“The
best revenge is the massive success.”
Frank
Sinatra
It sounds dramatic to say that I can’t believe I made it to 35, but when I tell you that, on numerous occasions, even the professionals – mostly Psychiatrists, but also two ICU Doctors – made comments that they couldn’t envision me making it to my ‘next’ Birthday (mostly between the ages of 18 and 23!) … perhaps now you’ll see the rationale to my surprise that I’m still here?! It meant that I was originally going to centre this Birthday blog post around reasons why I believe I managed to make it to this age, but I found out that I’d done something incredibly similar for my 28th Birthday (you can read it here) and my 31st (which you can read here)! In thinking about the reasons, I made it, I realised that I’d list reporting my trauma as the first one – even though I had interactions with mental health services before that which most would probably assume should getting help and support, should have been the first life-saving thing to happen. So, I decided to focus on that…
To provide evidence or to illustrate why I said in
the title that reporting the rape and abuse was more life-saving than mental health
services, really demands that I talk about all my experiences with services
that were prior to the report…
So, the first time I was sectioned and admitted I
had taken an overdose gradually through the morning and after having a
disastrous three back-to-back A Level exams, I swallowed more pills and
actually ended up passing out in a corridor. The School obviously called an
Ambulance but when I was taken to A&E they said it would be four hours
(this is different now, I believe, and if it’s a staggered overdose, the
automatically administer the anti-dote treatment and then do blood tests after
the four hours) before they could do blood tests to see if I needed the
anti-dote treatment.
So, I ended up running away and I remember almost
being in the nearby town when I noticed a police car over the road and I kept
walking and then someone just tapped me on my shoulder and when I turned
around, it was two Police Officers. They walked me to the car but I bolted and
ran off as we got nearer to it but, the most embarrassing thing was; I’d
actually never been to that town before so I had no clue where I was going and
ended up running to a dead-end alleyway so the one who had chased me caught up
to me and held onto me whilst called for the other Officer to bring the car to
us. They took me back to the hospital and I was sat in his room with one of
them and we were silent whilst the other was standing just outside the door
talking to a Nurse and I could hear the Nurse saying, “we haven’t got anyone to
sit with her all the time” and the Officer said “well there’s two Acts we could
hold her under… How old is she?” The Nurse told him “eighteen” and he laughed
and said, “there’s one Act we can hold her under.”
Then she went off and he came in the room and said
to the other Officer “she’s going to be a 136, are you ok to do the paperwork
and do this solo?” and the other Officer (neither of them introduced
themselves, by the way, so it’s not like I just can’t remember their names!)
said “yeah but I need you to bring the papers.” So, the Officer went off and
I’m guessing he just went to his car and came back with a pile of papers and
then left whilst the Officer with me started asking me a ton of questions and
writing down my answers. The questions were mainly just standard information
ones e.g. my full name, date of birth, address etc. He didn’t ask why I’d done
it – in fact, no one did until a few hours later when I found out that ‘she’s
going to be a 136’ meant I was detained under the Police’s power of the 1983 Mental
Health Act – Section 136 (for more information on that, Mind have a ton of details
on the different sections, their description of 136 is here: Sections
135 and 136 - legal information). In learning about
136 and that I said about no one asking why I’d done it, I was finally asked by
a Psychiatrist when I had the mandatory MHA assessment (Mind also have
information on that: Mental
Health Act assessments before being sectioned | Mind)
which is where you’re assessed by two Psychiatrists and a Approved Mental
Health Practitioner (typically a Social Worker – there’s actually more information
about AMHP’s in that first Mind link regarding 136).
All I can remember of the MHA assessment, to be
honest, was the Police Officer taking me to this ‘Family Room’ in A&E that
had three people in, and I remember it being really hot and stuffy. The only
question I remember being asked was “and can you tell us why you took the
overdose?” Now, ten days prior to this, I had been finishing a shift at my
weekend job at a local retail store, I had heard a man’s voice tell me that I
was useless and that I should kill myself. There were no men around at the
time. Over the following ten days, this voice persisted – even when I was at
home and completely alone! And the breaking point came the night before the
overdose when – for the first time – I was asleep and heard his voice and it
made me think ‘there’s literally no escape.’
So, with the rape and abuse being two years
earlier, I honestly – at that point – didn’t make the connection but, being
asked why I’d done it; whether I deemed it to be voice or the trauma, I wasn’t
going to tell these complete strangers… Especially when I didn’t know what they
would gain by knowing my rationale. Like, no one explained that they could
section me and force the antidote treatment on me and admit me to hospital! Until
then, all I’d heard about my local psychiatric hospital were horror stories of
people being dragged from their homes, taken to this hospital, tied down, and
given electric shocks. And, whilst I didn’t fully understand it, I did know
that this voice wasn’t really there – like, it wasn’t coming from a real person
– and I knew that was basically called an hallucination and so, in my mind,
that was something that would 100% lead to me being dragged out my house and
tied down and electrocuted!
This, with my additional reluctance to report the
rape and abuse – which I felt I had one million and one reasons not to report it,
but the main one was the worry that I wouldn’t be believed – meant that there
was no way I was going to answer his question. So, I stayed silent. And I was
sectioned. Sectioned and then sedated and given the antidote treatment against
my wishes. After the treatment, I was taken to a psychiatric hospital in a
nearby city (not my nearest hospital) and on my third or fourth night there, I
went into the communal sitting room and there was these two older women, one was
muttering to herself on the settee, and the other one was talking to the wall. And
I just turned to leave again when a Psychiatric Nurse spotted me and said “it’s
ok, you’re safe. They’re just struggling with hallucinations. You’ll be ok, I’m
here, if you want to sit next to me.”
That night I remember hardly sleeping because my
mind felt like it was dizzy with how much I was struggling to make a huge
decision… In the end, I asked to speak with that Nurse in private and we went
into a room and I told her, “I started hearing a voice too.” She asked me a few
questions about it, like when did it start and how many voices could I hear etc
and then she asked what I’d actually thought would be the first question; “why
are you only just telling us?” So, I told her what the catalyst to the dizzying
decision had been; “I’m scared that I’ll be here or years or that I’ll still be
hearing it when I’m older if I don’t tell anyone and get help.” I didn’t need
to explain that it had been the two older women who had influenced this thought
or worry, she just knew – and that’s exactly why I’d asked to talk to her
specifically.
I was in hospital for around two or three weeks
until I started looking at College courses and my Consultant Psychiatrist
thought that was a good sign in that I was thinking about my future and took
that to mean I was no longer suicidal, which apparently meant it was safe to
discharge me! So, this is one reason why I said that I wasn’t ruling my first
help and support as the first thing to have saved my life because just a few
months later, I had made another suicide attempt! I was at the family home but
was refusing an Ambulance or to go to hospital at all so my Mum rang the Crisis
Team and before I knew, they had arranged a full-on Mental Health Act
assessment in the living room! At first, it was just two AMHPs and a Psychiatrist
and then the Psychiatrist who had discharged me just a few months earlier,
arrived and he came to my bedroom because I was refusing to come downstairs. I
can’t remember what he asked me but at the end, I remember him saying “I think
you need to come back to my hospital, and we need to try some medication for
this voice.”
Before I knew it – after maintaining my refusal to
get in the ambulance they’d called – six Police marched into the siting room,
put me in handcuffs and leg restraints, and carried me to their van outside the
house. My boyfriend at the time, was actually parked outside too to take my Mum
to the hospital when I’d left and he said he could see the police van shaking…
Turned out I was being so ferocious trying to get out of the leg restraints
that I was moving the entire van! Anyway, two Officers go in the front and
started driving to the psychiatric hospital and I thought we were meant to go
to A&E but was too scared and angry to speak up! So, we got the psychiatric
hospital and the Police parked outside the ward and then went to the ward. I
could see them talking to the staff and one of the AMHPs who’d been at the
house turned up and literally all hell broke loose!!! The ward staff were arguing
that they couldn’t accept me because I wasn’t medically fit and the AMHP was
shouting that she’d told the Officers I was to go to A&E first. Eventually,
the Police got in their van, slammed their doors shut and pulled away with the
female Officer looking back to me and she said, “you’ve caused this entire
situation; stop f***ing us around!”
When we eventually got to A&E the Psychiatrist
who’d come to me bedroom was there and the staff in A&E told the Police to
bring me straight through to a cubicle, so he came over and said, “how many
staff do you think I need to get here to keep you here?” I said, “how many
Police did it take?” and he said, “six and there’s only eight in your town!”
and then he turned away and walked to the AMHP, and I heard him say “let’s get
four.” The next thing I knew, the A&E staff had put a cannula in me and did
a blood test to determine whether I needed the treatment, and there were four
staff from the local psychiatric hospital surrounding my bed. I spotted my Mum
and the boyfriend I had at the time sat in chairs on the opposite side of
A&E so I got off the bed and all the staff rushed at me, and I said, “I
just want to give my Mum a hug.” So, they let me, but as I was hugging her, I
realised I was really close to the exit and realised with four staff watching
my every move, this was probably the last opportunity I’d have to escape. So, I
ran for it! I managed to make it to the waiting room when one of the
psychiatric staff literally rugby tackled me to the ground!
I was then dragged, kicking, and screaming back to
the cubicle and as they held me on the bed, a Nurse came and said, “we’ve
decided to sedate!” So, the four psychiatric staff squashed me to the bed
whilst the Nurse jammed an injection of Lorazepam (a mild sedative) in my thigh,
and I felt the world slip away and everything turned to blackness. To be
honest, this incident is something that I still feel massively guilty about
because to me; to have said I was hugging my Mum and then to run? Well, it
feels like I was being manipulative and just using my Mum and these are
two qualities which I feel are incredibly far away from who I am today. The
only way I can understand that, is that my mental health was just so poorly and
I was so suicidal, that I just stopped being me. I became someone who – in all
honesty – I’m ashamed to admit to being. And it’s hard because I never want
people to think I’m using my mental illness as an excuse for bad behaviour or
poor attitudes… So, I 100% don’t mean for it to appear that way.
I woke up a while later when a Nurse began wheeling
my stretcher to the ward with the psychiatric staff following. I remember when
we got to ward there was a problem trying to get my stretcher close to the bed
I was going on and I said I would just get up and walk between them and the
Nurse says, “no, I don’t want your feet touching this floor!” And ended up
moving all the furniture – including someone else’s bed! – around just to
literally get my stretcher side-by-side to the bed. Once I was moved, I fell asleep
again and when I woke up there was no psychiatric staff at my bedside and I
looked down a nearby corridor and saw two of them talking to a Nurse, then I
spotted another exit to the bay of beds I was on and ran out of it. The way I
ran though, where the psychiatric staff were, they could still see so they came
racing after me and I received another Lorazepam injection.
After the anti-dote treatment had been administered
(it takes around 20 – 24 hours) I was transferred to the psychiatric hospital
I’d been in on my first admission. This time though, I learnt that the exit to
the ward wasn’t locked so, every time I Had the opportunity to, I ran out and
because I was sectioned, the staff on the ward were obliged to call the Police every
single time to find me. On one occasion I actually managed to self-harm whilst
I was gone too and I think that was the last straw for them deciding what to do
with me because when the Police got me back to the ward, the Ward Manager came
into my room and said “I need you to pack your stuff up – don’t be scared, but
a few people are going to take you to another ward. One where it’s harder to
get out.”
In all honesty, I think that the fact she didn’t
explain that I was going to a PICU and describe what that was and what that
meant, played a huge role in me just following six staff from the ward to a
taxi. To my surprise, rather than go on a road trip to another hospital for the
PICU, the taxi literally drove around the corner of the hospital and came to a
stop on the opposite side of the hospital to the first ward. I asked them why
we couldn’t have just walked and someone said, “because you’re this much of a
flight risk!” And another one chimed in “and we heard it took six Police to get
you here!”
To get onto the ward, you had to press a buzzer so
that staff would unlock the first set of doors, and then you were in an air
lock and had to wait until the first doors were closed before the second set
opened and you could step onto the ward. The six escorting staff quickly
disappeared and one of the PICU staff took me to my room and after putting my
stuff down, she gave me a tour of the ward. As we were walking down a corridor
back towards the female section and my room, a lady was walking towards the walled
courtyard, and I saw she had huge which bandages from her elbows to her wrists
on both arms. I was terrified! I had a very protected and naïve childhood and
even on my first admission, I hadn’t seen anyone who had self-harmed and the
furthest I’d gone with it myself, was tiny scratches on my arms. So, I was
imagining all sorts of wounds seeing how big the bandages were.
I ended up staying in my room for the first few
days, but eventually, one evening, I decided to go and sit in the courtyard
just to get some fresh air and not long after I’d gone out this woman appeared.
There was only the one bench to sit on, and I immediately knew it would be
incredibly rude and obviously offensive if I were to just stand up and go straight
back inside. After around five minutes of silence, she asked me how long I’d
been in hospital for so far and next thing I knew, it was pitch black outside
and she had just told me about the abuse she’d experienced when she was
younger. And, without much thought, I found myself blurting out my entire
trauma and at the end, she said “you know you have to tell the Police…?” Then
she explained that if I didn’t, she would have to tell the staff because it
felt wrong for her to have heard of all that and not speak up and report it;
and knowing that I’d much rather be the one to tell people, I agreed to speak
to the Ward Manager.
With no real notion of pause or time, I remember
telling the Ward Manger everything and her saying that not only were they
duty-bound to report it to the Police, but that my Mum should be informed too.
Since I hated the idea of this stranger of a professional telling my Mum, what
I thought would be, the worst news she’d ever received and telling her that her
only daughter had been hurt in ways that would likely be her worst nightmare, I
agreed to tell her instead.
Sort of fortunately – depending upon how you look
at it – I was actually on a lot of medication at that point and I think that,
coupled with how horrible the following things were, has resulted in my having
very vague memories of all of this. So, I sort of remember telling my Mum and
then I can remember two Police Officers coming to the PICU to take my initial
statement. After it, I was put on ‘eyesight obs’ which meant being within
eyesight of staff at all times (the only level of observations above that, is
‘arm’s length’) and the staff explained this was because they recognised was
more vulnerable now and that I could become unsafe. They also had my video
interview with the Police rescheduled because they were worried, I would run
away whilst going for it (it was going to be done at a Police Station not on
the ward).
However, I think that within a matter of days, the
Psychiatrist on the PICU (not the one who’d sectioned me) made the decision to
discharge me because he explained that the fact I’d finally opened up about my
trauma, meant that things could only improve! Oh, how very wrong he was! In all
honesty, a Community Psychiatric Nurse (CPN) once told me that in that
beginning, they had been considering a diagnosis of Schizophrenia and me
revealing the rape and abuse, had led to them questioning the validity of that
and the increased likelihood that my diagnosis was of a Personality Disorder. The
reason this matters is because it’s a very common understanding that someone
with a diagnosis of any type of Personality Disorder – but particularly the one
I was eventually diagnosed as having (Borderline Personality Disorder – BPD) – typically,
don’t benefit from being sectioned and hospitalised. In all honesty, I agree
that hospital isn’t always the safest place, but I definitely don’t think that
decisions on whether someone should be admitted are down to a person’s
diagnosis rather than if they need to be there. Because having the same
diagnosis doesn’t mean people are identical. One time, a Psychiatrist made a
comment to my Mum and I that “research studies show, people with BPD don’t
benefit from anti-psychotic medication.” My Mum and I were so shocked, and I argued
that unless I had personally been involved in that study, why on earth should
the findings be applied to me and my mental health care?!
After being discharged from the PICU, plans were
made for me to do my video interview at a local Police Station, but I honestly
remember very little of the details. Two things that have still stood out for
me though, was firstly when I was using really sort of – in my opinion – less
vulgar or technical terms for certain body parts – considering the trauma was
rape and abuse, I’m sure you can imagine what I’m referring to! But the Police
explained that they needed to use the legal terminology and more, clinical
names for things in order to not have any room for misinterpretation. The
second hard bit that I can remember from the interview, was one particular
question – and I think that when you consider how many questions I was asked,
if there’s one that stands out… Well, that illustrates how significant it was
to me. The question was basically, could I describe a particular body part of my
rapist/abuser. Now, if you’re unsure of the rationale behind this, it was
explained to me that it could provide evidence because it would beg the
question “how can I know details like that if the rape and abuse hadn’t
happened?” In all honesty, despite this very clear and reasonable explanation,
I still didn’t fully agree that it was necessary.
Those two difficult parts of the reporting process,
whilst certainly being things that I would want to warn others of before they
reported their own experiences, honestly almost became completely lost and
overwhelmed amongst all the brilliant, beneficial consequences to reporting it.
And I’ve had people question why or how it had been so helpful when my
rapist/abuser wasn’t charged but in regard to that, I learnt the Police
believed me. An Officer in charge of the investigation actually voiced how
frustrated they all were because the Police had put the entire case forward to
the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and it was them who ruled that there wasn’t
enough evidence to charge him and go to Court (for those who either don’t live
in this Country or don’t understand the legal process, there’s actually a
really straightforward page on the UK Gov site that explains it: Investigating
a rape or sexual assault (HTML version) - GOV.UK).
A sad recognition I have in saying this, is that I
felt ‘lucky’ to receive the Police’s belief. I say ‘sad’ because I honestly
feel that rape and abuse survivors should be automatically validated, and
whilst this partly reflects on the Police for not doing this, I also recognise
that there are far too many people claiming to be survivors – claiming to have
experienced these traumas – and they’re lying. In all honesty, it actually
reminds me of the UK’s benefit system and how so many people lie to get more money
than they’re entitled to, and it means that the genuine people now have to jump
through so many hoops in order to be believed and to be granted what they
deserve. Survivors of rape and abuse are going through that now too – I’ve
heard stories from fellow survivors who have actually felt as though the Police
were working to prove her allegations wrong rather than looking for evidence to
support her report! And it is experiences like that, which become motivation
for survivors to stay silent. And it’s so ironic that so many Police forces
spread the message of speaking up against crimes like this, yet they’re
actually, sometimes, becoming the reason why someone doesn’t speak up!
So, why exactly have I listed reporting my
experiences to be the first act that I believe had saved me and has led to me
making it through all the tough times?
I think that the largest gain – which was honestly
life-changing and incredibly therapeutic and rewarding – from reporting it, was
the knowledge that it meant I had done everything in my power to save others
from being hurt by him. Until that point, I had always had this thought – not
in the back of my mind, in fact, it practically possessed my entire mind(!) – that
if he’d gotten away with what he’d done to me, why on earth would he never
repeat it with others? And, hearing he had been promoted a while after, was
just the biggest slap in the face. It made me question karma and worry that he
would never get him comeuppance. That I’d never get justice… Then I realised, I
almost certainly wouldn’t if I didn’t report it! Speaking up was really the
only way in which I could make any mark and have any impact or influence on
whether he continued to destroy people. And, rightly or wrongly, I felt that it
completely absolved me from any sort of responsibility if he were to hurt
others after me and I hadn’t spoken up.
The strange thing with this is that this is 100% an
instance where I’m a massive hypocrite because if another survivor said to me
“if I don’t report what happened to me and he does it to someone else, it’s
going to be my fault…” Well, I’d be the first one to disagree! I’d be the first
to reassure them that they’re responsible for no one else’s behaviours –
especially not rapists and abusers! No survivor should feel pressurised or in
any way obligated to report it with the thought hanging over them that if they
don’t it’ll be their fault if someone else gets hurt by this same person.
Another gain from reporting it and people finding
out what I’d been through, was that it meant people – particularly
professionals – were more knowledgeable and understanding in terms of now appreciating
why I was doing particular behaviours and why I had certain attitudes around
things. It was almost similar to being diagnosed with BPD because that official
diagnosis meant I was able to access specialist Personality Disorder services. It’s
a very common thought amongst mental health professionals, and in most people
who are in that industry in general, that those with some sort of PD diagnosis (because
there’s additional ones to Borderline Personality Disorder) really require
specialist help and support by way of professionals with specific PD training
and Therapy that is designed for helping someone with that diagnosis.
To be honest, this is something I massively agree
with – and something which I feel my experience is really brilliant evidence in
support of this belief. For the three years from my first admission/sectioning
in 2009, until Summer 2012, I was treated horribly by the majority of mental
health professionals but, particularly, by staff on the Crisis Team. And for
me, a huge attributing factor to their poor attitude towards me was that they
had very little understanding of BPD and so they weren’t empathetic or
compassionate because they didn’t know what that person really needed. Unfortunately,
back then, my mental health NHS Trust had literally no specialist PD services
and this meant that when I made a suicide attempt in 2012 and was placed on
life support for the first time, I ended up being admitted to a specialist psychiatric
hospital in Bradford (around 127 miles away from my home, friends, and family).
When I was sectioned whilst at that hospital, I tried
to fight the decision and appealed against it, which meant I had to have a
tribunal (you can read more about these on the Mind website: Your
rights after being sectioned for mental health | Mind and I actually, also
blogged about one: The
Bad Tribunal | I'm NOT Disordered). At it, the Psychologist and CPN I’d been
working with before my transfer to the hospital and the ones who had gotten the
funding for me to go to the hospital (it was ran by a private healthcare
company, not the NHS) attended to explain why my admission to this particular hospital
was so important. They admitted that the NHS Trust back home didn’t have the
services to effectively and efficiently help and support me. They also told the
Tribunal Panel that my records showed I’d had over 60 admissions (to both medical
and psychiatric hospitals) throughout the previous three years (2009 – 2012)
and they used that statistic as evidence that they weren’t able to help me back
there.
After the tribunal (the Panel obviously upheld the
section), I was telling one of the Nursing Assistants about the statistic of
hospital admissions and she said “do you know what’s really sad and scary? If
just one or two of those instances had happened in our locality, you would’ve
been admitted here straight away.” This, for me, was a massive indication and
example of the postcode lottery that is simply a massively sad and unfair reality
in mental health services, care, help, and support. Her statement really influenced
a ton of thoughts and feelings in me around how lucky I had been to have made
it through all those admissions – because to be honest, probably 80 – 85% of
them were instances where I very honestly could have actually lost my life.
This comment also made me really sad and angry too
though because I recognised that I was not the only person in my locality to be
diagnosed with BPD and that made me realise there were others whose lives were
in danger purely because they lived in a postcode that had no specialist services
available. Like, what were the chances they would all be just as lucky as I had
been? And this actually filled me with a lot of resentment towards that NHS
Trust for being so inadequate.
So, in addition to needing professionals who were
specifically trained in providing help and support for someone with a PD diagnosis,
another specialist quality that can be fundamental to a person with the
diagnosis recovering, was Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT). This type of
Therapy (which Mind actually also has a good page about: What
is dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT)?) focuses on guiding people to
regulate or cope with their emotions and to improve their relationships with
others because these are elements which really target the key, fundamental BPD symptoms
of unstable relationships and intense emotions (if you want to know more about
the symptoms and the diagnostic criteria, there’s some very useful and relevant
information here: The
DSM-5 Criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder). And, in all honesty, I
would massively attribute my recovery to DBT and how effective it was in
teaching me new, safe coping skills (mainly from the Distress Tolerance module:
Distress
Tolerance : Dialectical Behavior Therapy) as well as methods for better
communicating my thoughts and feelings with others (which were actually mostly
from the Interpersonal Effectiveness module: Interpersonal
Effectiveness : Dialectical Behavior Therapy).
Now, similarly to this established fact of specialist
care helping your mental health, I honestly think that professionals being
aware of my traumatic experiences, played a similarly helpful role in me
receiving more efficient and effective help and support. It meant that mental
health staff were more cautious with their words, they were understanding that I
was uncomfortable being in appointments etc with just one male member of staff,
and they actually appreciated how and why these experiences had impacted my
mental health and led to so many of the symptoms I struggled with.
If you’re struggling with experiences of rape and
abuse:
Helplines
& Webchat Services - Survivors Network
Help
after rape and sexual assault - NHS
If You Need Help Now
- The Survivors Trust
Support
for victims of sexual violence and abuse - GOV.UK
BBC
- Information and Support: Sexual Abuse and Violence
Our
list of organisations & groups that help survivors of abuse.
Support for
men and boys | Rape Crisis England & Wales
Get
help after rape or sexual assault | Rape Crisis England & Wales