I have been sectioned.

[lazyhazydaisy]

I have just got access to the internet. I am much less petrified than I was at first but definitely 0 out of ten. I have a tribunal and if that fails I think I will be here until July. I feel as though I am living in a nightmare. I have never felt so alone.

Another day without opening the front door. The chaos team tell me that I am not mentally ill and therefore deserve no help apart from one hour a fortnight. The supposed 'care co-ordinator' is on two weeks leave.

The only advice they have given me is to complain but I am terrified that if I do that they will construe it as mental illness. And I would not know where to begin, anyway. The house is full of diaries, rethink notes, requests to meet to social workers who sectioned me, and who have consistently ignored all of my letters.

I am paralysed with fear. My face has completely changed because I have not smiled in 6 months. I sleep all day and internet all night. It was such a relief to wake up at 5pm today and realise that another day is nearly over.

I have had one bath in the 3 months since I was released and I have only a few clean clothes which are hanging damply on the non-working radiators.

Does ANYONE have any explanation for why this happened to me? I don't. The care co-ordinator doesn't. My 'named nurse' doesn't. I have no hope of any hope. Minute upon minute of paralysis. For £100k.

The highlight of my week is puttting out the bins every fortnight. In the dark.

The 'intensive counselling' that they say I need, I will have to pay for myself. Might as well just put myself in the dustbin.

This is possibly a stupid question, but why don't you rearrange your routine so you sleep at night and internet during the day? Sunlight is good for you and spending all night in the dark on the internet probably doesn't make you feel any better.

Do you have a garden? I always find gardening very therapeutic, even just weeding.

You really sound very very unwell.

You obviously can't accept the reason why you were sectioned, it is actually quite difficult to section someone.

It is not something which is taken lightly, it is a last resort.

Are you taking absolutely no medication at the moment?

The "care" you have received has really been appalling.

But do you honestly believe that you have no mental health issues?
Your posts are quite obviously written by someone in complete turmoil, look around your house, look at yourself.
You can't go on like this, there has to be someone you can trust to help you, to be your advocate.

What fannyfilfer said. There isn't the money or resources to arbitrarily put random people in hospital. For every mh bed, there are 100 patients needing (and asking) for it. I also post on a mh forum and there are always posts about "how can I get them to admit me".

I have been in 3 hospitals with about 5/6 admissions, the most recent last march-June, it.was ok. There were some lovely staff, it has inspired me to train to become a mh nurse.

It was bad the.way the police treated you, but if you were refusing to speak to the doctors or meet anyone then I guess they felt that was their only option.

Please explain as I'm a little confused how the police handcuffing you caused a hole in your roof, and the washing machine to break. To me it sounds like these issues were there before you went into hospital, but perhaps you were not aware of them.

I will try to answer each of the questions as honestly as I can.

Mooncup, when you live in a small village in the Dales and you have been dragged barefoot out of your house by your hair and been shoved into a cell in back of said policevan you are not inclined to leave the house.

If I get told one more time that there is no stigma in mental illness then I might just develop a mental illness. Only someone who has been through that could understand.

For that reason I do not leave my house in daylight hours apart from to walk the dog at 5am when I am sure that I will not meet anyone. My house has been boarded up for 4 months. It is obvious that I have been taken away to a mental asylum.

I don't go into the garden much, even though I can get there through the back door rather than through the window, since I found the key that the police helpfully hid in a small shelf under the stairs. It took me 3 weeks to find this key.

The garden is infested with rats due to 4 months of binbags of rubbish. Three sets of neighbours complained to the council (don't blame them at all). I am very worried about the dog eating their droppings so gardening is out for now. Also, the outside drain is blocked. I tend to lock the dog in the house and scoop water out into a bucket and throw the water at the end of the garden.

(I think that was a good question, btw. Today I refilled the rat trap so I will be able to see how much they are still eating. Have found no corpses so far)

(I also leave all of my curtains drawn and get taxis to the shops, wearing a cloche hat and keeping my head well down)

Why is there 4months of rubbish in your garden? If the house was boarded up and no one living there, where has the rubbish come from?

Not leaving the house, using a hat to cover your face, not eating, not washing. These are not indicators of someone who is mentally well.

I was in hospital for 3 months. When I came out I told my neighbors (as I live in A small village where we all know each other) that I had been struggling/ill and gone into hospital, but feeling much better thanks. The ones I'm not on speaking terms with, I didn't say anything.

'You really sound very very unwell.

You obviously can't accept the reason why you were sectioned, it is actually quite difficult to section someone.

It is not something which is taken lightly, it is a last resort.

Are you taking absolutely no medication at the moment?

The "care" you have received has really been appalling.

But do you honestly believe that you have no mental health issues?
Your posts are quite obviously written by someone in complete turmoil, look around your house, look at yourself.
You can't go on like this, there has to be someone you can trust to help you, to be your advocate.'

I am deeply traumatised by the illegal imprisonment and the living terror of being stabbed by a fellow inmate who thought that I was number 3 in Sein Fein and was put into Alcatraz in order to kill her. This may sound crazy but to her it was completely her reality. I am not sure whether it was a delusion or side-effects of drugs but once she went round telling other inmates that she had got hold of scissors I was in fear of my life. I stayed in my cell. This was taken as 'self-isolating' - yet another symptom of yet another disorder, rather than desperate self-protection.

The official reasons for my sectioning are exactly as follows:

1. house in a mess (my solicitors suggested they pay a cleaning lady if that was a problem
2. Self-neglect (my house is chock a block with food and this was verified when we eventually managed to break in to the door that the police had boarded up
3. Phone-calls to a professional. This was to stop getting unsolicitored calls from my GP who I have met exactly twice. He has a reputation for sectioning people and is being investigated by the GMC.

I consistently told all 'professionals that I have no mental illness but unfortunately this lack of 'insight' is the greatest symptom of mental illness of all. I spent all of my energy in there staying sane, inspite of being told that the radio was talking to me and that I was suffering from hallucinations and bi-polar.

I refused to have a tribunal although all the staff, including the psychiatrist urged me to have one, telling me I would 'get off'. I told them that I would only leave either in a coffin or with an apology and that I respected them as much as I respected the teletubbies.

Oops posted too soon. I didn't not say anything because I was hiding away, its just nothing to do with them, I doubt they care.

Your behaviour, and the way you are thinking is of a person who is very, very unwell.

And yes, I have been 'arrested' by the police when in public and at home.

If I left my house for 3 months there would not be fungi growing in the bedroom from a hole in the roof, or bags of rubbish decomposing in the garden. That suggests your home was in quite a bad way before you went in.

The week before last, when I was last visited by a drip I was told categorically that there was nothing wrong with me at all and that I did not need further support.

I live in a very very old house. After 4 months of rain and snow the roof leaked and the leaking got worse and worse until it cascaded down two flights of stairs. That was nothing to do with the police assault. Glad to clear that up. The police dragged me down two flights of stairs.

When I managed to break into my boarded up house, on my release, I found the washing machine full of 4 months of stinking water. Have found and cleaned filter but it still doesn't drain so I can't wash clothes. Doesn't matter if I look and smell like a tramp because I have no human contact.

The drain is blocked due to expanding foam to fill up rat holes in drystone wall, so wouldn't be able to even have cold bath.

Any more questions? But no armchair diagnoses please.

That place should be turned into a hospice. I do think of suicide a lot, and so do the people with whom I have kept in touch. Just can't bear the thought of dangling from a rope. And I am no good at knots. But it does seem the logical career move to all of us.

Does anyone have any idea on statistics of suicides after leaving a hellhole like that? I'd love to know.

i am on no medication and never will be. I spent four months watching women turning into zombies who will never be able to live independently again. They bloated to 20 stone, slept all day, counted the minutes to the meds trolleys, acted MOST inappropriately (gave blow jobs to male inmates in the corner of the courtyard in return for cigarettes. I would cry about my predicament and they would laugh hysterically. And that is apart from the one who wanted to kill me with scissors.

Why is there 4months of rubbish in your garden? If the house was boarded up and no one living there, where has the rubbish come from?

Add message | Report | Message poster
ScheherezadeMon 16-Jul-12 17:39:21

'Not leaving the house, using a hat to cover your face, not eating, not washing. These are not indicators of someone who is mentally well.

I was in hospital for 3 months. When I came out I told my neighbors (as I live in A small village where we all know each other) that I had been struggling/ill and gone into hospital, but feeling much better thanks. The ones I'm not on speaking terms with, I didn't say anything.'

I have tried to explain this before. I used to have (rat-proof) wheelie bin. My cottage has 6 stairs up to the road where the wheelie bin has to be placed on bin day. I am 8 stone and am physically unable to lug it up the 6 steps. So I bought a years supply of council plastic bags, which I could carry up the steps. By the time the police assaulted me and handcuffed me I could hardly ask them to put the plastic bins out. The bins contained kitchen waste. After 4 months of illegal imprisonment the bins were in pieces all over the garden and the rats were everywhere.

For the next 3 weeks, until I found the back door key I had to climb out of the kitchen window and collect/sweep as much as the debris as I could and then climb back through the kitchen window with the sacks of disgusting debris. After 4 months the rats had multiplied like rabbits.

I am now assured that I am completely well and my fortnightly drip visits will be ending.

Any more questons?

The cost of mending the roof is around £6000, which I will be sending to Alcatraz. The fungi sprouting carpet will have to be replaced. I am trying to get the courage to get a surveyor to assess the cost of the (300 year old door). I haven't looked at the rotten floor boards yet.

The one advantage of 4 months solitary confinement is that one gets accustommed to it. I live in a universe of one.

That's not my experience at all. I watched women coming in who were obviously in A bad way, dirty, psychotic, depressed. My last admission was to a mother and baby ward, the women were struggling to meet the most basic needs of their babies.

When they were discharged I can't think of a single one who wasn't in A much, much better place. Caring for themselves and DCs.

I am on heavy duty meds for bipolar. I am slim, functioning well (I only became ill because I had to go off my meds when pg and breastfeeding. As soon as I started taking meds again I became well), and have no side effects bar needing to drink more water if I drink alcohol. I'm integrated back into the village. When I went into hospital I told the vicar, whose wife runs the village mums & tots group, and they all sent me a card, one visited me, and were lovely and sweet when I came out.

It seems that YOU are the one with the stigma towards mental health.

Given that I have been repeatedly assured that I do not suffer from mental health, by my named nurse and numerous other nurses, and my solicitors, and my rethink team, all of whom spent far more time with me than my drug crazed psychiatrist, I am not sure how to respond to that.

The named nurse wants to meet me in a local pub to go over the whole thing with me. She is the one who said she would discharge me tomorrow (she said this everyday). She is the one who said that she daredn't whistleblow because she needs the job to pay her mortgage.

I would definitely say that I am suffering from acute PTSD after that ordeal and as I have reiterated I see no hope for the future. I need to get all my paperwork in order before I put myself to sleep.

I am really cross about your door, Daisy, old doors are so lovely and irreplaceable!

But it sounds like you are slowly making things better. You've sorted the garden out and got a quote for the roof. Even when one is in the best of moods arranging workmen can be very intimidating - my conservatory roof has a leak and just thinking about it makes me feel miserable and paralysed - but I am sure you will get there, gradually.

My priority when I am strong enough is to go through my medical notes. It says that I have had hallucinations, which I have most definitely have not. I think that is the cause of the rat up the drainpipe mentality. My partner told my GP, and lied to me about this, that I had psychedlic dreams and I think that that turned into Chinese whispers.

My drug crazed psyciatrist put me on 800mg of seroquel a day. That took some flushing!

Scheherezade - it is great that you have had such a good experience, but I think most people would feel traumatised if they were violently sectioned and kept in a psychiatric unit against their will.

Are you going to meet the nurse, Daisy? It sounds like it might be a good thing to do.

Oh, and there were many, many breaches of confidence. Arthur was told to keep away from me because I was unwell.

This is a serious breach.

There are many more.

Whether or not you are suffering PTSD after your ordeal or not, the fact remains that mental health services do not just come and section someone without very very good reason.
You really think that they did that just for the fun of it?
I doubt very much any of your neighbours are even interested, bar the fact that the state of your house and garden is impacting on theirs.
The bin bag story is pretty strange to be honest, most people get rid of their rubbish quickly and don't leave it building up.
The Mental health services are prob agreeing with you that there is nothing wrong so they can keep in contact with you.
I don't know your family situation, think you mentioned children previously but everything you have written reads as someone who has been struggling with mental health issues for a very long time.

Oh, and did I mention that when I was admitted, having lied about his secret and prolonged chats with the GP, my partner of 7 years left me?

'I am obviously better out of your life'

He broke into my boarded up house, took his stiffl and boarded it up again.
Including the bloody tool box. He didn't even empty the fridge.

He is a Christian. Apparently.