Mindfulness Drawing : A 5 minute exercise

              Locked up && Sectioned

Dreaming of being at home  

Under a section 3 (s3) you are detained in hospital for treatment. Treatment might be necessary your health, your safety or for the protection of other people. You can be detained for up to 6 months. Detention under s3 can be renewed for a further 6 months. After that, detention can be renewed for periods of one year at a time. Under s3 you can not refuse treatment. 

Theres no place like home 

Oh the feeling of going home. Come back from school, come back from work, open the door and relax, your home. It's a familiar place where you can feel safe. A hideout, a haven, a luxurious place.

How would you feel if you were taken from home? Locked up in a hospital and told you were ill? Not allowed to leave, not allowed to go home, how would you feel if this was the case.

Some people are depressed, psychotic or paranoid; struggling to eat, self harming or manic. The mental health team will assess you and watch you, make a decision and potentially keep you. Powerless to the decisions made by doctors, they can legally detain you and stop you going home.

This happened to me, some time in March.

They decided I was poorly and I needed help. My hair was pink and I was as high a kite, I felt amazing as if I could fly.

As you can imagine, I wasn't impressed! To be locked up on a ward, was not the best.

"Unfair" I shout, "I want to go home" I shout, I kick and punch, I try to fight. The more I push, the more they pull. Im distressed, confused and not very well.
I'm surrounded by staff all staring at me, they wrestle me down, sit on top of me. I scream and I beg, "please don't do this to me". They pull down my trousers and inject me with meds. They repetitively say, "it's for your own good". It's stings like a bee, I wish I was free. But I don't have a choice, they've sectioned me.

I hate it here, time seems to stop, the hospital environment is no good for the soul. I think of my home and the loving memories, I dream each day of going home.

Till one day, I had enough. I hate being watched and confined in a box. I take a chance and runaway, I take back my freedom and escape from their gaze.

I get to go home, oh the excitement inside. To open my door and to feel safe inside. My poor wilting plants, neglected for weeks, they finally get something to drink. I jump on bed, and dance all around, I can't believe I'm finally home.

Knock knock. Oh no! A horrible sound, I suddenly feel like fox chased by hounds.

"It's the police, Georgina, we just want to speak to you"

Oh shit, oh fuck! What do I do? Now I've tasted freedom I can't go back inside. I love being at home, it's where I should be, living my life perfectly.

A long story short, the police got me, after a chase and a fight, they restrained me. Handcuffed and held, just like a criminal, they returned me to hospital, to be locked up again.

Back in my room, or should I call it a cell. Ive never felt more lonely or sad before. Suicidal thoughts run round in my head, depression has got me wishing I was dead.

Frustrated and angry, this system seems flawed. All I want now is to be at home. To be with my family, safe and sound. Cwtched up on my sofa, watching my telly.

But here I am, stuck in this hole, with little distractions and not much to do. Hospitals are boring, clinical and cold, it's no place to be where feel so low.

Taken away is your dignity, taken away is your privacy, taken away is your freedom.

My work, my hobbies, my faith, my passions, my friendships, my life are all on hold. I beg the doctors to let me go rowing; I pled with the doctors to let me visit my mum; I cry for leave! But they just say no.

"Your not well" is all I hear.

My mental health just continues to deteriorate, relaspe after relapse. Continuous cycle of self destroying behaviours. Bipolar has full control over me. The risk to myself is so severe, I have to always be with a member of staff. Their like a shadow watching my every move - watching me eat, shower, toilet, sleep. Can you imagine that? Could you cope, living with such little privacy.
I can't. I'm crumbling. This place, these restrictions, the legal documents that keep me locked up - it's sending me mad.
They say I'm already mad, but this is a new level madness.

All I want is to go home, 14 months this admission has lasted. I still can't see the discharge date.

I ask you, whoever is listening to my words:
Don't take your home for granted. Don't take your freedom for granted. Don't take being able to spend time with your loved ones for granted.

Mental health illnesses are real and they destroy lives. They can strip you of everything that you are. They can strip you of your life.

 I've got to accept that being hospital is where I need to be. As much as I hate it, I don't have a choice.

Do you have a choice to go home? Enjoy it, love it and don't take it for granted.