Crisis

What It Is Like To Be Taken Into Hospital Under A Section 136 Of The Mental Health Act

/ bornwithoutmarbles / 26 Comments

I honestly don’t know where to begin with this week’s blog, as lord knows it has been a fairly traumatic seven days.

I guess I will just have to start at the very beginning (a very good place to start according to a certain Maria Von Trapp), the beginning being Saturday afternoon when things with my mental health blew up like some atomic bomb (and by atomic bomb I mean a really massive nuclear weapon of mass destruction and total insanity. There was even a mushroom cloud). 

So, picture the scene, it is Saturday afternoon and I am with my mum in the car outside my house (as in the family home where I grew up, not the flat) and we were talking about the fact that from today, my parents are going on holiday for two and a half weeks. Now, I realise that I am 26 years old and should therefore feel fine about being left alone for two and a half weeks, but due to my issues I am incredibly reliant on my parents and in reality they are more like a pair of carers as opposed to members of my family. Indeed, as I may have mentioned before, my mum gave up work to look after me full time as my level of independence is quite low, especially when I am struggling as much as I am now, and in fact my level of independence has been rapidly falling in recent weeks because the noise in my head is so loud that I have been finding it hard to take care of myself properly. I also fear this holiday because due to my diagnosis of Borderline Personality disorder (or Emotionally unstable personality disorder as the kids are calling it these days), I have an extreme fear of abandonment, which manifests itself in me doing anything I can to keep people from leaving me alone. I want to write a full blog about this fear of abandonment thing one day but for now just know that the idea of being left by my parents strikes absolute terror into my very core.

When mum and I were talking about the holiday then, I became extremely anxious and things only got worse and worse as time went on. It was then after about ten minutes of conversation that it happened. I snapped. 

It is extremely difficult to explain what I mean by that but basically it was like a switch went off in my brain and I became so terrified of being left alone that I completely lost control, so the rest of the scene happened in a total blur with me sort of watching the action and what I was doing rather than taking part in it. As soon as the thing in my brain snapped I just started hysterically screaming and crying and then for some reason I started to lash out. Like I said, all that happened was a total blur but from what I have been told afterwards in this lashing out I ended up hurting my mum and then in an act of total wildness I grabbed her phone and smashed it in the road. Naturally, my mum was terrified so she ran into the house without me, at which point I was left alone in the garden and the screaming in my head got worse. As you know, I have OCD with an extreme fear of contamination and in my daily life I barely touch anything unless it has been antibacterialised before hand, yet at this point I was so out of control that I started actively tearing up plants from the garden, running my oh so perfectly washed hands through the filth and soil, ripping roots and flowers like a maniac. I could feel the dirt wedging itself in my fingernails as I grabbed at the earth but still I couldn’t stop until the point where the anxiety in my mind reached such a point that I realised I need to stop the noise and the only way I could see to do this was to end my life. At this realisation I ran from the house, sprinting faster than Usain Bolt on steroids, the only thought in my head being that I needed to end my life. I won’t tell you exactly how I planned to do this as I don’t think that is helpful for anyone, but just know that I ran and I ran, desperate to reach the moment where I could end it all and in turn end the terrible thoughts. 

For about half an hour I was running alongside a river, looking around in fear that someone was going to save me and it was at about this point that I saw the first policewoman. As I saw her I started to panic but she let me pass without a word so I thought I was “safe” and continued on. Soon however I reached a pub, and it was here that I spotted two police cars in the distance as well as two police officers coming towards me. It was then that I realised that they were here for me and I froze like a deer in the headlights. I wanted to run but as I turned I saw the other policewoman coming from the other way and I found that I was completely ambushed. Still I tried to escape, but the three of them managed to trap me in a corner where I stood crying and shaking uncontrollably. As we stood there they asked me a few questions and then told me that I had to go with them. Naturally, this was not what I wanted at all, I wanted to be left alone to die but I had no choice in the matter and after a few more words I was escorted by the police through a giant crowd of people in a beer garden, enjoying their drinks in the summer sun, and into a police car. It was quite possibly the most humiliating experience of my life. Once in the car I was then driven home, but as two police officers went into the house I was left locked in the vehicle with the third police woman who was trying to calm me down. I however could not calm down and this fact was only made worse when the other two police officers came back to the car and told me that I was being arrested for assault, and criminal damage against my mum’s phone and the garden. It was honestly like something out of a movie with the police officer saying that whole speech about how I didn’t have to say anything but anything I did say could be given in evidence etc etc. Desperately, I pleaded to be allowed to speak to my mum or at least give her a hug as I was so afraid, but the police officers refused and with that I was driven to a police station where I was supposed to be interviewed by a sergeant. I however, was far too distressed to talk, so I was taken into a police cell with a new policewoman, an extremely empty, cold and uncomfortable room with nothing in it other than a bench. Together we sat on the bench, me frantically asking questions and begging to go home but the woman would not talk to me. I don’t know how long we stayed in the police cell (it felt like forever) but eventually one of the previous police officers appeared to tell me that because all of my actions were due to mental health problems I was being “de-arrested” and instead sectioned under Section 136 of the Mental Health Act. It is likely that if you have any mental health problems yourself you will know what a 136 is, but if you don’t it is basically a Section of the Mental Health Act under which police can detain you if they deem you to be at extreme risk of hurting yourself or other people. This then meant that I had to go to a hospital, so without further ado I was placed into an ambulance, driven to a 136 hospital and then I was escorted inside by the police. Once there a mental health nurse came out to ask me a lot of questions but I was still so distressed that I just cried and could barely speak. Questions over I was then escorted to my room, possibly the barest room other than the police cell that I have ever seen. Naturally, because a 136 suite is a hospital where people who are trying to end their own lives are taken, there is nothing in the room that you could hurt yourself with which basically meant that there was nothing at all. Ok I have been in mental hospitals before but this was an entirely different kettle of fish, with nothing other than a bed nailed to the floor and not even a door to the bathroom or a seat on the toilet. 

I am sure the place was clean (after all it was a hospital) but because I was in a new environment it was this point that OCD kicked in and I totally freaked out. As I had been picked up by the police I didn’t have any belongings (they had searched me and had taken everything away from me at the station) so without my trusty hand sanitiser I was at a loss and started having a panic attack. Thankfully the staff were absolutely amazing and a kind HCA talked to me to help me calm down. She then went to find some anti bacterial wipes as well as a mop and bucket and together we cleaned the whole room. Even when clean though I was still desperately suicidal and at risk of self harm, so she stayed with me and helped me to shower and get into some clean clothes . Naturally I continued to beg to be allowed home to see my mum, but obviously because I was sectioned I wasn’t allowed home for 24 hours or until a mental health team could come and assess me, so to my dismay I had to stay the night. Thankfully the staff there were completely amazing and kept me safe until I fell asleep around 3am. 

I must have been tired after all the drama because I slept then until 3pm (other than a few five minutes during the night where I was woken up by the screaming of other patients) and at 3pm I was awoken by a nurse telling me that the doctor was there to assess me. From there I went in pyjamas looking like a right scruff bag (not that I really cared at the time…I was so out of it and traumatised that I would have probably been assessed in a penguin suit and not been embarrassed) to another bare room with a few chairs to talk to a social worker, a doctor and a psychologist. Naturally their main goal was to assess how at risk I was to see if I needed to go to a longer term hospital, but I was so scared of that that I am ashamed to admit that I lied. They asked me if I felt in danger or suicidal so I told them that I felt safe over and over again. I must have been convincing because thankfully they agreed to not renew my section and said that I could go home, which I guess takes me to this point right here, writing this blog in my flat feeling as unsafe and at risk as ever, all alone and traumatised by the past 24 hours. On the plus side, if any of you out there have ever wanted to know what it is like to be picked up by the police and taken to a 136 suite, now you know! Hoorah for small mercies! 

I am not really sure how to end this blog other than to beg all of you out there not to see me as a terrible person for all that I have done and explained in this post. I will admit I have behaved disgracefully and I am extremely ashamed for all my actions (especially hurting my mum who like I said I love more than anyone in the world and would never hurt whenever in control of and feeling rational about my actions) but I really want you all to know that all that has happened has happened because I am really not well at the moment and am more out of control than ever. As you know I was un-arrested in the end and was taken from the police station to a hospital, so please do not think any less of me or assume me to be some kind of criminal, as when I am in my right mind I would never behave as I have done this past few days. I cannot control what any of you will think of me after admitting this (I hate admitting it but as I have always said on this blog I am nothing but honest) but if I could influence your way of thinking whatsoever please do not think of me as some violent, nasty person, but rather as a person who is very unwell and struggling with their mental health problems more than ever. 

As I go forward after this incident all I can do is hope that I can manage to keep myself safe even though when I told the psychologist this, it was a lie. The next two weeks are going to be extremely tough for me as my parents are away, but thankfully I do have friends who are coming in to look after me and the crisis team are visiting every day. I hope I can stay alive for them and equally I hope that I can stay alive for all of you too. For now though, I will end this post and simply hope that you have all had a good week. You all mean so much to me and I am eternally grateful for all the friends I have online who supported me during this “incident”. 

Take care everyone x 

Handcuffs

Advertisement

The Frustration At Not Getting Better From Mental Health Problems

/ bornwithoutmarbles / 22 Comments

I like to think of myself as a fairly calm person (watch as my anxiety laughs hysterically in the corner), but lately, I have found myself getting angry, like proper smoke coming out of the ears angry, and the same is happening with my mum. Nay, maybe angry is the wrong word for I am not exactly angry right now but frustrated, and this frustration is aimed entirely at my mental health and the fact that no matter what I do, no matter how hard I try, my mental health is not improving/is sliding further and further into the abyss of insanity, and now even the professionals are at a loss as to what to do.

You see, ever since I left inpatient, things have been going in a downward spiral, and I am finding myself becoming hysterical and requiring my “emergency” medication to calm me down practically every night. Hell the other night things got so terrible that even my mum took some of my emergency calm down medication just to stop her from going completely bonkers herself and all in all it is getting out of hand. We have been phoning the crisis team almost daily in our attempts to manage my latest series of breakdowns and it has just got me asking, staring up at the sky and shaking my fist asking why, why is all of this happening?

It isn’t even as if I am one of these people who thinks life is supposed to be fair, far from it, I am one of those people who, when others protest “life is so unfair” ask them “my dear, who on earth ever told you that it was?” but this is ridiculous. I just don’t understand it. I have been in mental health treatment for almost 15 years now, 15 long years. Think about how many hours of 1:1 sessions with psychologists that includes, think about how many months as an inpatient in hospital that involves, the number of different medications tried (so many that when you shake me I rattle like a bottle of tablets and a leaflet of side effects falls out of my left nostril), and all for what? For me to still be completely insane…IT DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE.

What frustrates me is that I know how lucky I am and I know how grateful I am and should be for all the help I have received over the years. There are people across the country who have been suffering for as long as I have, maybe longer and they have not been given the support or access to help that I have been blessed with, they have not had the supportive family that I am lucky enough to be a part of, so logically I should be ok. Logically I should be doing better than most people out there, but I am not and it has me sitting here feeling angry and asking what the hell is wrong with me. What is it about me that seems so untreatable and why are my mental health problems so resistant to every form of treatment?

I think when you live with mental health problems you are expected to feel sad about them and to be fair I have felt sad about my sorry state of affairs many times but this anger is new, this rage at the fact that I have been ill for such a long time with no improvement and I wonder if this is an experience common to people with mental health problems out there. I have to ask, is it? Are there other people out there who, like me, have stopped feeling despair at their situations and have started feeling angry? Angry that no matter what they do or no matter how hard they try, their brains will not co-operate?

I have heard it said that it isn’t until you get angry at your disorders that you can actually get better from them because you need that anger in you to fight, but at the moment this anger doesn’t feel like it is doing anything constructive, rather it feels like a block that is holding me back in my therapy sessions and appointments. Rarely do I meet with a psychologist now with an open mind, now it is always a case of me going in enraged that things haven’t improved after the last session and show no sign of changing any time soon. I think I wouldn’t mind this anger so much if somebody else knew what to do with it, but I find I am dragging it around with me in a bin bag wondering where on earth to put it and the professionals don’t know either.

Today I went to an appointment with my ED support worker and the rage was bubbling, so I asked her what to do. I asked what we could do to treat me, where we could go from here, what new treatments we could try over the next few weeks to see if they help, and you know what she said? “I don’t know” or to be more specific “I don’t know what to do with you at the moment”…She doesn’t know what to do with me? Doesn’t know what to do with me? What am I supposed to do with that!? What is anyone supposed to do with that? Indeed, what on earth is one supposed to do when even the professionals are at a loss as to how to help or resolve the situation? What do you do when the person with all the answers tells you that they do not have any more answers, or even rough guesses, to have a go at answering your question? When I left that appointment I felt like a grocery shopper who had gone to a bakery and asked a baker how to make bread only to be told that the baker had no idea. What use is that? What use is a baker who doesn’t know how to bake? What is the point in a baker who just slaps flour around the place and wears a funny apron and chef’s hat? Sure it may be entertaining to watch someone slap flour about (for we all know that much hilarity can take place when a person is gallivanting with flour), but what use is it?
What do you do with that?

I think the main thing that is frustrating me however is the fact that whilst other people don’t have the answers, I don’t have them either, and if anyone should know how to help a person it is the person who understands the problem better than all others. I don’t mean to sound arrogant, but I would say I understand my mental health problems pretty well, I have explored them so much over the years that I am familiar with every nook and cranny (particularly the one in the far left…damn that is a tricky cranny), yet I am no more familiar with how to solve my problems than anyone off the street who has never spoken to me a day in their life.

Truth be told here, as I am writing this I am starting to think that maybe I am not angry, maybe my mother (who has also been getting frustrated at my current decline – not angry with me you understand, rather like me angry with the fact that no matter what we try we are not seeing any improvement) isn’t angry, maybe we are just scared because we cannot see the answers and when you are being stared at in the face by a pretty massive problem it is scary not being able to see any way around it. It is scary to be stuck in a vice getting tighter and tighter by the day with no sign of relief and hell, maybe some of that fear is what I am writing about rather than anger because in reality I don’t think I am angry with anyone in particular. I am not angry at my psychologist for not knowing what to do with me at the moment, I am scared, I am scared that if she doesn’t know what to do then nobody ever will and I will be stuck like this forever. It just doesn’t make sense to me. I have friends who have received the same levels of treatment as I have, who have been to the same hospitals as I have and they have recovered and that is another thing that scares me. If I have had the same treatment why have I not had the same outcome? Why am i different? Why do the answers for one person not serve as the answers for another? Is there something wrong with me or am I just one of those people who is doomed to never get better? How will I know? Will I ever know or am I just going to find myself sitting here asking these same old questions for years until I am blue in the face (and then indigo followed by a vibrant shade of violet).

To be honest I feel I have lost track of what I am even talking about and barely know what I am saying anymore but I had to get this out, this anger, this fear or whatever this is that is bubbling up inside me like the contents of a witches cauldron. Everyone knows that living with mental illness is sad, but I think today my message is that sometimes, when you don’t have the answers to your problems, that sadness turns to rage or maybe fear. Who knows, like I said I am confused myself, but I at least wanted to write about it in the hopes of finding some sense in all of this. Maybe I haven’t made sense here, maybe I have, but either way if anyone has the answers to any of my questions or feels the same as I do now, I would really appreciate knowing about it. I hope you are all well and know I am thinking of and supporting you all.

Take care everyone x

Frustrated

The Importance Of Triangles In Times Of A Mental Health Crisis

/ bornwithoutmarbles / 9 Comments

When you are going through what is known as a “mental health crisis”, everything feels like such a mess that you cannot even begin to start tidying it all up. Tiny jobs become momentous tasks, trying to survive an hour feels like trying to survive a millennium and it all feels completely unmanageable. Unhelpfully, being in the 21st century, the general busy non stop, non sleep, 24/7 side to modern life does not help matters (on the other hand there is the positive that, helpfully, we are not in the 16th century where, although it was less busy, you had a higher chance of being murdered by your husband if his name was Henry and he happened to wear a crown).
In simpler times your daily activities may have simply comprised of getting some water from your well, milking a few cows, doing a bit of hoeing out in the fields and then perhaps settling down by the fire with a nice bowl of homemade stew, (it is my understanding that in the olden days people ate nothing but stew). Nowadays however, the list of tasks one must perform to get through the days are endless.

Instead of walking out to a field there are specific buses you have to run to catch for work, computer programs that randomly malfunction and delete all the work you have done for the past week (something that never happened when “work” mainly focused on hoeing), specific coffee orders you have to remember for your boss to avoid being fired over a missed shot of espresso in their large cappuccino, bills to pay, TV shows to catch up on, appointments to make, social events to come up with excuses for, washing machines to fix, ironing to do and earphone wires to untangle (SERIOUSLY WHO IS TANGLING ALL OF THE EARPHONE WIRES WHEN I AM NOT LOOKING AND PLEASE CAN YOU STOP IT). It is exhausting and when in crisis, you need to delete it all and focus on one thing.

Triangles.

I am not talking your equilateral triangles, your scalene, or even your isosceles. I sneer at your Bermuda triangles, love triangles, even your 3D Egyptian pyramid triangles, for no triangle is better in a crisis than the great “Maslow’s Triangle” (toast triangles are a close second for being helpful in time of a crisis though, because you can have peanut butter or marmalade on them).

“What is this mysterious Maslow’s Triangle?” I hear you ask? Well I’ll tell you!

Basically there was once this psychologist named Abraham Maslow (I hear he was quite the dude), and he came up with this list of things needed to fulfil humans and reach “self fulfilment” or “self actualisation”, aka “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs” (that is the official term in all the text books but I am calling it Maslow’s triangle because it looks like a triangle, that is a catchier name and it meant that I could sound smart in that first paragraph by talking about other kinds of triangle which are now irrelevant to this post…calling it this also gave me the opportunity to mention toast triangles which are tasty, so I went with it and now here we are).
These needs are pretty much all Maslow thinks you need to become a whole and happy person and who knows, he may be right, but right now it doesn’t matter if he was right or not because to be honest, survival is what we want and aiming for his idea for self actualisation is a bit of a stretch at this moment in time/any moment in time during a mental health crisis. As I always say, we need to learn to waddle before we can fly.

“What does this mysterious Maslow’s Triangle look like?” I hear you cry! Well I’ll tell you that too (and may I say you are asking a lot of questions today…)
So here it is:

YayMaslow

As you can see, all of these “needs” are prioritised in order of importance with the most important on the bottom and the least important/ones that will make you happy but are not essential for purely physical survival, on the top. It is like a pointy version of Jenga, you have to have enough of the blocks to make up the bottom or else it doesn’t matter what is going on at the top, that pyramid is going to fall and there will be sand EVERYWHERE.

In times of crisis, I think people (by which I mean I), try to keep going with all the busy things of modern life that make up the entire triangle and in doing so get overwhelmed, miss out some of the more important things, and consequently make myself/my health worse. For example my magnifying glass and entire life focus is pretty much entirely zoomed in on the second from the top level, “esteem needs”, and because I hate myself oh so very much and thus have very low supplies of the “esteems”, I forage for these like a bear who is late in preparing for hibernation, without caring about anything else because in my eyes it is not as important. In my head, I need to feel worthy of and deserving of life before I can do all the things people need to do to actually survive…and yeah…it doesn’t work like that, hence why my pyramid has fallen, leaving me in hospital, in crisis, and trying to pick sand out of all the crevices (like I said, it gets EVERYWHERE).

In every situation I will sacrifice the bottom sections as I claw for that esteem level. When I am worrying about something like my blog/don’t feel productive/like I have accomplished or achieved “enough”, I ignore all other levels of needs until that achievement feeling has been somewhat reached (I say somewhat because, as I am sure many people can relate, no matter what I do in anything, it is never enough). Need to write a blog post but don’t have any time? Better cross “sleep” off the to-do list. Haven’t drawn that pesky diagram of the triangle you need to insert into this blog yet? No food or drink until that triangle is drawn! Not posted on Instagram and need an “outdoorsy” photo but it is freezing outside? Get out there and Valencia the hell out of some greenery even if you freeze to death in the process!
That is exactly what I do, what I think a lot of people do, and that is why mental health crises often get worse and spiral, because we are focusing on the wrong things when trying to survive and get through the day. Self actualisation is great and all that and we can work on getting to that eventually but if you are in a crisis, the most important thing to do is get your Maslow’s triangle out (and toast triangles if you are feeling peckish), and focus all your energy on the bottom levels. No “I should be doing this” or “I need to be doing that”, no, you are in crisis, it is time to prioritise, remove the stress and simply focus on basic survival. Only when you have got that covered can you start building all the other things on top and if you don’t, even if you work really hard at the achievement stuff, eventually it is going to crumble and remember what happens when pyramids crumble…SAND EVERYWHERE.

When you are in a mental health crisis you need to cut yourself a nice bit of slack. If it is necessary, take a mental health day off work to go to an appointment or get some rest, because without the rest you won’t be able to stay at work very long anyway. It is necessary to focus on keeping yourself hydrated (BUT NOT TOO HYDRATED REMEMBER THE SODIUM) and get yourself a cup of tea before sorting out all the ironing (which in the long run is not necessary at all…I don’t see ironing on the triangle…), and it is necessary, nay fundamental, to nourish yourself and give yourself a good supply of food at meal times before worrying about all the other things on your to-do list (I REALLY need to work on this one). In times of mental health crises it is OK to strip things back and take a step back from the things at the top of the triangle so that you can look after yourself and build your way back up to that self actualisation tip. Focus my friends, on the bare necessities, the simple bare necessities, forget about your worries and your strife, I mean the BARE necessities aka the bottom layers of Maslow’s triangle (I think a bear even sang a song about that whilst dancing around in a jungle with a half naked child in orange pants but that might have been one of those weird hallucinations I have been having lately…they are wherever I wander…wherever I roam!)

So, why is it important to focus on triangles in times of mental health crisis? Because my dear friends, in times of crisis, you need to allow yourself to simply focus on looking after yourself, keeping yourself physically well and safe so that you are strong enough to survive that crisis and work your way back up to the top of your Maslow’s triangle with the fun, self actualisation stuff going on. Forget the other shapes, hold onto your triangles, and if those triangles happen to be made of toast, eat them with some jam and a nice mug of warm tea.

As always, take care everyone. x

CoolTriangles