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.

Picked up that trick from an anorexic.

She was very jealous, but she wasn't on 800mg of seroquel. She, the poor thing, just had to stick her fingers down her throat.

Daisy, this is so utterly horrific and heartbreaking. I read and wish there was something I could do - what do you think might help to change things? Writing to my MP? Panorama? please keep posting, please don't end it, don't let the shits that did this to you do that to you.

I find it hard to write sometimes because Alcatraz is the only thing I think about. I really must stop ringing the crisis team 6 times a night because the only time I struck lucky with V was of any use. And the answer to all problems is, apparently, to bash the door in, kidnap the dog and pump one full of drugs. The rest of the time they hang up on me. (And this is logged by their paging service, not that anyone would check up on that.)

My immediate thought on your post, Aulait, and I am afraid it is the Daily Fascist, was this story.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2168737/Did-police-handcuff-dementia-patient-Treatment-distressed-84-year-old-Alzheimers-beggars-belief-says-coroner.html

This was a man who was approaching 85 and weighed 7 stone. I don't know a great deal about alzheimers except that it is a terrible disease. This man was not wandering the streets in danger to himself and others.

The fact that the meeting that would have been attended by his daughter was brought forward by a day so that he couldn't attend is absolutely typical of a system with the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing. He must have been absolutely terrified.

His daughter said, 'When I went to see him in hospital he was black and blue. I couldn't believe the state of him and he couldn't tell me what happened'

In my case I was reading a Mary Wesley book in bed and just submitted to the assault, not having alzheimers and therefore realising there was no point in resisiting but he must have been TERRIFIED.

My medical records record me as 'covered in bruises' and, of course my wrists were very badly bruised and bleeding but at least I was compos mentis. I wonder if any mumsnetters who are going through the pain of looking after a parent with Alzheimers have heard of this sort of thing before, or could find out how often it happens. In a supposedly civilised country.

Daisy, I understand what you mean about the system as I had a pervy doctor when I was off work with MH issues. Couldn't really complain about it as I was worried I'd come across as being paranoid, but it was horrible feeling that the people who were there to treat you and have so much 'control' over your life might not treat you correctly.

Do you have any close friends you can see? You're obviously traumatised by the experience, can you step outside it for a few hours? What do you think you can do?

One incident sticks in my mind (and haunts me to a degree) of when I was in hospital.

I mentioned upthread about being assaulted. It happened when this woman violently kicked over the fag end bucket, all over the smoking room. I rose to pick it up and she pushed past me to exit. I ignored her and carried on. She then shoved me out of the way when she came back in. It was my first night there and I detest any form of intimidation so said politely (but directly) "Excuse me, I'd rather you didn't push me thank you". I sat back down and that's when she launched herself at me. It all happened so fast, I had my arms up to defend myself. Another patient called for a nurse who eventually came. At this point, the woman was sat back in a chair.

I explained that I had just been assaulted by her. The nurse couldn't have been less interested, saying she couldn't do anything as she hadn't witnessed anything and "have you had your medication anyway?" No-one would do anything. It really was like I didn't exist.

Later that evening a middle aged man was brought it. Very meek and teary. He kept asking for someone to talk to. They just fobbed him off. He asked at various intervals throughout the next day, each time understandably getting more agitated through being ignored. Eventually, this mild mannered non-violent man was sedated and led away.

The woman who assaulted me eventually assaulted a member of staff and STILL they did nothing. I and the other patients were in constant fear of her. She was allowed to roam the ward freely. I asked them to explain why this woman, who was a direct threat was allowed to do this as opposed to a patient who was just asking for help, being sedated.

The WHOLE time I was treated like a nothing. Had my family not visited and witnessed how appalling they were, no-one would have believed me.

Daisy I too, refused to take part in activities. They included a music session of banging a half assed tambourine and a makeshift rattle of an empty margarine tub filled with rice.

Shakey, that is dreadful. Your and Daisy's stories are a horrific indictment of our so-called civilised society. I am so sorry you had to go through that.

What everybody went through in some mental health units is horrendous, yes it should NOT happen.

Daisy you say you don't have mental health problems yet why would they section you? The reasons Rethink gave you seem very extreme. I've had patients having psychotic episodes who were a threat to themselves and others (I don't work in mental health btw though dealt with a lot of it) and it was hard to persuade somebody to section them. I can't see why they would come and knock down your door and manhandle you into a police van without a serious reason to.

I really hope you get the help you need, you sound in a terribly bad place and are obviously experiencing PTSD as would anyone.

I have explained why I was sectioned but I will explain again.

I had a very bad wound on barbed wire that went very sceptic. I went to the doctor (a locum) to get anti-biotics. My partner kindly drove me there. When I was waiting in the waiting room I saw my partner on the phone, which I assumed was a business call. In fact he was telling the locum that I suffered from mood swings and psychedlic dreams.

The doctor examined my wound, prescribed anti-biotics and asked if there was anything else that I wanted to talk about. I jokingly said that if he had 6 months I would tell him about the problems that I was having with my partner. These mainly involved him refusing to let me get involved with his family; every Christmas, Easter, Bank Holiday etc, I was banned, in case it might upset his children, who are all in their twenties.

I told him that I had spent hours on the phone to relate and the Samaritans about this but that I could not get him to accept that this was a problem. In every other way I was the perfect girlfriend/mistress/prostitute. Whenever we tried to discuss this state of affairs he would fly into psychotic moods and storm out of the house at 2-3 am in the morning. He would also frequently lock me in my house, taking the key.

The sceptic wound got worse and I needed stronger anti-biotics. Again, partner drove me to the surgery and again talked to the doctor on the phone whilst I was in the waiting room. This consultation didn't really affect the wound and I thought that that was the end of the matter.

The doctor suggested that as I was so stressed I should see a community psychiatric nurse. I agreed purely to humour him. I saw the nurse for an hour and a half and the nurse told me that he didn't want to see me again.

Then I got a letter from the GP asking to see me. My wound had cleared up by then so I cancelled that appointment, not wanting to take up valuable time. Then he wrote to me asking to see me again. I wrote back saying that my wound was completely better.

THEN, I began to get phonecalls from people called the community health team. I was very polite to them, just as I would be to an Everest salesman. When these phonecalls persisted I asked to speak to the line manager and register a complaint regarding these intrusive and unsolicited phonecalls. To no avail.

(I only know all of this from my notes. My partner was in constant contact with these clowns all along but didn't tell me anything, even though he knew I was getting increasingly stressed by the unsolicited calls. He continued to deny any involvement until I showed him all of the documentation of his involvement).

One week before I was sectioned the whole 'Mental Health Assessment' was planned. Three people knocked on my door and I didn't let them in but agreed to speak to them at the bus stop. They spoke to me for 20 minutes exactly (this is in the notes) and then they left. I was fairly pissed off but relieved to have seen the back of them.

I went upstairs to read and the next thing I knew I was being assaulted by 6 policemen. You know the rest.

Any more questions?

Swooosh, you can't see why they would do it: neither can I, but that's hardly a reason to question OP's sanity at the time of arrest. I can't see why the police do a lot of the things they do, like killing unarmed men for example, but they do them all the same.

Inappropriate sectioning has a long and inglorious history. If OP's specialist lawyers and Rethink believe she was mistreated, I'd be inclined to trust their judgement. Meanwhile, Daisy's stuck trying to deal with problems caused by her 'treatment'. I'd be bloody angry, too, in her predicament.

The staff were absolutely horrific and I am very very bad at being patronised. Which is why my legal team and Rethink were so great. They treated me as a human being and not as a drug addled zombie. I would have gone mad without them.

My partner visited and told me to speak to my therapists and counsellors. There exist none of these. I stayed in my cell all day for 4 months, especially when the woman who had the scissors kept stalking me with an eye to stabbing me.

I only saw the quack to be given more and more drugs. I managed to stay sane in there by not speaking. It is now that I am out that I have completely collapsed. I have no doubt whatsoever that my life will end in suicide and I am not remotely depressed about it. I am depressed about having to fix up the house and make multiple complaints so that this does not happen to anyone else. It will take 2 years at the most. As I have said before, suicides are a common reaction on release. My friend Miranda is planning hers far sooner than I am planning mine. It's not a cry for help. It is the only option.

Your partner is an absolute shit, Daisy.

And should be sectioned, indefinitely. So that he can talk to his 'therapists' and 'counsellors' and be accompanied to the loo to avoid the scissor-weilder.

And when he tries to explain that he does not have a mental illness, he should have 18 nurses sit on him and inject a cocktail of random drugs in his bum to punish him for lack of insight.

He actually described Alcatraz to me today as a 'nursing home'. This conjures up genteel manor houses on the South West coast.

The day went like this.

8am. Bang on door and door opening at same time. No time to say, 'Come in', just jolted out of sleep. Go to make cup of coffee with double cream and have a cigarette downstairs in courtyard. Find that double cream has been stolen.

Given drugs (no choice, obviously). On one occasion I was given someone else's drugs but it didn't seem to matter. Any death in that place is put down to mental illness.

Stay in room listening to Radio 4 and trying to force myself to listen to language CDs. Hourly invasions by staff with no knock, just to check that I hadn't killed myself by eating CD.

12 noon lunch. Try and look as if I am eating but put lunch in bag and deposit in kitchen bin.

12-5. Try to sleep or listen to language CDs. Hourly checks to make sure that I haven't killed myself by licking light switch.

5pm: supper. Take sandwiches and dash back to room to avoid the scissor happy stalker.

8 or 9 pm: watch some sort of documentary on tv to try and keep brain alive. Only with a member of staff for company due to scissor stalker

9.30pm: Queue starts forming for night drugs. Drugs are not given out until 10pm but desperate queue of zombies starts at 9.30. I prepare special outfit in tv room watching Dave, with multiple pockets in which to store the drugs and then flush them down loo.

10.30: Listen to R4/World Service all night and consider cost of flight to Libya.

Not at all sure if this it the right place to ask but does anyone know of a genteel old manor house on the South West Coast in Agatha Christie territory for me to try and recover. Seaview, ensuite bathroom, (spa facilities, or is that asking too much?) I would need a trained counsellor/lady companion to whom to read my four months of diaries/observations. I know it would be very boring for her but she would have my permission to turn it into a three volume novel.

I live on the south coast, and I'm undergoing really great private and nhs counselling at the minute so I could research it for you if you'd like?

Actually no spa facilities necessary, just a hot bath twice a day.

And a murder wouldn't go amiss, as long as I could wear lovely hats and help solve the mystery.

The MP of the town in which Alcatraz is set is going to find out how many inmates are brought in with 'police assistance' and is going to find out the cost of the stay. I'd love to name him because he is bloody brilliant. I emailed him at about 8.30 on a Friday night and by 9 he had answered, having given the whole thing a lot of thought. I emailed him this thread.

However bad it has been for me, and others, the Alzheimers case is far worse. Does anyone else have any experience of that? I'd love to get in touch with his daughter. Does anyone in Manchester know how I could contact her?

I have google rest homes on the South Coast but they are all for the elderly. Perhaps a b and b in Porlock? With wifi? Anyone there with a book group?

If you've got the money for an extended holiday in the UK, mightn't it be better spent on practical stuff like your roof?

Not saying you don't need R&R, of course you do! I'd probably recommend two nights in a decent hotel near home - to get yourself rested, fed and polished - very soon, and a cheapo 2-week package in the sun for whenever you can find a good deal. I know you didn't ask, but that's my thought anyway :)

Good sense, Garlic, but I don't intend to pay for either. Alcatraz can pay for the roof and the carpet and Mr 'Nursing Home' can pay for his beloved nursing home.

The rats are catered for. How come rats are the only animals that eat blue food? They love it.