My admission was probably one of the lowest points at this time, I was pulled into an ambulance, by police officers who obviously had no idea how to handle a psychotic person. I was put in a small room with only my boyfriend there, three psychiatrists/psychologists came in and assessed me, I don’t remember much of the conversation apart from when one of them told me my parents didn’t want me and couldn’t take care of me. I was to be sectioned over the weekend. The first night I wandered around the ward crying, begging every nurse or doctor I could see for a second opinion. I just wanted to go home.
They gave me Lorazepam to keep me quiet and I didn’t sleep at all, I was on 1 on 1 for the first two days which meant I couldn’t be on my own, not to sleep, not to go to the bathroom or shower, not to cry or express the emotions I wanted to express. I felt helpless and the nurses would only tell me “they won’t let you out while you act like this”. When I couldn’t sleep I told the nurse watching me that I couldn’t sleep and all she said was “you slept”. So I got a coffee at 4am and waited for the day to pass. When your days start at 4am and you don’t get to go to bed until 9pm the days are pretty long and shitty. I’d been managing to quit smoking but when I got in there it was the only thing that allowed me to go outside for 5 minutes.
I was too anxious to shower with someone watching me and I was told me not showering would go against me and I would be made to stay longer. On one particular night they gave me Lorazepam, Zopiclone and Quetiapine all in one night and it made me hallucinate. My birth/dead name was used quite frequently until my named nurse took notice, however that didn’t stop some of the nurses from being ignorant. I was found crying by a nurse who had been extremely harsh and blunt with me from the start of my time there, she gave me no sympathy or advice, just another broken record “do you really think they’ll let you out while you’re acting like this?”. I was saddened to hear that it would go against me to portray my emotions.
I made friends on the ward, they were very good people and I still contact them to this day, I’ll always be grateful for them. One occasion that stood out to me was when I was taken into the office and told “some patients” were “unhappy” with me being on the male bedroom corridor, I was given a rape alarm but wasn’t told who would potentially be attacking me. I was offered food but was too anxious to eat in front of the other patients, the nurses refused to let me eat alone and I had to sit in between two armchairs in the corner. I declined food for the first 3 days and lost weight drastically, I was malnourished, dehydrated and tired, but yet again I was told this was all going against me. I wasn’t offered any advice. A nurse came to me asking about what I wanted to eat, asked me if I wanted a vegan meal and I accepted, she then looked at the list of things and replied “oh well, we don’t have any” and I was forced to choose something else. I was even given meat at one point that I refused to eat.
On my last night I was kept up until nearly midnight because they were late doing night medications (meant to be given at 9pm), my friend and I were the last two to get ours. My review session was 5 days after I was sectioned, I was in the room for 15 minuets, lied through my teeth about feeling great and not wanting to die; I was let out immediately after. They told me I was going to be kept inside this place for all the times I fucked up that I couldn’t help because I was mentally ill. Then I was let out within 15 minutes of lying.
By Jason Lewis @ag0ny_in_vain
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Recovery in the Bin 