Trigger Warning: I was sectioned in February which ended up with me detained in a secure mental health hospital for at least 16 nights. If you’ve ever wondered what that’s like, keep reading. This account is frank and includes graphic descriptions of psychosis and related disturbed emotional states.
Once the fog of depressive psychosis had lifted and insight gradually returned I was left to come to terms with my new reality stuck in a secure ward. Mostly I was so relieved to discover that my worst fears had not been borne out.
All it took was for my very patient partner to visit me and not give up on me, when frankly most women in her shoes would have done. And for my new meds to take effect of course.
I was alive and while clearly very unwell, I was on the mend now, and miraculously everyone I knew and cared about seemed to be in one piece too. Phew!
Still life on the ward is less than perfect obviously.
Waking up to Reality
There were 14 of us, all men, in this ward and countless mental health workers charged with looking after us all, plus a few nurses and one doctor, who comes and goes visiting other units.
To begin with I was put on one-to-one observation. This means any hope of privacy is gone. For me this meant I couldn’t relax enough to pass solids for example.
When I first arrived I was very gaunt, as I was refusing food, drink, medication and sleep and I had scratched my face to ribbons too, so I was not in a good place either physically or mentally, therefore this supervision was clearly much needed and for my own benefit.
Later I would be put on a more relaxed regime where I was simply checked on at regular intervals but left to go about exploring my new environment and interact with others on the ward.
It was also my first time under section and in a hospital. Prior to my mental health nosedive in the early months of 2024 I had never spent a single night in a hospital, apart from one night and day spent tending for my partner when she was hospitalised. I’d been very lucky, having never even broken a bone in my body.
Residual Psychosis and Distorted Thinking
Shortly after waking up to my true, non-psychotic self I remember having a portion of fish and chips delivered to my room and me very gingerly picking my way around the plate and eating only some of it. This was after barely eating for some days.
It wasn’t that the food was so bad, it was more because I actually thought it was a test to see who I trust. I was experiencing some residual paranoia and thought that the health care workers thought I was homophobic, mysoginistic or racist, much like various relatives of mine.
That might not make much sense, but as I explained in a previous post I tend to experience Pure OCD-like symptoms when psychotic.
One of my greatest fears is simply being an awful, worthless person with bad values or indeed none at all. In other words, disappointing others.
I also remember spending some time in the dining room, which in my confused psychotic state I had initially thought was a special space reserved for people who were both mentally ill and completely morally bankrupt. Absolute monsters who would be shunned by polite society.
Yes, that’s much I had unravelled by this point. I literally thought I was a giant, grotesque monster, ruining lives and casually maiming and killing good people like you might squash a tiny, annoying fly.
The dining room is a key space for me because it’s where you’re encouraged to eat your three or four meals a day. This is such an important part of your daily routine.
The food was surprisingly good! I usually had Special K for breakfast and maybe some toast, washed down with a cup of Earl Grey tea, kindly delivered to me via the ever-patient and loving Mrs Jools.
The regular tea and coffee available by the machine in the communal area was pretty rubbish, though the cappuccino was drinkable, just about.
You even get to choose your weekly menu for lunch and dinner. There were usually plenty of healthy options like soup and salad too. It goes without saying that there was no alcohol allowed. I mostly drank fruit juice and squash, though this was fine as I am not a big drinker.
Communal Areas
The unit itself felt quite small and claustrophobic. There was a dining room and several corridors housing my fellow service users and a communal area complete with a pool table, a table tennis table, armchairs and sofas, plus a big TV with a PlayStation attached to it, and a number of games.
There were screen printed posters of calming nature scenes dotted all around the building. I enjoyed noticing these and taking photos of them.
The pool table was an important fixture of the unit for me. I whiled away the days waiting for my next vape, with lots of games, though I never got very good at it really.
My room was basic but comfortable enough. It was not padded! It comprised a shower and toilet cubicle with a strange, fabric velcro door separating it from the rest of the room, with a joyous landscape scene printed on it.
It wasn’t far off what you might get in a Travel Lodge or similar low rent hotel. I even had a view of the exercise yard.
It had built in wooden shelving to house my clothes and other possessions, a single bed with sheets and a duvet, a small TV encased in glass for safety reasons. I remember spying a Tesco receipt in the glass case for some odd reason.
We were not permitted to enter the rooms of other service users. One of the unit’s most important rules.
One time a fellow resident angrily crossed the threshold of my room. He seemed furious with me and had earlier kicked my foot and called me a ‘fucking prick.’ I’m not sure why. He was also autistic and largely non-verbal so it came as quite a shock.
Oh yes and he was in the next room along. But the staff managed to curb his aggressive behaviour and stop anything too nasty happening.
There were various other communal rooms one housing a kitchen, an activity room, one housing a gym, which I never went into unsurprisingly, and a small laundry room.
Oddly you are encouraged to do your own washing and drying on the ward. I guess they want to encourage you to develop agency and mental responsibility while unwell.
I was allowed to have my phone with me which was a real lifeline for me connecting me with the outside world.
I’d post on social media and upload non-identifying images of the ward and its surroundings, which I think was not in the rulebook, but to me it felt like a necessity.
There was also a phone booth which was free to use for outgoing UK calls. I depended on that quite a bit, especially when my phone was out of commission.
Vaping Rules OK
Some of my possessions were locked away in a locker in the washing room. This included my vapes, which was quite problematic for me.
The rules around vaping were strict and difficult for me. The most difficult thing was the fact that you had to use these weird hospital vape thingies that look more like a transparent biro pen. Anyone who knows me will know that I tend to vape an awful lot these days.
I do it far more than I ever smoked. It rarely leaves my hand. It’s become something of a comfort blanket for me. I used to twiddle with bits of wool, rather strangely, but now I simply vape or play with my vape if I’m unable to do it for any length of time.
At work I twiddle with pens or coffee stirrers I nick from the MnS next door with my morning cappuccino.
I even vape in pubs and on train station platforms. I tend to do it until I’m told I can’t. So having this freedom curtailed was rather problematic for me.
Vaping Addiction Woes
You were only allowed to get two of these rather unsatisfying vapes per day. One was given free of charge, the other you had to buy. But the shop was only open on Wednesdays for some reason I could never quite fathom.
So you had to ration your vape quite strictly. Something which I struggled with. I’d often end up staying awake until midnight to get my next vaping fix, as then you could start on a new one.
But being something of a chain vaper I would often exhaust my daily rations and go cold turkey. I think the longest I went without a vape was 12 hours while wide awake. That was an especially tough day.
Vaping was confined to either your own room or the small outdoor exercise yard, which was securely fenced off and furnished with two benches with a basketball hoop and a deflated old football which we would sometimes kick about. At least I never broke this rule, as hard as I found it not to.
The Amazing Staff
The staff on the unit really were phenomenal. I left feeling the utmost resect for them.
Many of them were recent immigrants from African countries, interestingly.
Most of your daily contact comes with the mental health care workers. They work exceptionally hard, doing long shifts in a fairly high pressure environment, balancing their service users’ acute demands.
They were constantly scribbling down notes in their observation sheets, tracking changes in mood and behaviour I guess. They would play pool with you, chat to you and generally supervise you.
They were unfailingly kind, patient, supportive, upbeat and encouraging. They have some fairly difficult people to manage, so this is no easy task, let me tell you.
There were a handful with whom I really bonded. I still miss them terribly, even though I obviously don’t miss the experience of being on the ward at all. They’re real lifesavers. I will probably write about some of them in another post.
Then there are the nurses. You generally have less to do with them but they’re responsible for dishing out your medication, taking your vitals, giving injections when needed and for signing off your vape rations.
They usually sit behind a glass screen supervising everything including shift changes etc. I found them generally less empathetic, but I suppose they have an equally tough job.
And of course there is a doctor too. There’s only one of them though and he had to do his rounds covering various other units so you sometimes went a few days without seeing him. That’s our poorly funded and resourced NHS for you I suppose.
He listened well to me, especially as the longer I stayed there, the better my insight got and thus the more ready I was to be released into the outside world. Well I probably should and could have stayed longer but let’s be honest here, they needed the bed for someone else.
Occupational Therapy
One of the best things about life on the ward were the occupational therapy sessions. These were delivered by people visiting the ward. They encompassed things like animal therapy where they brough a lovely doggie called Luna into the ward, music therapy where you got to have a bash at recording your favourite songs. I even took a stab at covering Wichita Lineman, probably my favourite love song of all time.
Then there are things like a group mindfulness session, which I didn’t get on with that well unsurprisingly, and group mental wellbeing and awareness sessions, which I really enjoyed, even if I found it fairly frustrating listening to other people’s stories rather than simply hold court about my own.
We even had a smoothie making session which was great fun. I mixed myself a mean berry froyo smoothie!
Meeting Others on the Ward
Then there are your fellow patients or ‘service users’, as the argot has it. They varied massively, in terms of ages, temperaments and backgrounds. Some very troubled and troubling people for sure, with a range of different conditions.
The youngest was 19, the oldest was a lovely, gentle chap with schizophrenia in his mid fifties. There were certainly some interesting characters in the nuthouse.
One strange thing I noticed was that I was constantly noticing people’s footwear, both patients and staff. Even the ward’s doctor wore some fairly snappy trainers, as he dashed about from ward to ward. I would complement people on them too. I’m not sure what that was about.
Interacting with Others
Let’s touch briefly on my fellow inpatients.
There was ‘Paul’, a dapper chap in his mid forties who donned a variety of hats, and bright orange trainers. I bonded with him the most. His moods fluctuated wildly but he could be very hyper, chatty, funny and interesting.
I once told him that I’d studied drama at uni and this prompted some stimulating discussions about the relative merits of theatre practitioners Konstantin Stanivlasky and Bertolt Brecht. He was clearly an intelligent and well read chap. I think he’d been sectioned before and had been on the ward for a while.
There was ‘Jasper’, a rather disturbed, if articulate and intense, young man in his mid twenties who would shave his own head and was partial to freestyling grime bars, quoting from South Park and being on TikTok. I really felt for him. He once told me he had no friends in the outside world and he’d clearly had a very tough upbringing. Well, as I kept telling him, at least he had youth on his side.
Some inmates were incredibly quiet, private people, whereas others tended to dominate the ward with their exuberant personalities and overshare wildly. I generally fell into the latter camp, once insight had returned of course.
Once a week we would have meetings at which the ward manager Martha and certain key staff would address any issues on the ward, including responding to service user feedback. This surprised me. These meetings covered everything from getting the coffee machine fixed and tidy to people smuggling in illegal drugs.
Yes, that happened, though it was nothing to do with me. Had my room searched from top to bottom, as did everyone else.
Some people on the ward had issues with the management of the ward and its rather strict policies, but I was quite conscious of the good intentions of the staff, especially the rather harried health care workers who were at the sharp end most of the time, yet generally fulfilled their duties with the utmost grace and good humour.
One especially lovely chap even chatted about music at length with me and suggested I tune into NTS Radio given my tastes. His name was Ollie and he was one of the younger health care staff, and one of the few Brits too.
Glimpsing Life Outside
Once you have proved yourself to be in a relatively stable state you earn the right to get what they call escorted grounds leave. This is where you’re allowed to go outside and walk in the extensive grounds of the unit closely accompanied by a health care worker.
You get two spells of grounds leave per day and can get released for up to 20 minutes at a time. It also means you can use disposable vapes. This was an absolute God send for me and I had some really positive chats with health care workers on my leave, but I will cover those in a future post.
If there’s one thing I learned from my time on the ward it was that our NHS while falling apart at the seams is upheld by many ordinary, yet also extraordinary, hard working immigrants.
It gave me a new found respect and admiration for not only the people who choose to do this very demanding and poorly paid work, but also the people, culture and society of certain African countries like Nigeria, Ghana and Zimbabwe.
I genuinely hope that this observation is not deemed as racist or patronising in some way. I have never visited Africa. It just so happens that some of the very best health care workers I encountered on the ward hailed from that continent, and they made up the majority of the staff.
‘Travel broadens the mind’, as the cliche has it, and while that’s undeniably true and I know that I have been lucky to enjoy a fair amount of travel in my life, yet I was still surprised to find that I was able to see the experience as similarly enriching and character building.
The importance of kindness, understanding and patience of mental health workers cannot be stressed enough.
Reflecting on my Time while Sectioned
Ultimately the ridiculously Kafkaesque British mental health system had failed me by waiting until I was very unwell, so much so that I had to be sectioned for my own good while suicidal, paranoid and psychotic, before I could be taken seriously enough to see a psychiatrist or even get the correct medication for me.
The system is royally screwed, but at least there are plenty of good people doing their level best to make life on a secure mental health ward bearable - and even occasionally pleasant and comforting.
Looking back I was very lucky. I had a great support network on the outside, including a very patient and caring partner who visited me every day without fail. One friend visited me from Brighton, another sent a very sweet card and several others tried to visit but it didn’t quite work out. Then I had numerous friends al over the globe who gave me support online and a very understanding employer.
Not everyone is so lucky of course and everyone experiences mental health differently.
So life on the ward had its challenges for sure, but overall I’m able to look back on it with some affection. It really was not as bad as I feared, like most things in life I suppose.
Have you ever stayed in a mental health facility, whether against your will or otherwise? How did you find it?
Great piece, Jools! Insightful and informative. Well done!
Quite a read! Very informative. You should brush this up and submit it to a national paper, like the Guardian. People should have a look-in on how it is to have a mental health problem in the UK!