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.

Daisy , I've just read all 28 pages of your thread , and I'm shocked at what you've been put through .

I can't quite believe how awful your ex is , he's an absolute bastard . Devious , sneaky , selfish , abusive ,rotten to the core bastard !

WHY did no one question his motives ? , or his mental health ? That evil little shit needs to be in prision for what he's done to you.
Your doctor (gp) needs sacked /struck off as well for going along with the bastard. Why did he take the word of your mother whom you have not had contact for a number of years ? ( was your ex and your mum having secret conversations or something ? )

I have only a hope for you , that you come out of this whole nightmare , a stronger person .
Hang in there daisy ...I have no doubt that you will prevail in this . You seem to me not to be suffering from mental illness , but you are traumatised from how badly you have been treated , and anyone would be reacting in the same way .

I hope you find a shit hot top notch lawyer and sue their arses for millions .

((hugs))

thanks :)

how are you daisy? you are quiet x

Yes, I'd be up for doing anything practical for you Daisy. I don't think I'm near you geographically and I have an horrendous track record with plumbers and the like so I think my best bet would be to help with some sort of campaign, emailling and the like.

Just a thought, if there are other MN-ers who could offer practical help, as in, attending to some things in your home, would you be ok with that?

I also second Garlic's insistence that you eat something! I quote "Strength needed to attain justification" (quote attributed to Shakey, 2/07/2012 09.33)

A friendly shoulder-squeeze from me, too, Daisy :)

I've been following your thread too Daisy and I feel for you.
You are asking for help, and you have lots of worried mn'ers here who would like to offer you practical help if we can, we have no other agenda than to make life a bit better for you. Please tell us what you will let us do?

Morning Daisy...will keep bumping for a response! Got to go out now!

You know, I woke up thinking about you. I really admire your fury, Daisy! I'm going to try and channel some of that for myself - and for everybody else who's been doubly shafted by crazy-making individuals in their personal life, then again by professionals piling indignity upon insult. It's a huge issue and you are courageous to face it head-on. You still need to survive and heal for now, though, as well as pursuing your anger. So, please, eat something and get a little sunshine.

Your devoted fan (!)

yep indeed, to still have fight after all you have been through daisy- pretty amazing stuff. hoping that you are ok today? maybe you went to sleep last night instead of being up all night? i hope so.

Woking I am not mentally ill. Aesop put the paradox perfectly in that the more that one asserts that one is not mentally ill (truamatised, bleeding and black and blue maybe) then that appears to be the ultimate evidence that one is mentally ill, paranoid or in denial.

If I were mentally ill, with, for example bipolar disorder, I would be happy to leave the house in the daytime and talk to people about it, and probably volunteer to man a helpline or something.

As for 'specialist help', I have just had over £100k of that and look what that has done.

I am interested that you were told to 'play the game'. I was told this again and again by staff, paients, lawyer, advocates and other peoples' visitors. (I had no visitors apart from a couple from dp who could not figure out why I was there). This universal advice to 'play the game' appeared to mean to go along with whatever diagnosis was given in order to get out. This wouldn't happen in a normal hospital. It is advice to lie. That was why I was in there so long. I absolutely refused to play the game. I kept cancelling tribunals when I was told by everyone, even Dr Clot, that I would 'get off', but I wouldn't 'play the game' until I had every single last bit of paperwork about my incarceration.

I can see that the word 'inmate' might be offensive but, as in Poppy Shakespeare, we tended to cut the euphemisms and create nicknames. When I speak to the chaos team on the phone I constantly correct them if they use any words or phrases like care, treatment, service users, help, the list is endless. It is a small victory when they start using words like chaos team and Alcatraz themselves.

I rang SANE yesterday. They are closed at weekends but I emailed them this thread and they say that they will get back in 3-5 days.

Woking your attitude towards my non-existent mental illness is one that keeps me in perpetual fear. It is the 'episode' thing. They tell me I am well now but if I put a foot out of line (eg make a complaint) they will tell me that I am having a 'relapse' or an 'episode'.

Woking That is what I mean by it being a life sentence.

Garlic That is horrifying. I posted something some days ago about the number of inmates who kill themselves when they are released. I didn't think about it at the time because I was trying so hard to stay sane and not get institutionalised. But a lovely girl I was in with was counting the days until she got 'leave' so that she could overdose on heroin. She and I helpfully compliled a questionaire for 'service users'. One question was 'would you rather by in alcatraz for 3 months or be dead?' Two thirds chose death. Two were unconscious anyway, in front of a blasting tv and two were doing their million piece jigsaw.

And, of course, these deaths are not seen as failures of the system, but are atributed to the job creation scheme known as mental illness 'treatment'.

aesop you have given some brilliant advice and I will come back to it when I have digested it properly and read the links. I wouldn't contemplate having anyone in my house, especially locally. The front key door is on the outside with a notice to the police to let themselves in rather than bashing the door in this time but otherwise I couldn't face anyone, esp the mums I know from Toddlers, schoolgates, etc. I can't even contemplate the bitching and gossiping and that is why I am leaving the area for good as soon as I have sold the family home.

I did meet a mercenary in there. He really stuck out from the dribblers because of his Saville Row clothes. Unfortunately I didn't get his card and as he was in their for the trauma of killing so many people I don't think he would have been much help to me any way. I didn't even ask him his rates.

Did you see the thread on the naked ramber who has spent 6 months in prison? Why was he not sectioned? I might take up naked rambling. Prisoners have far more rights than psychiatric patients.

hello :) glad to see you here this morning daisy. i didn't mean local people you know- i meant some of us lot on here who in time you could get to know and trust that could maybe help you out. if that is too scary then maybe in time you could let some of us dig about to find you help for your house/ resources and do the research etc for you. many voices and many hands etc- it may help. but for now just surviving another day is enough. my concern is that your living conditions are so awful they will make you feel worse. it is so much easier to stay alive when you are warm fed and clean. we all need that and so do you.

working in mental health actually made me ill in the end and i left it apart from the voluntary stuff that i do now. i changed my career ideas entirely. i cannot work in a system that does that to people and the system is so ingrained that it is impossible for one person to change. headway has been made with places like mind but there is such a long way to go. it is not only mental health either. physically disabled mothers get hassle from "children teams" (social workers) if they ask for suppotr. home educators get grief. god help you if you have a learning disability and are not articulate and have nobody to fight your corner. it is totally wrong and awful.

you and others on here who have been through similar are survivors of this shit. that is why to lose another to suicide would be so tragic. for now just keep putting a foot in front of the other? maybe we can all help each other in some capacity? you can never have too many trusted friends and over time that is what maybe some of us could become. either way very happy to see you daisy x

For me "playing the game" didn't mean accepting a diagnosis , actually I didn't get a diagnosis until years later. It meant knowing what they defined as "coping" and doing it.

Some of those things I did naturally , for example going to OT , even though I was convinced that I was the only sane person there and therefore not in need of "therapy" , I went because I am quite arty and found a sense of calm and release . For similar reasons I went to the gym and swimming.

However in one hospital one of their criteria was eating in the canteen with the other patients, both male and female rather than in the single sex common room area . I found many of the male patients very scary, partly because of my own mental health issues, but once my gp warned me that my refusal to eat in the canteen was seen as another sign that I was unwell and needed to stay I just got on with it, although I would bolt my food down and go back to my room. I also didn't like the food so again was reluctant to eat, again I learned to play the game and eat my meals, sometimes even to ask for seconds.

When I arrived on the ward for the first time I was like a manic caged animal who was terrified. I didn't come out of my room for days, again convinced that I was sane and it was a mistake . Again I was warned by my gp how this was being interpreted and I played the game by sitting in the common room and chatting.

I am genuinely worried about you, my husband has asked me to step away as this thread has acted as a trigger and I have been awake for 24 hours now reliving some of my memories, my suicide plans and unstable moments.

The label mentally ill is not one that is helpful to you , however I do hope that someone can support you .

(And yes, my dp was in secret contact with my mother, in spite of claiming to have no knowledge of why I was sectioned, that old Christian him)

I am VERY offended at netcurtains who went to bed when I had just dug out my 'Progress Notes' (they love their Orwellisms).

Verified

Daisee asked if we had been told her about her seeing Princess Diana sitting on her bed, said she had not spoken to her (because the notes say I have no auditory hallucinations and I was sticking to the letter of their diagnoguesses) . Daisee then started talking about how the crisis team may need to take her to the Falkland Islands to do something there for Lady Di. (FULL marks for grandiosity, surely?) Informed Daisee that this would not be possible. Daisee also said that she is very concerned that staff will not believe her about this, which would concern her, and was why she had not mentioned it before. Daisee did not appear distressed throughout this conversation. Daisee asleep by 2am and on each hourly check since - she had slept 3 hours during the day.

I think lots of people have already reported this thread, the constant suicide plans are distressing and would usually have been deleted.

MN must have their reasons for allowing it to stand.

reality- you can't have read the thread very well. there is no suicide 101. most here are trying to support daisy and focus on the practical issues so that she can stay alive. some of us are even qualified to do this either by training or by having been there or both. being traumatised by a situation does not mean that you are mentally ill. and did you miss the bit where i said that i worked for years and years in mental health. i have seen this happen many times to people and i am not a liar. there is no "collusion" or anything negative, just some women trying to help somebody who has been treated badly and failed. that is all. the best way that can be done imo is for us to listen, support and give whatever knowledge we have of practical help/ coping mechanisms so that daisy can survive. that is all. it is no-ones place here to call anybody else mentally ill. not helpful. i imagine that most of us who had been through this and were living like this would also be feeling pretty damn devastated. the fact that daisy is still alive and talking, and has contacted sane, mind etc is a very good thing.

Verified

At the start of the shift appeared to be presenting bizarrely. Daisee was saying that Princess Diana has been visiting her, and requested a yellow chair for her to sit on, and said that Diana never speaks to her, which she finds strange. Daisee also stated, 'That she wanted to go to prison, and was asking what she would need to do to achieve this. Suggestions from Daisee included getting myself to get hold of the drug trolley keys, or asking the staff to assist her in petty crime, Daisee suggesting taking credit cards from staff handbags, but not using them and also assaulting staff.

Daisee was also saying 'That she was very special, and wanted me to be one of her disciples. Daisee then asked if she could live a nocturnal regime, in order to alert in case Princess Diana did manage to speak to her. She wrote to the Ward Manager about the urgency of the yellow chair situation. When staff spoke to Daisee and said that she appeared to acting bizarrely, Daisee said, ' Well, I am meant to have a diagnoguess of being grandiose, depressed and psychotic and I have been advised to 'play the game'. Thereafter went to sleep. Encouraged to wake at 19pm, so as to encourage sleep tonight. Has not taken any diet.

this thread at the moment is daisy's only real support and contact with other people. i would be gutted to see it go and would worry very much if daisy could not talk here. daisy has said she is a long way off killing herself as it will take years to sort her affairs out. can we focus on helping her?

Verified
Daisee reported to staff this shift that she is also supposed to be manic but will find it difficult to keep up with it,

Verified
Daisee has said that she was no longer going to present with symptoms of mental illness because it was too tiring; said she may do it just one day a week.

You make your own fun in Alcatraz.

daisy you certainly didn't help yerself here missis with these people by attempting to play them at their own game. it is true the only way to "escape" is to play the game sadly.

What is suicide 101? The keys are in the front door if that has anything to do with it.

i think they mean your plans etc being talked about on here.