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.

If you read the thread you will know that I am told I have no mental health problems. And I have been told categorically that I am entitled to no help, apart from committing fraud to get DLA. The ordeal of the last 6 month have pushed me over the edge into having symptoms of extreme trauma.

Feel free to tick the boxes

Suicide idealisation
Lack of human contact
Not eating
Stigma of illegal incarceration and need to move house
paranoia
Not washing
Terror of rats in house
Fear of being reincacerated

All of these are the direct result of police assault and illegal incarcertion.

Read the thread.

Or, if you have undergone this life-destroying living terror, please share your experiences.

Armchair diagnosers are not welcome and are certainly not helpful.

Read the thread, or are you mentally ill? If so, I hope you get the 'help' you need. That would be enforced drug taking and doing jigsaws.

(I hope there are no more of these.)

And please do not use words like, 'help', 'care' or 'treatment', unless you have a love or doublespeak.

Musmsnet, please delete this post before I speak my mind in response to this kneejerk patronisation and save me the bother of breaking your guidelines. Just consider them broken in spirit.

I am mentally ill, there is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of in admitting that. I have been bundled into an ambulance to a hospital in the middle of nowhere . I was sedated and did have to take drugs and play the game . My mental illness was triggered by a traumatic event. It may be that your traumatic ordeal had also triggered a mental illness.

Wokings post doesn't qualify for deletion though. She hasn't broken any guidelines.

I do genuinely hope that you get the help, care or treatment that enables you to enjoy life again .

Even as a mentally ill person , I can say things that make sense.

only those with severe mental illness have come out planning suicide or locking themselves away. - Woking, I don't have "severe" mental illness and found your statement very callous. My hospitalisation wasn't like Daisy's but I still came out to find my life in ruins. Who do you think maintains your home and pays your bills while you're unexpectedly away for months, without income? One of the reasons my consultant admitted me for the condition he did, was that my insurances would pay out for the stated condition. Daisy had no such consideration and her insurance won't pay.

There were 23 people in my 'group' at the hospital. We were all private patients; had shiny, functioning lives prior to admission. Obviously there was something wrong with each of us but no-one was delusional, paranoid or schizophrenic. Before the annual reunion, seven were dead.

You're talking bollocks.

One of our group was a beautiful 19-year-old with a drug problem and poor self-worth, the reasons for which became clearer when we met her family. They refused to have her back home with them. The boyfriend she'd been living with used to rape her and lend her out to his rapist friends. The hospital worked hard to find a safe place for her to go to but, as she wasn't a minor and wasn't coming out of prison, there was no provision. At the last minute - her funding had run out and her bags had been packed for three days - they got her a place in a halfway house, halfway across the country. They put her on a train, she arrived, she killed herself.

Daisy appears to be suffering badly from the trauma she's been through. If this trauma hadn't been caused by mental health services, I'd be encouraging her more strongly to press for counselling. Because talking helps, eventually. But the problem was caused by this very same service. It's like telling a torture survivor to ask her torturers for help!

Plus, Daisy says neither she nor her 'classmates' were offered any therapies whatsoever post-discharge. Can you believe this? I find it incredible, but it's true. I've heard the same many, many times from ex-patients after being hospitalised by the NHS.

I certainly did not mean to be callous , but our thresholds for offence are different . I found it offensive to hear people like me described as an inmate .

I was just talking from experience and out of concern. I have been an "inmate" three times , once for four months so I suspect at that time I was classes as having a serious mental illness. I don't see that label as abusive or cruel it just describes the state I was in. Just before my longest stay I was living in chaos , making elaborate suicide plans, assuming that everyone was out to get me and having delusions of grandeur, out to save others as a distraction to my own problems.

It is wrong but sadly not surprising that she should not be offered follow up counselling.

Mental health services are over stretched , I have been genuinely very ill recently and tried to get an admission and there was simply no room, which is why it is so shocking that so much money was spent on someone who had nothing wrong with them.

Lots of the OPs story rings bells with me , my ex husband tried to get me sectioned as he thought it would be cheaper than a divorce settlement . Looking back he did me a favour as I am a stronger woman after nhs treatment. It took me a long time to see it that way though .

Daisee, keep talking :) I'm listening. Still no experience of what you have been through though.

Thanks for replying, Woking. I don't want to hijack Daisy's thread but I think I get what you're saying. (I ended up in treatment because of arsehole blokes, as well! Things haven't changed that much since ye olden dayes have they?!) It does take time ... a long time, in my case ... and I'm just horrified at the lack of follow-up NHS support. Ex-convicts don't get enough, but they get more than this

It's awful that you couldn't get help when you were in crisis. Worse, it almost looks as if you should have pretended to be fine to get the treatment you wanted Hope you're feeling a bit more even now.

Off to bed now, hope you have a peaceful night Daisy x

woking it is absolutley possible to be suicidal and NOT mentally ill especially when someone has gone through the trauma that daisy has. she is traumatised!
daisy, sorry for not getting back for a few days but myself and toddler are ill. i will devote more time to this tomorrow when i have some free time.
firstly tho- congrats for contacting MIND. please contact them again if you can. ask for an advocate to help you work through your situation and the abuse that you have experienced and ask if they can help you access some practical support.
secondly i would recommend that you google julia wassell. old friend of mine- and take a look at what she managed to achieve in regards to the womens section of broadmoor which was rife with abuse. she is somebody who campaigns for people like you and who is very involved with MIND.
if i was you (and bearing in mind that you do not know my history either here) this is what i would do...

1/ keep connection with MIND and despite my fear about state of me/ house etc i would ask one of them to come to see me. they will NOT section you, they are NOT mental health services- they are a charity who fight and advocate for people who have mental health issues AND those who have been wrongly incarcerated and traumatised.
2/ i would write to my MP, asking for action.
3/ i would write to the head of the health trust where i lived
4/ i would allow somebody ( me, garlic whoever) to start to get a bunch of good women together to come and help you out- there are hundreds of women on here who must have partners who are plumbers, builders etc and i would vet them as best i could to come and assist you even if it is a small bit of help.
5/ when folks were coming to my house and i really could not cope i would visit my friend ( the older lady you have mentioned) and let them get on with it.
6/ i would work on getting to know some folk on here well to facilitate the above and build some trust.
7/ i would continue to plan my suicide because i understand that is what is needed right now. but i would actively seek to improve my physical surroundings despite it meaning i had to maybe meet some people. i know it is scary but you deserve to live in a habitable house. just because the idiot drip said that there was no help practically for the house, he is wrong. let some of us on here research and find the grants/ charities/help for you. if you trust me or garlic or someone else then let us do that for you.
8/ i would be open to the fact that although the world is full of utter wankers and the system is shit, there are sometimes good people who have been through hell also who may be able to help you.

i would also like to say that this whole thread needs to be sent to the frigging useless PM, to national MIND, SANE, and everybody who can assist.
you are a human. you are a mother. no matter what you feel right now in that suicide is the only recourse left for you, i will not accept that right now. you are funny and eloquent and have a tale to tell that may well help others. you can establish change on a grass roots level and maybe further. you could set up a blog, a community online etc and reach out to others who are as desperate as you. you have a lot left to live no matter how you see it and when you have kids then those kids are going to need you forever. they love you.

priority as i see it is your living environment. please can we start tackling that with you? i see from the thread there are a few very willing and decent people who do know where you are coming from.

excuse disjointed post- am not well and in dark. more tomorrow. apologies for bossing you about and my big list but is only way i can get it out right now :)

Yes it is possible which is why I said very likely.

It took me a long time to face up to the fact I was not well. Some of us struggle when faced with stressful situations , we just do not have the mental strength to ride such storms. The OP has not been through a storm but a full force hurricane . Many people would struggle to remain mentally healthy through that. From reading other posts her relationship with her partner has also been stress inducing.

OP I have been through much of what you are going through and I did feel very alone and very scared. One of my coping mechanisms was to tell myself I was healthy and everyone else was in the wrong , to remind everyone about my degree from a top uni, my career successes, my money etc as I wanted to be the successful "sane person" not the weak mad one . If you want to talk to someone who has been through it and mostly come out the other side much happier and healthier , I am here.

this may help you define how MIND is different from the useless and often abusive "mental health services"

www.mind.org.uk/help/rights_and_legislation/mind_guide_to_advocacy

and this:

www.mind.org.uk/help/community_care/abuse_by_health_and_social_care_workers

Mental illness is also fluid , there are times in my life when I am mentally very well. I would never say perfectly fit, but I get by and most people would not notice. There are other times , often when under stress , when I am quite unwell. So the op could have been well and her trauma triggered a mental illness type episode which in time will pass.

I assume it's not your intention, Woking, but it sounds like you're minimising what Daisy's going through right now.

i am glad that you are here woking because you are another person who has survived and you should be proud of that. and again i am horrified to hear that this shit still goes on for people :(

i have been a service user as well as a "worker" in mental health. i started working young and became very upset by what i was seeing ( much of what daisy has reported) so i then went into advocacy. i have my own history which goes back to childhood which i have pretty much dealt with and i continue to act as voluntary advocates for people although i tend to specialise now in suicide/ sexual abuse. the mental health system is mostly useless. there are some very good projects but these tend to be charities and private sector- the nhs and mental health services ( like the learning dis teams) tend to be crap and rife with abuses. organisations like MIND have made some changes but it is very hard because as daisy says the words bandied about when one challenges others in aposition of power over our lives in this context is " in denial" or "difficult" or "dellusional" etc. disgusting.

i truly believe though that even tho daisy has been through hell, she can come through it. i have seen others do so- one lady i knew had all of her teeth knocked out by a "nurse" in broadmoor :( she needed a lot of help but is doing ok. people need people especially when we are on our arses. the difficulty is knowing how to trust anyone after something like this :(

i agree that there is no shame in having a mental health issue. and i also truly believe that is anyone on here were to go to be assessed by a psychiatrist, each one of us would come away with a diagnosis... that is what happens.

woking i don't think it will pass for daisy without support, she is traumatised beyond belief and living in a shithole with nobody. that is why i would really like to help her parctically/ emotionally/ however. i don't think it right that we armchair diagnose, trauma is not mental illness- it is reaction to intolerable abuse/ cruelty/ situations. and coming out of that whilst alone and living in a house that is wrecked is going to be very hard without help. sorry to talk on your behalf daisy, hope i haven't offended

sorry about typos folks!

I am not minimising, I am trying to do the opposite .

I was trying to make the point that mental health is not a static thing. Just because the OP was told that she was mentally healthy it does not mean that is the case now.

I am picking up some fear from her and therefore I wanted to also reassure her that she need not feel as she does now forever . But she will need help to get to that place.

Garlic I have read my posts back and I cannot see how I have minimised what he OP is going through.

I am very very concerned about her. She has been in my mind for quite a few days and if I knew her in real life I would be doing everything possible to help her.

If I have come across as trying to belittle or minimise her experiences I am very sorry.

I do wonder if someone on here knows where she lives as she needs real life help.

maybe some of us can facilitate that real life help? i have no clue where she is but after everything daisy has been through i would be very wary of giving my location until i had sussed people out. that is why i think MIND are worth keeping in contact with. maybe a few of us here can support daisy to access safe help and keep her focussed on that through this thread. i may be warbling, it is late and i am ill so i will go to bed but i will try to assist more tomorrow x