenarios.

My care coordinator called me yesterday asking if I’d come in to the hospital so the home treatment team could assess me for extra support. I was anticipating home visits, or something along those lines.

The assessment started at 16:30. About an hour and a half in, going into a ward was identified as the best option – even I admitted I wasn’t coping. However to proceed they needed my consent or to section me.

At that point I was asked if I would agree to go onto a ward informally. I never actually answered the question, and some time later the anxiety and distress created by it caused me to I shut down and feel/being unable to speak. This lasted for so long (I’m not sure how long, could have been an hour or more), that the decision was taken to proceed with sectioning.

More people assessed me (2 doctors), but as I still wasn’t speaking I had professionals needing to discuss me while I was in the room and unable to respond. That wasn’t from lack of trying by the professionals to speak to me though 😢.

I did start speaking again eventually, but only about irrelevant things, TV, books, etc, which didn’t affect my assessment. My mind didn’t get in the way of talking about that. I’d considered what it would be like to shutdown and be unable to speak, but I never thought it would actually happen!

To be fair to my care co tried their best, and they did want to put off the sectioning until the following morning, but as my distress was skyrocketing already they decided it was unfair to me to put me through it again.

When the AMHP (approved mental health professional) finally got around to me, at 00:200, I was able to answer questions, fortunately they didn’t ask many – having discussed me with my care co.

So… Only 6 professionals decided that my admission was a good idea. Two of which couldn’t do sectioning and were just doing the initial assessment. They did their job, and I still like my care co, which is a plus.

P.S. When I shut down I have everything I want to do and say at the front of my mind, but can’t make my muscles comply because the anxiety associated with expressing myself is too high. Eventually I could nod and shake my head, but getting my voice back took longer.

P.P.S. I didn’t need to be dragged to the ward, but I wasn’t going to go onto one unless I had no choice.