Living life with complex mental health issues

Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken

— Oscar Wilde.

This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.

After battling your own head, seeing people that nobody else can see and hear things that nobody else can hear for years I first got sectioned at the age of 17 in November 2016.

Growing up I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression, following that I was diagnosed with Emerging Borderline Personality Disorder known now as Emotionally Unstable Personality disorder (EUPD). Psychiatrists tend not to diagnose Personality disorders and other complex disorders until you are 18 because they claim your personality is still developing up until this age. Although I find it very hard to accept that as soon as you turn 18 you’ve suddenly got a disorder. It’s like you wake up and suddenly it’s evident that you have this disorder, I don’t fully agree with the process of diagnosing mental health issues but it is what it is no matter how much you complain about it.

After suffering from uncontrollable symptoms that were medicated unsuccessfully I tried to take my own life. This is not the first time so I struggle to see why I was sectioned but the truth of the matter is I wouldn’t be alive today if I hadn’t of been sectioned when I was. I took an overdose on prescribed medication and it had an adverse reaction on my heart. After being in the resuscitation area in Suffolk I was admitted to a ward for high level observation as assessment. I spent 4 days attached to different drips, cardiac monitors and was told I couldn’t leave the hospital.

I was then assessed by the mental health team and my therapist. I remember sitting in a room in the general hospital being assessed and not wanting to talk about anything. I guess the truth is I was disappointed. Disappointed that yet again I was saved, I didn’t know what was going to happen and my whole life was uncertain. I was advised that I needed more support than my family and my community team could provide. I’m heart began to race and all I wanted to do was run, but I listened to what they had to say and agreed to be informally admitted to a Adolescent Psychiatric Unit in Southend. This was 2 hours away from home, I only agreed as it was explained to me that if I did not like the hospital I could choose to leave. A suitcase with a few belongings was dropped off at the general hospital and I was transferred to Rochford in a secure ambulance.

The journey there seemed like it was going on for days, I was extremely low in mood and did not know what was going to happen once I had got there. I finally arrived at the hospital and had no idea that almost 3 years later I would be sitting in my 6th psychiatric hospital, sectioned and awaiting to be moved 3 hours away from home to another hospital.

I don’t remember much after getting to this unit but I do remember asking to leave, crying because all I wanted to do was go home. That was when all the lies unfolded. After being told I could leave the hospital if I did not like it they decided to place me on a section 5(2) and a section 5(3). This is a nurses and doctors holding power. The nurse can legally detain (stop you from leaving) you for 6 hours once they have put you in the nurses holding power. In that time the doctor put me on a 72 hour holding power which gave them time to get a Mental health team to assess me for a section 2. A section 2 lasts for 28 days, they call it a assessment period. I tried to lie about how I was feeling to avoid getting sectioned however it was quite evident by my presentation that I was not safe to be discharged.

After being sectioned things rapidly began to deteriorate, I don’t remember a lot but I was punching walls that led to me being put in a cast as I had fractured my hand, ligaturing, self harming, hallucinating and hearing voices, and being given medication through IM (intramuscular injections).

After being placed on section 3 which is a section that lasts up to 6 months and is classed as a treatment period and rapidly deteriorating in less than 3 months I was transferred to a Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU).