After
everything you've done
I can thank you for how strong I have become
'Cause
you brought the flames and you put me through hell
I had to learn how to fight for myself
And we both know all the truth I could tell
Ke$ha
– Praying
In a huge and random scrolling session on Instagram, I came across a post about Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM) 2026 by an Actress (Sasha Pieterse from Pretty Little Liars) – which you can view here – that I shared to my Stories (@aimes_wilson). A while later, my best-friend and fellow Blogger; Martin Baker of www.gumonmyshoe.com messaged and said that it had inspired him to look back at his guest post for a project I was doing back in 2024 about supporting a survivor of sexual violence – you can read it on his blog (the project’s website it was originally published on was deleted): I Believe You. It wasn't Your Fault. You Are not Alone. Being There for a Friend Who's Survived Rape or Sexual Abuse. And from that, I began to consider ideas for creating I’m NOT Disordered content about the topic/for the awareness Month, and I came up with the idea of a Q&A. Finally, just three little side notes: Firstly, the questions below were all created by AI (Chat GPT specifically). Secondly, please be responsible when reading this post in terms of being triggered by this content and using safe coping skills. Finally, if you’re struggling with the topics discussed in this post/regarding this awareness Month, please see this old blog post which includes a ton of helpline contact details and supportive information: JOIN A RAPE & ABUSE SURVIVOR AT A HUGE GYNAE APPOINTMENT | VLOG & A COLLABORATION WITH AMAZON UK INCLUDED! | I'm NOT Disordered. Without further-ado, for the SAAM’s Day of Action, here’s the Q&A…
Can you share what your experience was?
In November 2006, I was attacked on my way to
School one morning and afterwards, I began having panic attacks. A person in a
position of power gave me a pass to use so that if I was in a lesson and began
getting anxious, I could just show the pass to the Teacher and leave. But the
condition was, I had to go and find him and sit with him until I felt better. I
think I used the pass properly and without problems three or four times before
he started to be inappropriate. But those three or four times, were really
bonding for us and I developed a level of reliance on him in terms of
recognising that he could help and make me feel better when I was struggling. I
confided in him on those occasions too and it turned out he was basically just
using that as an opportunity to create trust between us and to also build a
good reputation with others in my life who actually ended up becoming grateful
to him for supporting me! Yes, he was literally the defining epitome of
manipulative!
Initially, when he first made physical contact, it
had the look of being genuinely caring because it was about patting me on the
shoulder or touching my hand in some sort of gesture of comfort and
reassurance. And it just gradually became more and more inappropriate, unsafe,
unreciprocated, and – of course – unwanted. It snowballed over a six month
period and in around February/March 2007, he raped me but, I felt like I had
one hundred and one reasons why I couldn’t report it immediately – one huge one
being the conviction that I couldn’t prove it because he’d stated numerous
times that he would deny everything and no one would believe me over him. I
wish I’d had a better education and awareness of this topic because I’d likely
have known that rape test kits exist and there are ways of proving it happened
if you report it immediately. And honestly? It’s quite scary and extremely sad
to think how differently things could have gone if I’d had that knowledge and spoken
up sooner. I’d likely have had less difficulties with my mental health and
managing my own safety levels in terms of self-harm and suicide attempts.
On April 20th, 2007, I managed to fight
off another attempt from him and he raced after me. We ran around the building
screaming at each other and when I shouted, “think of your wife and children!”
his employer came out of his nearby office after overhearing and said “what
right do you have to talk to him like that?! Who do you think you are?!” It was
the straw that broke the camel’s bank because I just exploded(!) and the entire
thing came pouring out of my mouth with the distinct sensation that I literally
had no control over what I was saying – it just sort of launched itself out of
me! For once, my abuser/rapist stuck by his word and he denied it. His employer
called me a manipulative liar, and I was banned from the building and given a
ton of horrible, harsh, and upsetting additional consequences and punishments
that were mostly related to my education and school-life.
How would you describe the difference
(or overlap) between sexual abuse and rape in your experience?
When I was talking to Martin about the content we
would be creating/sharing for the awareness Month, I realised that it was
labelled Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and I pointed out that
both my experiences and his old content were rape and sexual abuse. And I have
a huge awareness and belief that these three crimes of sexual violence are
totally different – particularly in terms of their legal definition, the Acts
they fall under/breach/contradict, and the punishments and consequences that
are typical or recommended for offenders of the different behaviours. So, we
both did a little bit of research and discovered – through various sources – that
the Month is actually about sexual violence in general and so rape and abuse
are included/relevant to it.
For me, in answer to this question, the largest
difference with abuse and rape is their duration… Rape is obviously one
incident – of course it can happen numerous times, but ultimately; it’s really a
single incident – whereas abuse is something that goes on over time and can
include other behaviours that are somewhat contributing; like manipulation,
control, and conflict etc.
Then, the largest aspect of ‘overlap’ I consider
there to be between rape and abuse is more about society than the actual acts
because it’s regarding two facts:
1. Both
instances – and the people who survive them – are actually incredibly
misunderstood, stigmatised, and judged for them with so many opinions on
survivors actually even being deserving of these things in so far as what they
were wearing and whether they were drunk.
2. There
really aren’t enough education and awareness on either of these, and this can
be harmful in terms of survivors not understanding what’s happening to them is
wrong, what they can do about it in terms of reporting it etc., and that there
are means of help and support out there.
What impact did your experiences have
on your mental health?
My experiences of rape and abuse have had/are still
having a phenomenal, and very obvious and dramatic, impact on my mental health.
The first sign of it impacting my mental health is in a way that actually, not
many people will know – especially not the newer readers – and that was that I
actually had my first suicidal thoughts not long after the abuse had started.
My abuser had an office on the second floor, and it
had these huge windows, and I started to wonder what would happen if I were to
run at one really fast… Would I manage to break through it? And, most
importantly, would I die from the fall? And sometimes, I would be so wrapped up
in this train of thought that I’d lose track of time and that made me realise
that it could make a good distraction so that when the abuse was actually
physically happening, I often ‘zoned out’ and found myself so occupied by those
thoughts of jumping from the window. And it was almost like, the next thing I
knew; it was over and he’d finished! That’s how focused I was when I would have
those thoughts and how lost I became in picturing and imagining what it would
look like and how it would feel.
These days, knowing all that I know now and having
gone through all that I have now, I think that if I’m in a situation that’s
leading me to consider suicide… Well, it’s a huge sign things need to change,
and I need to do everything I can to get myself out of that situation. So,
looking back, I can’t help but think that having those thoughts and finding
them so time-consuming, should have been a huge red flag and a warning sign to
myself to realise I needed to get help or do whatever I could to end the abuse.
But instead of doing those things, I just found myself turning my time and
attention to considering the alternatives to jumping from the window and
started thinking about overdosing and what I could buy from which stores. And I
think that this really speaks volumes about how trapped and hopeless I truly
felt because I honestly believed it would be a complete waste of time to do –
or try to do – anything to stop what was happening to me because I felt nothing
would work. I genuinely thought that my only escape from it would be if I died.
Another big warning sign that my mental health was
suffering was that I started to self-harm then too but for me, my mindset and
motivation behind the self-harm felt somewhat ‘productive’ because it wasn’t
about hurting myself or punishing myself in any way. I actually did it with the
sheer, desperate hope that having all these scratches and scabs etc would make
me unappealing and less attractive to my abuser. As though he was hurting me
because he fancied me or something! But I guess that back then, he was so
manipulative, I had such little understanding of rape and abuse, and literally
no experience of having someone like this in my life, that I didn’t – or
couldn’t – really appreciate or comprehend the actual, dark motivation and
reasoning behind his actions and behaviour.
I remember the day he first saw what I’d been doing,
and he asked, “what the hell is this?” Then, he just basically confirmed not
only the fact that he could read my mind, but also that I was incredibly wrong
with what I had been thinking, when he added: “do you think that’s going to
stop me or something? Do you really think I’d care about it?” And then he went
a step further and asked “or is this your way of trying to tell people what’s
happening? Because if you tell anyone, they’ll never believe you.” Ironically, that
comment sunk in so much that I ended up trying to think of actual behaviours or
actions that I could do that would be a way of trying to tell someone what was
happening to me. It made me consider whether, if I did something outrageous
enough, someone would sit up and think ‘this isn’t like Aimee! Maybe there’s
more to it…’ And so I started misbehaving at School. But no one questioned it.
When did you realise things were
seriously affecting your wellbeing?
When the abuse ‘ended’ (because does anything like
that ever really end for a person?), I spent the following two years doing all
that I could to cope with the memories and just when I thought I was getting
some sort of handle or grip on things, I started experiencing auditory
hallucinations…
It started when I was leaving the retail store that
I worked part-time in. I heard this man’s voice and when I looked around the
nearest man was fairly far away and it wasn’t exactly someone who would have
said what I’d heard: “you’re useless, kill yourself!” With my incredibly
non-existent knowledge and experience around mental illness and hallucinations,
I felt almost 100% confident that if I told someone what had happened, I’d be
dragged away, and strapped to a bed in a psychiatric hospital. I also had visions
of having to undergo ECT and being forcibly medicated! This is why, alongside
abuse and rape, I feel that mental health is something that should be better
discussed at school so that a person feels more assured in what they should do
if they struggle with these things and so that they have a better understanding
of what is happening to them. These things could reduce fear responses and
encourage a person seeks help and support in whatever way is best and most
relevant.
As a direct result of my lack of understanding and
experience around mental health, I didn’t seek help for the hallucinations and
for the following ten days, the voice became more and more frequent,
distressing, and upsetting. Eventually, in the morning of a day that I had
three A Level exams, I started taking an overdose and continued to swallow
tablets gradually across the morning until eventually, I fainted at School and
an Ambulance was called. In Hospital, I was told I had to sit there for four
hours before they could do blood tests and determine whether I needed medical
treatment for what I’d taken. So, the second everyone’s backs were turned, I
ran out the A&E department.
I had almost reached the nearest town when two
Police Officers came up behind me, and I was taken back to the hospital. One of
them stayed with me and I heard a Nurse say to the other Officer “we haven’t
got the staff to have someone with her all the time!” And the Officer said, “we
can detain her then!” And, for the very first time in my life, I was detained
under section 136 of the 1983 Mental Health Act (if you want to know more about
the Police’s power under this Act, Mind have a brilliant page explaining it: Sections
135 and 136 - legal information). I was quickly
assessed under the Act by two Psychiatrists and an AMHP (Approved Mental Health
Practitioner) who – after I refused to explain why I’d made the suicide attempt
– decided to detain me under section 2 of the Act. This meant that I could be –
and I was! – restrained, given sedative injections, and forced to have the
life-saving antidote treatment for what I’d taken.
After the treatment, I was transferred to a
psychiatric hospital, and I couldn’t have been more terrified! Having turned 18
just a few months previously meant that I had to be admitted to an adult ward,
but it also meant I was the youngest one on it! My fear and anxiety of what I
might see meant I stayed in my room for the first day or so and when I finally
came out and saw women sat talking to themselves or there was one who was
whispering to the wall in the communal sitting room, I was incredibly scared and
intimidated! It was such a shock to the system, and it was this that made me
finally realise that the rape and abuse had seriously affected my mental
health/wellbeing. It made me consider finally telling the staff why I’d taken
the overdose and all about the voices because I was convinced that if I didn’t,
I would end up staying there until the ages (30’s and 40’s) of all the other
inpatients! And the idea of that was terrifying.
Can you talk about your diagnosis with
Borderline Personality Disorder and how it relates to your trauma?
Being diagnosed with Borderline Personality
Disorder (BPD) was actually a really difficult and upsetting process but also
reassuring and comforting at almost the exact same time! My first awareness of
BPD literally came from being given my discharge summary for the first time
(despite it being my third admission/detention under the Mental Health Act) and
in the box next to ‘Diagnosis:’ it read ‘BPD?’ (with the question mark!). And I
had literally such little/no knowledge or previous conversation around it that
I had to actually Google ‘BPD – mental health’ to determine what it even stood
for/meant!
Outside of that though – even after I googled it –
it was never mentioned again between professionals and myself until I ran away
to Carlisle a short time later. I was detained under 136 again by the Police
there and at my assessment with the two Psychiatrists and AMHP (that’s the exact
combination of professionals a Mental Health Act assessment has to always be
with, also an AMHP is typically a Social Worker!) this one Psychiatrist started
asking me question and after question. There were nine in total and afterwards,
he told me that each question had actually been based on one of the nine
possible symptoms of BPD. He explained that at that time, the diagnostic
criteria for BPD were that you had to have at least five of the nine possible symptoms,
and he declared that I had come back as very clearly having all nine! Which
sounds horrendous but it ended up being positive – but I’ll explain why in the
question after this next one!
In the end, I was sectioned and after I got home, I
had an appointment with my Community Psychiatric Nurse (CPN) and I remember
telling her about the conversation with the Psychiatrist at the Police Station
and I asked her; “does this mean I have the diagnosis officially now?” And her
very sad and frightening response was: “I don’t want you to have that label yet
because once you have it, no services will touch you because no one ever gets
better from that!”
I was firstly gutted because the reason I had asked
and wanted the diagnosis was because I recognised that if a diagnosis existed,
that meant others had similar experiences to me – similar thoughts, similar
feelings – and if that were true, it meant I actually wasn’t alone in this. I
wasn’t abnormal. And it felt like for so long, I’d felt utterly alone in
everything in life. I also felt that developing a diagnosis for these symptoms
meant they were validated and real. It meant that the professionals recognised
them as symptoms of a mental illness, and this was hugely important to me
because it was starting to become typical to be called a drama queen and an
attention-seeker. So, to have had all those comforting and validating thoughts
and feelings about BPD and then had a professional pretty much rip those from
me and basically also tell me that if I do have this diagnosis, there’s no hope
of getting help for it and no chance of recovering from it?! How could anyone
cope well with that?
In all honesty, the following three years from that
first overdose in 2009 until the Summer of 2012, were so chaotic and stressful
that I actually can’t quite remember exactly when or how I was finally
diagnosed with BPD. To be honest, I think it just sort of became part of my
records! I don’t think it was as though there was another meeting and a Doctor said,
“you officially have it!” I do remember however, that the CPN was half-way
right in what she’d said in that no Services would come near me once I had that
diagnosis. I say ‘half-way’ because I wouldn’t necessarily say it was anything
to do with a thought around people not recovering from it. I think that the professional’s
poor attitude toward BPD and those with the diagnosis was largely related to
their lack of understanding and knowledge about the Disorder and how someone
with it, actually thinks, feels, and what they experience.
With my lack of experiences of both someone
actually sitting down and telling me I have BPD and having services and
professionals who really understood the Disorder, it’s meant that I have no
real, clear explanations around how BPD relates to my trauma. I have a level of
understanding and some sort of appreciation that it’s actually quite typical
for someone with BPD to have experienced some sort of trauma – especially
childhood trauma – but I don’t quite know just how this can relate to the
development and diagnosis of BPD.
In wanting to answer this question, I did a bit of
research and happened across a few articles; with a big focus on this one: Trauma's
Role in Borderline Personality Disorder, and spotted a few
times that usually, a trauma can cause or influence a particular symptom of BPD
and that’s how it relates. So, for me having all nine, I think the symptoms
most impacted by my traumatic experiences of rape and abuse, are the one
centred around having unstable relationships and the one about uncontrollable,
overwhelming, and intense feelings of anger. And, in fairness, I think that I
don’t even really need to explain why there were relevant/impacted – I think
it’s fairly obvious why my trauma would influence those areas of my life/mood.
What was the turning point that led to
your suicide attempt in 2012?
My decision to make the suicide attempt in the
Summer of 2012 actually wasn’t 100% related to the trauma, part of it was also
purely about my mental health and the hallucinations. So, I think that there
were really two parts to the attempt that were related to the trauma, but both
of them left me with the same thoughts and feelings around hopelessness and
feeling like any effort to get better was simply pointless because there was no
getting better. There was no scope for improvement. No chance of recovery and
of anything improving at all.
Firstly, I was distressed and feeling hopeless over
the memories and still suffering from very vivid flashbacks despite all my
frantic and desperate efforts to block out what had happened to me, to deny it,
to pretend it had never happened, and to basically, completely and entirely
remove it from my head! Immediately after the abuse (so two years prior to the
hallucinations and the first suicide attempt and psychiatric hospital
admission) I’d tried drinking – yes, underage(!) – so much until I would
literally black-out and lose all memories of the following hours. Despite the
fact that my friends who I’d drink with seemed to know their limits and would
blatantly have the honest and genuine motivation of simply wanting to have a
good, fun time.
A few months later, I’d tried focusing completely
on my education as I joined a new School to study my A Levels for the following
two years. But, on realising I wasn’t exactly a classroom learner or overly an
academic person, I turned to restricting my diet and over-exercising as a means
of having something else to concentrate on. Something to put all my attention
into. I honestly believed that having a topic or a behaviour that demanded my
attention and which really required some sort of a complicated thought-process
in order to be effective, my mind would be more challenged to remember anything
from months and then – because that continued for a number of years – years ago!
The additional trauma-related motivation to the
suicide attempt in 2012 – but which was also related to my mental health – was
when I began experiencing visual hallucinations of scary and really dirty and
muddy rabbits. I fully recognised that despite these particular hallucinations
being related to another ‘trauma’ (when I was little, I had two rabbits who
killed their babies), the rape and abuse had made my mental health generally
vulnerable and unwell in a way that meant other things in my life were going to
affect me in ways that they might not usually or ordinarily have done. And this
made me feel frightened and weak, to be honest. I felt vulnerable in myself and
I worried that if anything even mildly horrible or upsetting happened in my
future, I would massively affected by it in a way that could threaten my safety
– or at least, in all fairness, cause me to be a threat to my own safety by
means of both/either suicide and self-harm.
This new sensation and convinced thoughts and
feelings around hopelessness and not having a future that was at all positive
or promising filled me with an immense anger (like I said, a symptom of BPD) toward
my rapist/abuser. And with the immediate recognition and brutal acceptance that
I couldn’t inflict any pain or anger on that person, I felt like the only
outlet for it, was to hurt – or kill – myself. It was these thoughts and
feelings around realising that the rape and abuse – that those six months and
one incident – were clearly going to stay with me for the rest of my life.
Unless I ended it. Unless I ended my life.
Can you share what it was like being
sectioned and admitted to a psychiatric hospital for over two years?
Earlier in 2012, I had been sectioned and admitted
to a local psychiatric hospital where, in a meeting between my inpatient
Consultant Psychiatrist and the Community Mental Health Team (CMHT), the
Psychiatrist recommended I be admitted to out-of-area psychiatric hospital that
specialised in BPD. He explained that it was clear there weren’t any Personality
Disorder services in the entire local NHS Trust – not just necessarily my
hometown and the locality to that – and that the services they did have, weren’t
effective or efficient enough to manage my ‘level of risk’ and the ‘severity of
the Disorder’ I seemed to have.
I was assessed for a nearby specialist Unit, but
they declared that they weren’t secure (psychiatric hospitals have levels of
security – which you may know if you’ve heard of the UK’s High Secure Hospitals
e.g. Ashworth, Rampton,
and Broadmoor
because they’re frequently in the media with various crime stories) enough to
manage my flight risk (I used to runaway a lot!)! So, I was assessed by a medium
secure Unit which was even further away (over 120 miles away from home) but on hearing
how structured everything was there, I refused to go and because I was no
longer sectioned by that point, it was felt that no one could force me to go.
So, on the suicide attempt in Summer 2012, I initially
actually regrated it and presented to A&E but after a few hours, I started
to question my decision to get help, and I refused to finish the antidote
treatment for it. I was assessed under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and
finally, taken to the Resuscitation department where an Anaesthetist said that
I had one last chance to accept the treatment before I was put to sleep and put
on a ventilator and given it against my will. I told her, “I hope something goes
wrong and I die anyway,” and that was it – I was sedated, put on life support,
and moved to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
When I woke up from life support a while later, I agreed
to go to the specialist hospital. The CMHT secured funding from the local NHS
Trust (it was a private healthcare company who owned the specialist hospital so
there had to be funding in place for me to be admitted) and I was allowed home from
ICU for a few days to pack (the hospital stated from the offset that it was a ‘long-term’
hospital with the website stating that the average length of admission was 12 –
18 months). A number of staff from the specialist hospital came to my Mum’s
home in their secure vehicle and they took me to the hospital where, when I
tried to leave, I was promptly sectioned.
I was terrified being so far away from home – especially
as I was actually only 21 at the time and had literally lived with my Mum my
whole life – but, at the same time, I was also relieved because I felt that no
matter how hard things got and no matter what I did; it couldn’t/wouldn’t
affect and hurt my Mum as much as it would if I were at the hospital only 20
minutes from her home. Of course, that wasn’t exactly true – she still found
out a lot of the things that happened and, also, all those things obviously still
massively upset her and were painful for her to even just hear.
I also struggled with two other aspects to the
admission… The first, was feelings of worthiness in that I was very aware of
the cost of a bed on that ward per night and I was absolutely, 100% convinced
that I wasn’t at all worthy or deserving of the NHS spending that amount of
money on me and my mental health. It wasn’t just about feeling like a bad
person, but also about those feelings of hopelessness and I thought that having
all that funding was a complete waste. I wasn’t going to get better. I wouldn’t
recover. The admission wouldn’t help or make any sort of difference.
I was also filled with that uncontrollable anger
that can be a symptom that a lot of people with BPD can struggle with. The
anger, rather than being completely against my abuser, was now directed at my
local NHS Trust. I recognised it was their failures and inadequacies in terms
of having no specialist services nor having staff trained in helping and
supporting someone with BPD – because it’s widely recognised in the mental
health industry that someone with a Personality Disorder diagnosis requires
particular, specialist care and treatment. Someone who is trained in helping
someone with a diagnosis of Schizophrenia, cannot use or transfer those same skills
and knowledge to someone with BPD.
There were also two sides to being in a specialist
ward where literally all the other inpatients had the same BPD diagnosis… The
first side, which was more positive, was the sense of validation and feeling
less alone that I experienced immediately after meeting the other girls. It was
like my initial attitude around being given the diagnosis and my thought process
and mindset around it meaning that I wasn’t alone. It also showed that what I
was experiencing was real – and this was a massively important factor to
determine because of the hallucinations and the number of times they had
resulted in me being told that what I could see and hear wasn’t real. And it
wasn’t necessarily so much about doubting that I could hear and see those
things – though sometimes, I was accused of that by the most horrible professionals
– rather that it was about trying to bring me back to reality. As though
telling someone who is hallucinating that those things aren’t real, will leave
them to suddenly recognise and accept this. Like simply being told is enough
evidence to stop believing your senses.
The negative aspect to everyone having BPD though,
was around the diagnostic criteria in that you had to have at least five of
nine symptoms, and I was literally the only girl there that was diagnosed as
having all nine. This meant that often one girl had a mix of symptoms that
directly clashed with someone else who had a completely different mix of the symptoms.
A key example of this would be those with the symptom around fearing abandonment
and those who mostly struggled with the anger symptom. Those people wouldn’t even
blink or be at all reluctant at the thought of confrontation and having a
full-blown argument with other girls or even with the staff(!), but the ones
who were afraid of abandonment would avoid dramatic situations like that
because they wouldn’t want to lose any sort of relationship or companionship.
Having the recognition that so many of the girls
clashed over their symptoms, meant that I was hugely grateful for the
realisation that because I had all the symptoms, I could usually identify and really
empathise with everyone! It meant that I often became the go-between, mediator,
or devil’s advocate in a lot of situations. I was typically the voice of reason
and the person who could point out where each party was right or in the wrong. And
fortunately, a lot of the girls – and the staff, actually – really respected me
and appreciated me for having this ability. No one saw it as being impartial
and not speaking up for anything or trying to be a peace-keeper all the time.
Everyone seemed to view it as having someone who could really appreciate everyone’s
different thoughts, feelings, and experiences.
Finally, other aspects to what it was like being sectioned
and hospitalised for so long were around the psychological impact those things
can have. Firstly, there was the risk of becoming institutionalised (something I
blogged about – here
– whilst I was still an inpatient because I created I’m NOT Disordered whilst
in that psychiatric hospital) which I was well aware of and also very cautious around
recognising and tackling or undermining any thoughts or feelings relevant to
it. There was actually a girl who’d been there for years prior to me and every
time she was close to being discharged or when the staff began discussing discharging
her, she’d self-harm or make a suicide attempt. So many people voiced the
concern that she had become so adjusted to being in hospital that she was
genuinely afraid and anxious at the thought of being back in the community.
For me, I think that the way in which I could
appreciate or understand any sort of fear at being out of hospital was because I
worried that if I had all my freedom back, I would go all the way back to square
one. That if I was in control of my safety, I wouldn’t maintain it. I wouldn’t
want to. I worried that I was only alive because I was sectioned and had been
almost completely stripped of ways to self-harm or attempt suicide. But in all
honesty – and I’m full away that this might sound completely superficial to a
lot of people, but it mattered to me – a huge motivation for me to want to be
discharged was the thought of having my own cat! Obviously, we weren’t allowed
pets as inpatients and I’d grown up with pets (mostly Hamsters, but for almost ten
years prior to the hospitalisation I had a cat; Saffy) so they were really
important to me, and I’ve always found them helpful for my mental health.
How did that lengthy period of
hospitalisation impact your recovery?
The largest factor of that hospital admission which
impacted my recovery and really, was genuinely life-saving, was having Dialectical
Behaviour Therapy (DBT).
When you’re first admitted to that psychiatric
hospital, the usual protocol or routine was that the staff would state that you
had to be ‘stable’ before you could begin DBT (which is the recommended
treatment for people with BPD – you can read about this on Mind here,
on Mental Health UK here,
and on the NHS website here).
This, at first, seemed fairly backwards because surely it was DBT that was going
to stabilise me(!) but ultimately, it was explained that this Therapy can
sometimes bring a lot of things forwards that might make it feel as though
things are getting worse before they get better. So, they want you to be in the
best possible psychological position before starting it, but then if you weren’t
being taught new coping skills and were only having what you used to use taken
away by being sectioned and admitted, how were you meant to become stable?!
In all honesty, I can’t remember the point where I was
deemed ready to start DBT so, sadly, I actually can’t recall what it took to
have that established! However, I think it’s more important anyway, that I talk
about which parts of it I found helpful and why and in what way that was the case.
So, there’s a website (Dialectical
Behavior Therapy: DBT Skills, Worksheets, Videos) about DBT that I find really
helpful and which I usually link to whenever I blog or create content about DBT,
the modules within it, and the skills taught in those modules. There are four
modules to DBT, and each module is – in some way and in my opinion – aimed at tackling
and managing different aspects or symptoms of BPD so that with me having all the
symptoms, it felt like all the modules were relevant to me and my experience of
the Disorder. So, to answer this question in regard to how Therapy impacted my
recovery, I’ve divided the modules (not necessarily in the order in which they’re
taught) and made some points on each of them where I’ve chosen one or two of my
favourite skills from each, then I’ve talked about why those ones in particular
were useful, and ways for you to practice/use them too…
Module
One: Mindfulness
·
For an overview of this module: Mindfulness :
Dialectical Behavior Therapy
·
My first thoughts on this module were
sheer hatred in all honesty! To the point where my Key Nurse from this
admission (who I’m now friends with) said that if she thought there was anyone least
likely to recommend Mindfulness, it was me! But, over time, I learnt to modify
the skills and techniques to work for me.
·
The skill I find most useful is Mental
Noting because it’s simply about noticing a thought, feeling, or experiencing without
becoming overwhelmed and controlled by it.
·
You can read more about this skill here,
and you can find a worksheet on it here.
Module
Two: Distress Tolerance
·
For an overview of this module: Distress
Tolerance : Dialectical Behavior Therapy
·
The first of the two skills I still use
from this module is Distracting Activities which is very basically about benefiting
from distraction and how this can be used as a healthy means of staying safe
and allowing the opportunity for impulsive thoughts and feelings to dissipate.
·
You can read more about this skill here,
and you can find a list of recommended activities here.
·
The second skill I use to this day
which comes from this module, is Self-Soothing and this, again, is simply about
utilising activities that are soothing for you as a means of coping with difficult
thoughts and feelings.
·
You can read more about this skill here,
and you can find a worksheet on it here.
Module
Three: Emotion Regulation
·
For an overview of this module: Emotion
Regulation : Dialectical Behavior Therapy
·
The skill from this module which I have
found the most beneficial to my mental health recovery, was Coping Ahead
because I massively recognise the power of warnings. I’m definitely someone who
does well from planning ahead and having some sort of clue as to what to expect
from a situation.
·
You can read more about this skill here
and you can find a worksheet on it here.
Module
Four: Interpersonal Effectiveness
·
For an overview of this module: Interpersonal
Effectiveness : Dialectical Behavior Therapy
·
The one skill from this final module
that I found most helpful for my recovery was Listening and Validation because
these are qualities that are incredibly important to me. I feel that I really benefit
from receiving validation from others and this is likely because of the
hallucinations and how often I was told that my experiences weren’t real!
·
You can read more about this skill here
and you can find a worksheet on it here.
What was the most challenging part of the
admission?
So, I’m going to cheat a little bit here because
there were two particular instances which were incredibly challenging for me
during that hospitalisation.
The first, was when I had unescorted leave in the hospital
grounds so I was without staff and I managed to jump over the hospital fence
and ended up in the grounds of an elderly people’s home, then I jumped their
fence into a private back garden and walked out of their side gate to a taxi I’d
booked in advance. I booked it because there’d been so many instances where inpatients
had managed to run away but the staff has instantly gotten in their vehicle and
driven around the estate to find them within an hour! So, I knew I needed to
get as far away as possible, as quickly as possible and took the taxi to the
local train station and there, I took a train to a nearby city.
Throughout my entire journey I was making a suicide
attempt and when I got to that final station, I had been reported as a ‘high
risk missing person’ so the British Transport Police (BTP) were there and on realising
what I’d done, they called an Ambulance. The Ambulance Service explained that
it would be quicker and easier for the Police to take me – on lights and siren –
to the medical hospital nearest the psychiatric hospital and meet the mental
health staff there rather than waiting for an ambulance which would have to
take me to a different medical hospital where the Police would have to stay
with me until the psychiatric staff could get there.
So, I was promptly bustled into a Police van and two
Officers got in the backseat with me so that there was one on each side of me, one
Officer drove, and then there was another in the front passenger seat too. I remember
looking out the windscreen and watching all the traffic just part ways for us
to zoom through with the siren blaring and the blue light bouncing off shop
windows as we passed. But then, because of what I’d done, I started to feel
sick and very quickly, stopped being able to look out the window!
When we got to the medical hospital, all four
Police took me in, booked in at the A&E desk and then within ten or twenty
minutes, two of the psychiatric staff arrived and the Police left. I then
remember starting the anti-dote treatment which had to be administered IV
(through a cannula/tube in your vein) but I began to struggle with the hallucinations
and realisation that this could be my last chance to escape this life, and I
refused to complete the treatment and took the cannula out. I was already
sectioned though – and under section 3 which allows treatments to be forced (whereas
section 2 is mostly to force an assessment) so I was restrained to the bed whilst
staff tried to put a new cannula in, but my veins were terrible. There was one
point where they put one in one of my feet and because my top half was being
held down, I ended up using the toes on my other foot to catch hold of the tube
and pull it out. Like, that’s how desperate and suicidal I was! Eventually, I was
fully sedated and put on life support again and then moved to ICU for a few
days.
When I woke up in ICU, there were four psychiatric
staff there and after taking all the tubes out and changing out of the hospital
gown and back into my pyjamas, we made our way back to the psychiatric hospital.
When we got there however, the staff steered me towards the lift rather than
the ground-level ward I’d been on for over a year by that point. I was
immediately aware that I was being taken to the Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit
(PICU) upstairs and I was instantly terrified because the rumours about that
ward were horrific. I mean, not just rumours though; we could always hear
screaming and crying from there and whenever the alarms would go, you knew it
was because of something on that ward! To give you an idea of just how bad it
was, a month before I was discharged in 2014, a patient literally suffocated
another one: Cygnet
Hospital death: Woman 'suffocated' fellow patient - BBC News!
In addition to how scared I was being on that ward;
I was also massively physically poorly from the after-effects of all the
sedation and medications over the previous few days. It meant I was constantly
nauseous, vomiting a lot, and feeling really sleepy. I was put on eyesight observations
(the second highest level of observation in a psychiatric hospital – with the top
level being ‘arm’s length’) and I was desperate for a shower, but I was
honestly too poorly to really care so I just ended up showering in front of a
Nurse I’d never met before! I remember sitting on the plastic mattress on the
floor of the room and allowed nothing but my pyjamas, a book, and my sick bowl
and thinking ‘I can’t live like this anymore.’ But it wasn’t in a suicidal way
at all – instead, it was about realising that I needed to start working with
the staff to get better because I didn’t want this to be my life – in and out
of hospitals, feeling this poorly, doing these things to myself, dealing with
all these consequences to my actions…
After a few days on the PICU, I was allowed back
down to the ward and I remember when I walked into the communal sitting room,
three of the girls I was closest to came charging at me and hugged me so tight
and then we all started crying! It was so heart-warming to have these three
girls care so much about me after not knowing each other for too long, but at
the end of the day we were together 24/7 – it wasn’t like we just saw each
other at School, so it was an intensive way to build a relationship, and it
meant those friendships were so incredibly important.
Almost one year later, when I was on the verge of
being discharged, a girl on the ward asked me what the reason had been why
things had turned around. What was it that had made me better? I ended up
telling her that going AWOL and making the attempt, being on life support and
then going to the PICU had been the huge ‘kick up the bum’ to make me realise
that I wanted a better life for myself. Before I knew it, she was doing all
that she could to repeat this incident and to be moved to the PICU too. We
ended up arguing and later that day, I was walking down the corridor past her
bedroom when I heard a funny noise and I took a few more steps before I had the
thought ‘if something’s happening and I don’t look or help because we’ve fallen
out, I’ll never forgive myself.’
So, I went back to her door and looked through the
glass window that the staff used to shine a torch through to do their
observation checks during the night and saw her on the floor, her face was
swollen and her lips were going blue and I could just see the cord around her
neck. I started screaming for the staff and literally tried to kick her door in
because she’d locked it and only the staff can override it. Eventually the other
girls got the staff, and they came running so I went back to my room and
listened as they got in the room, did CPR, called for an ambulance and then she
was taken to the same medical hospital I’d been on life support in.
In the communal Reflection meeting that evening, I was
crying and said that I felt responsible and guilty for basically giving her
advice to do that and she’d nearly lost her life because of me. All the other
girls and staff – but to be honest, it meant so much more hearing it from the
girls! – reassured me and one stated that this other girl was a grown adult who
was responsible for her own actions and for how she interpreted what someone told
her. They said that as long as I hadn’t intended in my answer being used as
guidance or something, that’s what mattered and I said of course that wasn’t in
my head. I genuinely just wanted to answer the question honestly. I had no ulterior-motives
– including positive ones in so far as hoping it would be inspirational or that
it would give her hope. I was genuinely focused on simply answering the
question!
The entire situation taught me a huge lesson though,
and it’s one that has become absolutely instrumental and fundamental to my
content creation career and to my blog being the success that it is and having
the popularity that it does. And that was the recognition that my words and
actions can have such a huge – life-changing – influence and impact on someone
else. They have the potential and the power to leave someone feeling better
after experiencing them or worse.
What do you want people to understand
about the long-term impact of sexual violence?
That there is a long-term impact!
I want people to realise that even if sexual
violence happens on one occasion and lasts a matter of minutes, that doesn’t
mean its impact will be quick or minor in any way. And it doesn’t mean that it ‘should’
be. It doesn’t mean that if it isn’t, it’s ok to judge someone for it and tell
them they’re wrong and that they should be ‘over it’ by now.
I was once in hospital after self-harm and a Nurse
asked why I did it and I told her what had happened to me in terms of the rape
and abuse and she said, “that happened to me too, but you don’t see me doing
stuff like this and using it as an excuse.” I was actually really proud of
myself because typically, I wouldn’t have really responded or fought back in
person, I’d have just said it when I was telling someone later or online! But I
managed to say to her “well, everyone copes differently and your experience can’t
have been exactly the same as mine.”
I mean, even all the other girls who have come
forward to say that my rapist/abuser has raped and abused them too, won’t have
had the exact same experience as I did. No one will. And that’s partly what
makes sexual violence so lonely and isolating – the recognition that as a
result of no one ever going through the exact same thing as yourself, it also
means that no one will ever fully understand your experience, thoughts, and
feelings etc. So, I hope that fellow survivors also learn that even they don’t
have the right to judge others and make comparisons between theirs and your own
experiences. And if you managed to cope safely and healthily with your own
experiences, that doesn’t make someone who responds or copes by self-harming or
attempting suicide, weak or wrong in any way.
Sexual violence can happen to anyone. It doesn’t
discriminate. And so, it’s important that we all abide by the mindset of
treating others how you would like to be treat. Don’t make a comment if it
would upset or offend you if the situation was reversed.
Why is it important for you to speak
out during Sexual Assault Awareness Month?
Personally, I felt that it was important for me to speak
up for the SAAM Day of Action because of the level of following I’m NOT Disordered
has. Having almost (less than 1,000 readers away, and typically, the blog
receives more than that per day, so it’ll likely be on it by tomorrow morning
at the latest!) 2.8 million readers makes me feel a sense of responsibility and
not so much obligation… But just… Well, I recognise the influence my content
can have on a huge amount of people and with that knowledge and realisation, I know
that it’s important that I create content and speak out on important topics.
Especially topics where I have a great deal of valid and important experience.
In addition to my answer to the previous question
on what I want for people to understand, I really hope that this content also inspires
fellow survivors to speak out and share their own experiences and the lessons they’ve
learnt through them.
In a world that’s full of judgment and stigma, we truly
need each other.