I’d like to share my experience of being hospitalized under section 2 and 3 of the mental health Act. When I first went in it was because of an altercation with my grandparent and her husband. They would not let me in the house, seemingly because I had schizophrenia they didn’t feel comfortable with me in the house. I turned up outside their home one November evening and forced my way in. The next thing I know is I’m being escorted out by the police.
I ended up in the exclusion room after the first psychiatrist ward I refused to stay in. I forced my way out of that place by physically pushing past the nurses. They then sent me to the Macarthur center in west Bromwich. The nightmare began after about 3- weeks staying in the hospital. It’s not that staying there was particularly bad it just went on for too long. At some point I lost my cognitive skills and became seemingly medicated, finding it harder to construct sentences.
I stayed at the hospital for way too long. It left me with a permanent state of psychosis where I’m never all the way together, my mind is always somewhere else, I’m traumatized.
I knew I wasn’t safe when the doctor yelled at me “you’re psychotic”. I refused to take the tablets, something I now regret massively. It was only after spitting the tablets out when they started to forcibly inject me with zuclopenthixol decaenate. They forced the injection and I felt violated. At one point I did a naked protest and that only confirmed that I needed to be there.
There was the option to appeal my section I wish I took it. It would have meant staying there for just a month rather than the 3 long months is turned out to be. I did not feel safe with the doctor. He was evil. He seemed to know my diagnosis before even giving me a chance to express it. He already deemed me to have schizophrenia and therefore the maximum dosage before I even had a chance to stabilize and recalibrate. He seemed to stereotype me as “psychotic” and refused my request to take the medication orally. It messed with my cognition, such that I struggle to concentrate on any given task. My mind is not all the way there.
Overall the hospitalisation experience was a nightmare. It left me with ptsd which I am still recovering from.
