My Inpatient Experience (Part One)

 As I have mentioned in some previous posts, earlier in the year, I was put into acute psychiatric inpatient care.  I wasn't an inpatient for very long - just under three weeks to be precise - but it was an experience that is going to stay with me for quite some time.  This was the first time I had ever experienced being an inpatient as previously I had always been treated as an outpatient for my mental health problems.  Going into inpatient care can be a really daunting prospect, especially when you have no idea what to expect.  As my inpatient experience is fairly fresh in my mind, I thought I would share some of my memories of it, partly in an effort to bring some closure for myself but also in the hope of providing some support or reassurance to others who may be facing inpatient care.  During my time as an inpatient, I was placed in two different hospitals.  I had a really positive experience in one hospital and a very negative experience in the other.  I thought it might be useful as a comparison to hear about both experiences.

Why I was put into Inpatient Care

I was put into inpatient care in a crisis situation.  I don't think it would be particularly helpful to anyone to go into a lot of depth about the circumstances as it could be quite triggering.  In brief, I had been struggling considerably with my mental health problems despite receiving some outpatient treatment.  One morning in April, I was stopped from taking my life by two close friends of mine.  I was taken to a nearby A&E and from there the decision was made to admit me to inpatient care.

Confusion Over Sectioning

I spent over 11 hours in A&E!  It was an extremely dark and distressing time for me.  I will probably write a separate post about my time in A&E at some point because I have written quite extensively about the experience in journals.  When I was in A&E, myself and my poor mother were told that I had been put under Section 2 of The Mental Health Act which means that you have to be held under inpatient care for 28 days and the inpatient service has complete control over your treatment.  At the time, there were no NHS beds available for me (not an uncommon occurrence) and so it was decided that I would be placed temporarily in a private hospital until an NHS bed became available.  While I was given the impression by all the staff in A&E that I was being admitted to the private hospital under a section, 48 hours after being admitted, I received my patient's information pack and discovered that I had been admitted voluntarily as an informal patient.  This was extremely confusing and to date I have no idea what really happened.  It is quite an emotional overhaul when in such a bad state to be put into a hospital against your will, to feel as though all your rights have been taken from you and then to find out that you had apparently submitted yourself to such treatment voluntarily.  I have looked into the matter after being discharged and as far as anyone can see there is no record of a section on my file - it remains a mystery!  

The Transfer to Hospital

The closest hospital I could be transferred to was one that was 2 hours away from where I live.  Be aware that under the NHS, you can theoretically be transferred to just about anywhere in the country if beds are not available locally.  This didn't matter to me very much at the time, I wasn't particularly bothered about being placed far way from friends and family, most probably because I was in such an inner turmoil that I didn't really care about anything.  I know it can be really helpful to have the support of friends and family but at the end of the day, I think that the most important thing is that we receive the treatment that we need to get better and if that has to happen far away from home then that's the way it has to be.  I would say that it actually helped me to be placed away from everything familiar to me because it almost forced me to focus on myself and my own situation without getting distracted.

I was transferred from A&E very late at night by ambulance and arrived at the hospital in the early hours of the morning.  The hospital I stayed in was more like a stately home, the first thing I remember when I arrived was seeing some very large pillars at the entrance and feeling quite bewildered as it certainly wasn't what I was expecting at all!  I was lead onto the ward by the ambulance crew who were quite taken back by the fact that I had said a word to them throughout the whole two hour journey - I guess I just didn't have a lot to talk about.  I was greeted by one of the senior nurses who wasn't particularly friendly or welcoming, if anything she just complained that I had arrived at a very inconvenient time, despite the fact that was completely out of my control.  I was later to discover that all the staff on the ward were incredibly lovely and that I was just unfortunate to have been admitted by the only scary one among them.  Trust my luck!  I was shown to my room and at that point I fell to the floor in utter shock.  It was by far the nicest room I had ever stayed in my entire life!  I wish I had taken a photo of it but to give an idea - I had a very comfortable double bed with satin sheets, a desk, a television, an arm chair, a mirror, a large wardrobe and dresser and I had my own ensuite bathroom.  I felt as though something must have gone very wrong as I couldn't understand what I had done to deserve to stay in such a lovely place, or to be given anything for that matter.  I was very overwhelmed.  The nurse searched my bag and recorded what belongings I had arrived with.  There wasn't much to search as all I had with me were the clothes I was standing in and the bag I had taken to work with me the morning before.  I was left to wait in my room until the doctor arrived to assess me.

About two hours passed and all I had done in that time was sit on the floor in a state of complete shock.  The nurse eventually came and took me to the ward office for my assessment with the doctor.  That part is quite a blur as I had a panic attack, was hearing voices and Lord knows what else but I was basically asked a series of questions so that they could gain a sense of my state of mind.  It felt as though I was being asked every question under the sun and bearing in mind it was 3 am and I had been awake for over 48 hours, my ability to answer the questions coherently was understandably limited.  The only part of the assessment I remember really clearly was being asked repeatedly by the nurse if I had taken cannabis.  I can understand why she suspected as I had dissociated a lot that day and when I dissociate my pupils become very enlarged.  I remember descending into a very long and bizarre speech about how I have never and will never take drugs as I have seen first hand just how much damage drugs can do to a person's life.  To which the nurse replied, "Good for you!"  When I later spoke to some of the other patients, they said that everyone has to have a drugs test when they arrive on the ward but I hadn't had one.  I liked to think that I had so much conviction in my anti-drugs speech that the nurse felt there was no point in submitting me to a drugs test.  Eventually the doctor decided that I was in too much of a distressed state to be able to complete the assessment, I was taken back to my room to sleep and the inpatient adventure began...

An Average Day on an Inpatient Ward

7:00-7:30: We were woken up and this was the time that people had to take their medication (I wasn't on any medication at the time)
8:00-8:30:  Breakfast was served in the dinning room - sometimes patients could take food away to eat in their rooms but we were encouraged to eat together
8:30-10:00:  Free time - I usually took a walk around the grounds after breakfast.  This was the time in which the cleaners would clean our rooms.
10:00-11:00: Group therapy sessions
11:30-12:30: Group therapy sessions
12:45-1:30: Lunch was served in the dinning room
2:00-3:30: Group therapy sessions
3:30-5:30: Group therapy sessions - usually more relaxation focused
5:45-7:00: Dinner was served in the dinning room
Evening - Free time - after dinner a lot of the patients would meet up in the communal lounge of the ward where we could chat, play board games, go on the computer and even watch films together.  I usually dedicated some time in the evenings for writing in my journal and responding to messages from my family and friends.

Below is a copy of the timetable I followed during my time at the hospital.  I think you can gain a sense from it that inpatient care can be pretty intensive...

What the Hospital was Like

As I have said, I was placed temporarily in a private hospital.  The hospital I stayed in is actually very well known and famous.  I stayed at the Priory Hospital North London.  A lot of celebrities have been admitted there over the years.  I can now see that I was extremely lucky to have been given the opportunity to receive care there, even if it was only for a short amount of time.

The ward I was admitted to was a general adults unit - the unit was shared between addiction patients and psychiatric patients.  The addiction patients followed a different programme to us and we weren't allowed to speak to them due to data protection issues.  The hospital also had a Child & Adolescents Unit which was separate from the rest of the hospital.  Some patients came to the ward as outpatients and attended the same group therapy sessions as the inpatients.

I have given an idea about what my room was like and the rest of the ward was equally as homely to be honest.  The ward had a reception area, an office, a room where medication was stored and distributed, a games room, laundry service and a communal lounge area with comfy sofas.  The ward was run by nurses who were responsible for monitoring our physical and emotional wellbeing as well as support workers.  The support workers were mainly there to record observations of the patients.  They had received some training but they were not always particularly knowledgeable about some of the problems we suffered from.  At times this could create misunderstandings but I actually think it was good to have these support workers as they felt more on our level and often they were people that we could have a much needed chat to.

The hospital had a number of large conference rooms which were used for group therapy sessions.  It had a large canteen and dinning area which was more like a restaurant really.  It also had quite extensive and well kept grounds which I really appreciated.  When you have to spend days on end in a hospital, it can be quite refreshing to be able to take a nice walk outside.

The Grounds

Resident ducks!

My Inpatient Diary

While I was at the Priory I kept a quick record of what had happened during the day.  I am going to share some of my diary and some of the photos I took while I was there as I think it will give a bit of an idea about what it is like to be an inpatient.

Days One & Two

The first thing I saw when I woke up in the morning was that the door to my room was wide open with a figure sitting in a chair at the doorway.  For me, it felt like my worst nightmare had come true.  Due to my history of sexual abuse, I have a very extreme fear and am highly triggered by someone watching me from my bedroom door and the thought of them seeing me asleep.  The first thing I heard was a man talking to the figure sitting at my door saying, 'You need to get an ambulance here or something, I've contaminated everyone, look at her (ie. me), she needs an ambulance!'  I was later to discover that the man was a very lovely fellow patient who was suffering from OCD but obviously at the time when I was extremely distressed and disorientated, I found what he said terrifying!  

If you are considered to be a risk to yourself or others, when you arrive at the ward you are put on 24/7 one to one observation.  This is where you have to remain in sight of a support worker the whole time and they write observations down of your every movement.  You even have to be in sight when you go to the toilet - which for me became a huge ordeal.  I think this is something that very few people experience in their lives under normal circumstances so it is very difficult to know how to deal with it.  As difficult as it was though, I can see that it was highly necessary in keeping me safe.

The first thing I did was attempt to hide from the support worker who was observing me by slipping down the side of my bed and taking a peak out my curtains.  This was the view I saw which I often liked to look out at...

The View from my Window

When the support worker asked me if I was going to brush my teeth, it suddenly occurred to me that I had no clothes other than the ones I was sitting in and no toiletries what so ever.  I felt the most skanky I ever had in my whole life.  I texted my mum asking her to travel up to London to bring me some clothes and essentials.  

During my first two days, I was in a state of shock.  I went completely mute and I was scared that I would never speak again.  I refused to leave my room as I was too anxious.  I had some food brought up to my room and ate very little.  At this time I was under the impression that I was under a section and so I was very paranoid that the staff were putting medication in my food.  I refused to sleep as I had to have a support worker observing me.  I threw many a tantrum about having to have the door open while I used the toilet.  I was extremely frustrated as I felt as though I couldn't communicate to people what the problem was as I struggled to speak.  The first two days are a bit of a blur of countless panic attacks and dissociative episodes.  Most of the time, I just sat in my bed with my hood up and a cushion shielding my face from view of the support worker, playing sudoku on my iPad again and again.  

My mum came to visit me in the afternoon of the first day, bringing a few items of clothing for me.  The visit was extremely difficult for my mum because obviously I wasn't speaking at the time and I suppose I wasn't in a state she was used to seeing.  The ward staff were incredibly supportive of my mum which was lovely because it must have been so tough for her.  I just felt quite relieved to be able to have a wash and change into some clean clothes.

The second day was much the same as the first.  The toilet ordeal came to a bit of a head, I couldn't take being watched anymore.  I slammed the door behind me, sat in front of it, in an attempt to barricade it and started having a panic attack.  One of the nurses was called.  She kept on trying to get me to speak and repeatedly asked me to open the door.  I failed to respond.  Then a piece of paper and a pen came under the door with the question 'Are you OK?'  It was something so simple, yet when I look back, it represented the start of a huge turnaround in my inpatient experience.  I realised that while I felt I couldn't speak, I could still write.  My hand shakily wrote back to her, explaining why I found the whole observation situation triggering.  She was very understanding and negotiated with me that the door could be put half way with the support worker listening rather than watching.  I thanked her and from there on I began speaking again, albeit in broken sentences.

The consultant who had been allocated to me came to see me in the afternoon.  He was very blunt and to the point which I think I needed.  He explained to me the reality of the situation that as an NHS patient, I could be moved at anytime but said that I had more of a chance of staying longer if I was to leave my room and engage with the programme.  The meeting was a bit of a wake up call.  It suddenly dawned upon me that whether I wanted to be there or not, I was stuck in the Priory as I was told that while I was an informal patient, I would be sectioned if I attempted to leave.  

Interestingly enough, a couple of years before this, when I was getting increasingly frustrated with the care I was receiving under the NHS, I did a bit of research on the internet one evening into the kind of care that was available in the private sector.  It's not as though I could have afforded it but I was curious to know what treatment options were actually out there.  The first link that I came across was one to The Priory Hospital North London.  When I read about the treatment that was available there, I felt a pang of sadness as I knew that it was unlikely I would ever receive such care.  As cheesy as it sounds, it felt like a dream that would never come true.  

When the doctor left, it suddenly occurred to me that I was in a place that I had previously dreamed about being in.  Regardless of whether I thought I deserved to be there, I realised that an opportunity had been granted to me and that I might as well make the most of it while it was there, if anything out of respect for the person who might have wanted to be there in my place.  I mulled these thoughts over in my head for a couple of hours then jumped to my feet, put on my shoes, walked over to the support worker sitting at my door and said to her, "Lovely evening for a walk don't you think?"  I've always thought this moment when I first left my room to be quite comical.  Bearing in mind that this support worker had patiently tried to get me to speak and leave my room all day and then out of nowhere I eagerly marched down the corridor with her asking to be shown every room in the building.  From there on in, I desperately tried to engage with the programme to the best of my ability.

One of the first things I did was attempt to write down the series of events that had lead up to my admission.

Day Three

This was the first day where I attended my schedule of group therapy sessions.  I had never had talking therapy in a group setting before nor had I ever really met many people who also had mental health problems so it was all quite new for me.  At the start of every group therapy session, the therapist would go round the room to each person doing a check in.  We had to say to everyone firstly whether we were an inpatient or an outpatient, what mental health problems we were suffering from and how we were feeling at that present time.  It can feel incredibly empowering to be surrounded by people who have experienced similar problems to you and whom you can relate to.  I did find group therapy quite daunting at first as I struggle socially with groups in general however the whole setting almost reminded me of school and in my case this made me feel more comfortable.  We would sometimes have handouts or scenarios to discuss together and were often encouraged to take notes.  Despite my illness, I have always been a very academic person so I really took to the structure of the sessions and felt as though my mind was being stimulated again.

Part of my care plan stated that I had to eat in the dinning room at the same time as the other patients.  I wasn't put on a meal plan as such because it was likely I wasn't going to be staying a long time.  I was however expected to have something to eat in the dinning room at every meal time.  This started to become a far bigger problem than I had expected it would be.  At home, I had complete control over what I ate, would know what was in the food, I would rarely eat in front of other people, I would limit the occasions in which I used cutlery and I would avoid being around foods that I was phobic of.  At the Priory I had no escape!  Due to my limited diet, I found it difficult to choose what I wanted to eat and I became hugely anxious over the fear foods that were around me.  I expect the food was actually really good, there was always a wide range of options available but I am certainly not the best person to judge.

I was extremely active yet overwhelmed that day.  I wanted to do everything and anything I could possibly do.  At this point, I was still under one to one observation and so I had a support worker who had to follow me everywhere I went.  By the end of her shift, she was absolutely exhausted as I had been racing around everywhere.  I apologised but secretly I found the whole thing quite funny!

Day Four

In the morning, after breakfast, I went for a brisk walk around the grounds - perhaps too brisk for the support worker who had to chase after me!  After that, I had quite an intensive programme of group therapy sessions that day.  I wrote down some of the things that I learnt:

Stress management - we had quite an open and philosophical discussion really about how much control human beings actually have.  I said that we human beings have a lot less control than we often think, maybe only about 10 percent.  However, in my case I hang onto what little control I have and in the process, I end up losing more control.  I can't control the fact that the traumatic events behind my flashbacks happened, I can't control that the things that trigger my flashbacks exist and are an accepted part of our society, I can't control the fact that it is socially acceptable for people to eat their dinner with a knife and fork but I can control my response to the flashback.  I may feel as though I am not very good at exercising that control right now but that doesn't mean I can't learn how to.

In the afternoon I had a Trauma therapy session.  I have always seen trauma as being at the root of all the other problems I suffer from and so I knew that this session was going to be hard and I wasn't wrong.  All the group therapy sessions I attended where rolling programmes which meant that people could join the group at anytime.  This meant that while it might have been my first session and I was pretty nervous, others had been coming for a number of weeks and were therefore much more comfortable.  This wasn't necessarily a bad thing, I still received a lot of helpful information from the session about how PTSD works but it meant that other members of the group were perhaps more comfortable in sharing some of their experiences than I was.  At the end of the session I had a panic attack, then dissociated and had to be taken back to my room my the nursing staff.

When I had come round a bit, one of the psychiatrists was sent in to see me.  It had come to a lot of the nurses attention that I was having panic attacks and dissociated a lot.  These would mainly start with me hyperventilating.  This particular doctor had a bit of a trick for stopping hyperventilation and so she was sent to see me so that she could explain it to me.  It is actually a really good technique.  When you feel yourself beginning to hyperventilate, you hold a scarf over your nose and mouth and count to thirty in your head.  You then take the scarf away and take a deep breath.  I was so surprised at how well the technique worked for me - try it!  

After this, I don't really know how but in a conversation with the doctor I began to make quite a detailed disclosure about an incident of sexual abuse in my past.  I had never spoken to anyone about it before and it happened over 17 years ago so it was a huge deal.  In hindsight, I am not so sure it was the best idea considering I was only going to be at the Priory for a short amount of time and usually after such a disclosure people require consistent and ongoing support.  However, for some reason it just felt like the time and place to say it and the doctor allowed me to.  I had bottled it up for so many years and it was almost as though I couldn't do so any longer and so I have no regrets for saying it.

This cat would always come and sit on my window ledge everyday.

Day Five

A bit of a low day on the whole.  I had very little sleep the night before because as usual I had PTSD night terror but it was far worse than normal, most probably owing to the disclosure I made the day before.  I found my group therapy sessions quite difficult.  One of the sessions I had was schema therapy, which I found quite intriguing.  During the session, I managed to offer another patient advice who had issues with overachieving and perfectionism.  It can feel quite empowering when you feel as though you've helped another person.  I found some of the advice and ideas other patients offered me absolutely amazing, sometimes the best person to listen to is someone who knows by experience exactly what you're going through.  I liked all the therapists as well, a lot of them had suffered from mental health problems in the past and I think it can really help when therapists are able to refer to their own experiences as it is easier to relate to them.  

However, during one of the group sessions that day, another patient said something that triggered me a fair bit.  She said that she had put on so much weight since coming to the Priory because of all the good food.  Of course, that set off alarm bells in my anorexic mindset, making me paranoid that I would also gain weight if I was to eat the food in the canteen.  This meant that lunch became a huge struggle.  It is kind of inevitable in a group therapy setting that patients will trigger each other, I probably said things that triggered other people.  I think that it is important that everyone should feel they can be open to express whatever's on their mind in that environment.  I would hate to think that someone would hold back from discussing something that was really troubling them out of fear of triggering someone else.  Being triggered became something I just had to deal with but it was hard of course.

After a very disastrous lunch, I became extremely overwhelmed, low, emotional and deflated.  I suddenly became very aware of just how ill I was.  When you're in an inpatient unit, you have nowhere to hide from your problems.  Before I had been admitted, I had used a lot of avoidance and would be very conscious to conceal my mental health problems from other people.  I had appeared very high functioning, I had worked right up to the time when I was taken to A&E despite my very bad state of mind.  In the Priory, I couldn't escape from or try to hide my problems anymore - they were there for me and everyone to see.  It hit me like a tonne of bricks - I was ill, really ill.  I suddenly saw just how many anorexic behaviours I had, just how bad my food phobias were, how many OCD rituals I was carrying out, how many flashbacks I suffered on a daily basis, how severely I could dissociate and so on.  It was frightening.  

I completely broke down but for the first time since I arrived I did something - I asked for help.  As a person who is very reluctant to admit I need help, this was quite a step.  I spoke to a support worker and she  managed to calm me down.  She said that while I might not see that I was going to get better, they had seen thousands of people come and go through their doors who were convinced they couldn't be helped and yet left in a better state than the one they came in.  I think her hope transferred to me a little bit.  What I found so lovely about that inpatient unit is that there was always someone around on the ward who would have the time to talk to you and it wouldn't matter how many times you would need picking up again, they would always try to help.

In the evening, some more of my clothes arrived from home and that lifted my mood a little.  Up until now I only had a few items of clothing that had been chosen for me by my mother.  Of course I was very grateful that she had travelled up to see me and bring some clothes but it had been a long time since I had been dressed by my mother.  I had a bit of a joke with some of the support workers that I was trampling around in clothes which I would have been too embarrassed to leave the house wearing under ordinary circumstances.  I therefore decided to make a list of clothes I wanted and my stepdad dropped them off at the hospital when he was working in London.  It probably shouldn't have mattered to me so much but I was quite comforted to be surrounded outfits that were familiar to me and that I had chosen myself.  

What to wear in an inpatient unit...

No. 1 priority = comfortable clothes

If you are going to be staying as an inpatient and are not sure what kind of clothes to bring with you, my advice would be to bring clothes that you are going to be comfortable in.  Some units, usually eating disorder units, have dress codes.  The Priory didn't as such, we were just told not to wear anything overly revealing or with offensive slogans on.  I think it is important to wear clothes that you feel comfortable sitting in for long periods of times, especially if you have a lot of group therapy sessions.  Inpatient should be a time where you are focusing on who you are rather than what you're wearing.  I say this but I did find such an attitude difficult to adopt myself as due to my BDD I can easily become quite obsessive about some aspects of my appearance.  I did make an effort to try and put a lot less thought into my outfit choices though.  Generally, I tended to wear cotton dresses with leggings as I prefer leggings to jeans for comfort.  I only brought a couple of pairs of shoes with me because the only time I would go outside was when I decided to have a quick walk around the grounds.

Day Six

This was probably one of my most memorable days at the Priory.  I woke up with very high anxiety that morning which wasn't unusual.  I found my morning therapy session quite difficult.  It was a mixed diagnosis CBT session and actually it was very useful.  The topic was mainly centred around phobias and how they become fuelled by our unhelpful thoughts and behaviours.  Sometimes I've found though that the most useful therapy sessions are usually the most difficult to deal with emotionally as they are getting to the heart of your personal issues.  This was very much the case for me.  In the session I made a bit of a connection with another patient though and we ended up becoming pretty good friends so that was definitely a positive.  

The dinning room situation was becoming progressively more difficult by the day which left me in a pretty distressed state for the afternoon.  I was told that I would have to miss all my afternoon sessions because some people from the NHS had come to see me.  I was feeling pretty nervous as I had a feeling that it could potentially result in me leaving the Priory and as tough as I was finding it there, something inside me was telling me that I was in the right place.  I was quite relieved when I opened my door to greet the first person who had come to see me - he was a student who was studying to be a psychiatrist under the NHS.  It's quite common practice apparently for consultants to use students to collect additional information about their cases.  The student told me a bit about himself and mentioned that he was from Belfast.  Due to the depressive and dissociative episodes I had been experiencing for a prolonged period of time, my memory had been affected quite considerably.  However, hearing the student mention Belfast suddenly caused me to remember that I had carried out quite an extensive fieldwork project out there while studying at university.  If anyone had asked me before if I had ever been to Belfast, I would have probably said no - it's quite scary really!  We had a bit of a conversation about Northern Ireland in general and it came back to me a bit just how excited I was by the research I carried out in Belfast.  I realised that sharing as much information about myself as I thought was relevant with the student would be in both his and my interests and so I divulged a good proportion of my life story to him.  It is incredible when you're an inpatient unit, just how many times you can end up having to tell the same story to many different people but you get used to it.

My next visit wasn't quite as pleasant.  It was two members of my local NHS crisis team who had come to discuss my options and transfer to an NHS ward.  I can't really express just how much that meeting frustrated me and I'm actually proud of the fact that despite my distressed state, I managed to give them a piece of my mind!  The first thing that annoyed me about the meeting was that they were very ill-informed about my case.  They had very limited information and a lot of their details about some of the traumas I had experienced was incorrect and made me quite distressed.  After asking me a few basic questions, the lady who spoke to me said: "Well it sounds like you have a lot of friends and family to support you, could you not just go home?"  I couldn't believe that she would even present going home as an option when she had just been told by the staff on the ward that I had been experiencing regular suicidal thoughts.  I made quite clear to her that if the NHS wanted to keep me alive, I needed to be on an inpatient ward.  I explained that I felt I was getting a lot out my time at the Priory and was in no hurry to be moved.  I said that I had absolutely no preference as to where I would be placed in the country so long as the unit treated the specific mental health problems I had.  The only preference that I stated was that I did not want to be placed in my local hospital because I had heard some horror stories about it.  I was told that my preferences would be taken into account, they would not force me to be admitted to a hospital I did not want to go to and if I was to be moved, I would be given 24 hours notice.  I was later to find out that they lied to me.  I ended up making the woman cry which was awkward to say the least.  Her closing words to me were, "It's a lovely place here, enjoy it while you can... Enjoy the food!"  I honestly don't know how a so called mental health professional could say something so insensitive towards someone who they know suffers from an eating disorder and food phobias.  

Day Seven

I was still fuming from the visit from the crisis team the day before.  I had a group therapy session on self-esteem which I unfortunately found a bit of a letdown.  The focus of the session was more upon recognizing where your low self esteem and negative beliefs about yourself come from.  As I have always been quite aware of where such beliefs stemmed from, for me the session just seemed to reaffirm what little self esteem I had at the time.  I think that it is important to note that I was in a very desperate place and therefore was just desperate to find something to help.  Group therapy sessions are catered for the masses in a way so you have to be a bit patient.  You are not always going to find something in every session that is going to be relevant to your personal situation and helpful to you.  My advice would be to just stick with it as it will be worthwhile when you come away with something that will really help you.  

The food situation went even more downhill that day.  It was Fish n Chips Friday in the canteen and I have a very extreme phobia of fish.  Despite several attempts, I failed to enter the canteen due to the amount of fish on display.  I ended up running out of the canteen in a panicked state and quite literally bumped into my key worker in the process.  She had witnessed the whole canteen saga and agreed that situation needed to be re-thought in my case.  

In the afternoon, I had a support group.  These are quite common in inpatient units so I’ve heard.  They are usually small groups where you just have a discussion amongst yourselves and a therapist about how you are finding your treatment and anything that is on your mind really.  I had found previous support groups really helpful as they were quite relaxed and I felt more comfortable sharing things in a smaller group.  This one, unfortunately, was more of a negative experience.  It was the first session in which I decided to open up to other patients about the reason why I was admitted to the Priory – a crisis situation.  One of the other patients said to me that I was young, silly and that she didn’t understand how someone so young could want to take their life.  While I didn’t show it during the session, what she said really angered me as it felt as though she was almost delegitimising my problems.  The therapist did ask her to rethink which I did appreciate but I left the session feeling very angry.  Anger always scares me as it makes me feel quite out of control although all it really consisted of was me storming about the corridors and grounds in an attempt to clear my head.

The only visible sign that I was in a mental hospital...
A chair facing a wall!

Day Eight

A much more positive day, I’m pleased to report!  It was the weekend which meant that a lot of patients were either discharged or had gone on leave and so it was much quieter on the ward.  We only had a couple of group sessions in the morning which were smaller and quite relaxed.  One of the sessions was music imagery and all we had to do was each pick a song, we would all listen to it and then discuss why we chose our songs and how they made us all feel.  For something so simple, it was a really effective session and quite enjoyable.  

In the afternoon, my mum and stepdad came to visit me.  They brought with them a few more things from home which I was really pleased about.  It can really make a difference to have some home comforts around you.  I asked particularly for them to bring plenty of paper for me to draw and writing materials as I felt it was important to have them there for when I felt the need to express things that were on my mind.  It was really lovely to have a more relaxing day after a week of quite intensive therapy sessions.

Day Nine

Another quiet day with very few patients around and no group therapy sessions.  I felt extremely tired and my body was very achy.  Due to the amount of panic attacks I was experiencing, the rush of adrenaline would often result in being left with a lot of muscle tension.  I was visited by my best friend who cheered me up.  I really appreciated the fact that she had travelled all the way to see me and she brought with her a card from some of my other friends.  It was lovely to know that other people were thinking of me and were there for me.

The card from my friends

It was  a beautiful day so we spent most of it outside, chatting and walking the grounds.  My friend stayed for dinner (which visitors are allowed to do) and so we ate together in the canteen, or in my case, attempted to eat.  While we were in the dining room, one of the kitchen staff dropped a whole tray of glasses quite close to where we were sitting.  Hearing the sound of smashing glass caused me to have a flashback to one of my traumas, I dissociated and collapsed on the table.  Apparently I came round very quickly and I was taken outside by a support worker to get some fresh air.  I was very upset by the whole thing though as I felt as though I had ruined my friend’s visit.  She reassured me that I hadn’t of course.

That evening I made a bit of a breakthrough in the sense that for the first time, I decided to sit in the communal lounge and chat to some of the other inpatients.  Although I had spoken to other patients in the group therapy sessions, I always found that easier as it was quite a controlled environment.  I have always been very anxious about socialising and meeting new people.  Due to my issues in the dining room, I felt like I was missing out on the social side of the ward a lot as that was the time when the other patients would sit and chat together.  From the day I arrived though, this lovely patient always made an effort to come over and speak to me even though I was exceptionally shy.  That evening I finally sat with her and a couple of the other patients and had just a very nice general chat.  If you are as socially anxious as I am, it can be very difficult to take the plunge and introduce yourself to the other patients but it can be a great comfort to know that you are not alone in your inpatient experience.  I am still in contact with some of the patients I met there and I am so grateful to the lovely lady who repeatedly tried to include me especially as she was going through a very difficult time herself.

Day Ten

It was a bank holiday so all group therapy sessions were cancelled which meant that it was yet another quiet and easygoing day on the ward.  I spent most of the morning doing some artwork.  I used to sit on the floor, down the side of my bed, next to my window in order to get the best light.  By this point I had been reduced to half-hourly observations by the support staff as I had proven I was not such an immediate risk to myself.  Some of them gave me funny looks when they came in my room to check on me and saw my head pop up from behind my bed!  I produced quite a lot of art during my time at the Priory:

My temporary studio!

You can't hide behind your shield forever.

Contemplating where life's stream will take me next.

Apparently I returned from the canteen after lunch in a very dissociated and confused state.  I had my blood pressure checked which was worryingly low but it did increase.  In the afternoon my mum came to visit me again but this time she brought my brother with her.  I was so pleased to see him as he was going to be moving abroad so it was lovely to see him before he went away.  

Day Eleven

The therapy programme recommenced so I was in for quite an intensive day.  My consultant was called to see me in the morning because the staff had become concerned about the amount I was eating.  I explained that despite my best efforts, I was finding that eating in the dining room was becoming more difficult each time.  The doctor was quite insistent that I continued to try and eating the dining room and said that I had to effectively double what I was eating.  This made me hugely anxious as from my perspective, I was finding what I was eating already to be almost impossible.  The doctor also said that he felt I dressed provocatively and that it was giving the wrong impression.  This really shocked me as I never classed the way I dress as being particularly unusual or inappropriate for a person of my age and provocative is the last thing I’d ever want to appear.  Understandably, my meeting with the consultant really unsettled me.  While I found him to be very tough and his fashion police role to be very unnecessary, overall I would say that he was a very good doctor and I had a lot to thank him for during my stay.  He was very realistic, knew that my time at the Priory was limited and was keen to push me to get as much out of the experience while I was there, even if that meant being quite tough on me.

That day my dining room issues came to a head.  I was sent down to the canteen with a support worker to choose my food.  Leek and potato soup was on the menu which is one of my worst fear foods.  As soon as I smelt it, I repeatedly started running in and out the canteen, jumping in the air!  One of the therapists saw the whole fiasco and said that she didn’t think it was a good idea for me to carry on as she thought it was too much for me to take on.  Bearing in mind what I had just been told by the doctor though, I felt as though I had no other option but to eat in the dining room and so was determined to do it.  Somehow I eventually managed to sit at a table with a nurse and a support worker beside me.  However, as I was eating, I severely dissociated and they said that I should stop eating and go back to the ward.  As I attempted to get up and walk away, my legs gave way and I collapsed over a table.  Some support workers then attempted to help me to walk back to the ward but I ended up collapsing completely in the reception of the hospital and apparently started thrashing around having a dissociative seizure.  I was carried back to the ward in a very hazy state and had my blood pressure and blood sugar tested.  It was quite an ordeal.  

I was taken to my room to rest and be monitored by the nursing staff but I did not stay there long.  As soon as I had come round enough to walk I decided to take myself off to my trauma therapy session and I’m glad I did as I was given some useful information about how to go about exposure work which has been really helpful to me.

Day Twelve

I was still quite shaken up and exhausted from my dissociative episode the day before.  In the morning my named nurse came to see me to discuss what happened.  It was agreed among the nursing staff that while the doctor was keen for me to continue to carry on eating in the dining room, from their point of view the situation was becoming unmanageable and was doing me more harm than good.  I explained why I had been finding it so difficult and that although I saw that my food phobias and eating issues were a huge problem, pushing myself to eat in the dining was in fact exacerbating the problem.  She listened and from there on in it was decided that I would have to collect my food from the canteen but would be able to eat it in my room.  I really appreciated that they valued my input in deciding how to move forward.  I think that you should always feel as though your opinion is listened to with regards to your care because ultimately you are the best expert on you.  

I found my time at the Priory troubling in the sense that it became overtly clear to me just how ill I was.  As I have multiple mental health problems, it felt as though I was compelled to try and tackle them all at once.  This became too much to handle and so I began to gain a better idea about how I could go about trying to tackle each problem at a time and where I should start in my recovery.  

In the afternoon, I had a Mindfulness session.  I had never tried any mindfulness before but had always been very interested in it.  As ever, I found the session hard emotionally because sometimes there can be words in the imagery readings that trigger some of my traumatic memories, especially if they mention parts of the body.  This can mean that something that is meant to make me relaxed, grounded and focused can end up causing me to have a flashback, become very triggered and distracted.  I did learn though that mindfulness could be very useful to me if I tailored it to suit my needs and I have experimented with elements of mindfulness since.

I bought this quirky journal just before I was admitted with no particular purpose in mind for it.
I guess I found a purpose for it at the Priory.

Day Thirteen

I didn’t know it when I woke up but this was to be my last day at the Priory.  This was the first morning where I opted to eat my breakfast in the dining room on a table with other patients.  I found breakfast easier as it was more predictable and with less fear foods on display.  It felt like progress to be able to sit and have a chat over breakfast rather than sitting anxiously in my room.

In the morning my key worker saw me to discuss how I was getting on with the timetable of therapy I was following.  She offered me some advice on the type of therapy they felt would benefit me in my future recovery.  I thought it was amazing really, considering that I was an NHS patient who was at the Priory on a temporary basis, that I was allowed to take a full part in the programme and that so many people seemed invested in my recovery even though I was only ever going to be there for a short while.  They were keen to offer me advice on how I could move forwards in my recovery after being transferred from the Priory.

The rest of the day was incredibly useful in terms of the group therapy sessions.  I did find my compassionate mind session extremely distressing as it really hit home and struck at the root of all my problems.  I returned to the ward in a dissociated state and collapsed in a corridor.  However, the session made me realise that a compassionate mind approach to trauma therapy could be highly useful to me and after leaving the Priory, I read quite extensively into the theory.

After collapsing and still in a dissociated state, the doctor came to visit me with two of his students so that he could show them how to recognise the symptoms of dissociation.  I suddenly felt a bit like an animal at the zoo with a tour guide telling people, “This is dissociation.”  Yet I can see it was highly useful to the students and they were quite surprised to see the difference when I came round from my dissociative state.

Despite a very tough day, I sat in the communal lounge of the ward with some of the patients I had become close to during my stay and I was beginning to feel quite at home.  I then went back to my room, had a shower, put on my pyjamas and settled down for the night with some evening television while looking over my schedule for the following day.  At 8:30 pm the scary nurse who admitted me, unexpectedly came to my room and announced quite bluntly that they had just received a message that in 20 minutes time an ambulance was coming to transfer me to the one hospital that I had stated to the crisis team that I did not want to be placed in.  

I couldn’t believe it!  It certainly wasn’t the 24 hours notice that I had been promised nor was my preference taken into account.  The nurse sat in my room and watched me pack my bag.  I stuffed everything in with very little thought as I was past caring.  As soon as I walked out my room, the ambulance crew were there waiting.  I burst into tears (which is a rarity for me) and shouted that I didn’t want to leave.  I wasn’t even allowed to say goodbye to the other patients as the ambulance crew physically dragged me away from them and locked me in the ambulance car.  Nonetheless all the patients and some of the staff ran outside to wave me off.  Lots of them were crying, staff included; I really wasn’t expecting such a reaction but it was pretty touching.  

All of a sudden, my experience at the Priory was over.

The thank you card I sent to the Priory.

My Reflections on My Inpatient Experience

I know that I wasn’t a long term inpatient but I think I will always remember my short time at the Priory as quite a life changing experience.  In an inpatient unit you are surrounded by mental health and that can be quite daunting and overwhelming.  When I arrived at the Priory I felt as though I had completely given up on life so for the staff there to have quickly helped me to get in such a place to engage with the programme was quite an achievement in itself.  The best thing about my time there was that I was given an opportunity to sample so many different approaches to therapy that I hadn’t had access to before.  It gave me a better understanding of how best to move forward with my recovery.

This post is far longer than I ever intended it to be and I completely understand if you didn’t make it through the whole thing.  I hope though that it has given you a bit of an insight into how it is to be an inpatient.  I would be happy to answer any questions you might have about my experiences or mental health care in general.  I would also be interested to hear about other people’s inpatient experiences as well.  I will be writing another post about my experience in the second hospital I was placed in but I think you’ll be relieved to know that it is going to be considerably shorter than this one as I was only there for four days.  

I would just like to send a message out there to anyone who is struggling with mental health problems.  Although my inpatient experience was short, I know that once you enter a unit, you can feel as though you’re never going to leave.  I just want to say that there is life out there after inpatient.  I never thought I would find it but I’m getting there.  Recently, I decided to take a trip back to the Priory to take a photo of the hospital from the other side of the fence.  Perhaps there is something quite philosophical about this but nonetheless I felt compelled to do it and it felt quite liberating.

The One Day Seeker