What is it to be sectioned ?
What is been sectioned? You can read all about the legal system around being sectioned on the MIND Factsheet. However. I would like to write about what being sectioned is like from a personal experience.
As of January 2024, I find myself back on Section 3 of the Mental Health Act. This happened whilst in a general Ward recovering from a physical illness. I now find myself mentally unwell once again. The suicidal ideation I experience when very depressed has increased over recent weeks due to the emotional and physical stress I currently live with.
So what does it actually feel like ?
Nurses have asked me what it feels like to be sectioned once again. My answer is a mixture of feelings. As I wait for a transfer from a general Ward to a psychiatric ward I’m left feeling angry. Anger that it took many weeks for me to express my distress before anyone took it seriously. I had to be experiencing hullunactions before anyone thought I was ill enough to need sectioning. Mental health care is so underfunded and overstretched in the UK they people do not get the care they need at the point they first need it.
As I wait for my transfer I’m left wondering about the sectioned journey ahead. Knowing at this time I’ve no choice but to be part of a journey I don’t want to be part of. I’m left feeling overwhelmed and fearful of being back in a psychiatric ward. All the noise and distress they go with it, but also the same time the relief that I don’t have to fight on my own anymore.
Having your liberty and freedom taken away through a section of the Mental Health Act is a big deal. You are deemed not well enough to make the right choices about your life at the time you want to make them. As a patient, you have no choice but to comply with the treatment set out by the doctors responsible for care.
I’m not really sure how to finish this page, but I will say – that I feel there is a lot of fear around the mental system in general. There is a lot of misunderstanding and curiosity around been sectioned.