Tag: forced treatment

I see now that the ‘borderline’ label represents the shadow of our abusive and patriarchal power structures, which have great need to deny abuses (especially sexual), and to pathologize and scapegoat the sensitive, the feminine, and the different.

As time passed, the attrition of being in ‘services’ for so long took its toll on me. I would stay in my room for weeks on end. The conveyor belt is a long, slow and complicated process. Some never get off of it. Some get processed and dumped in the waste bin so to speak. Some simply are unable to endure it and commit suicide.

I ended up admitted to a psychiatric hospital without being involved in that decision. At a time of stress and vulnerability I expected genuine support. Instead I had the police on my doorstep and I was locked into a building for three weeks. Forced hospitalisation was a serious trauma and I continue to suffer post-traumatic stress over a decade later.

Every year, around 46,000 people in England are subject to compulsory treatment under the Mental Health Act. Black people are around four times more likely to be ‘Sectioned’ than White people. Let’s take steps to change the law here in the UK, protecting the rights of people within the mental health care system to exercise informed consent and preserve their autonomy.

Having one’s rights and freedoms removed is inherently degrading, no matter how nicely or correctly the procedures for enforcing and managing those removals are implemented. When one’s ability to act autonomously and in personally meaningful ways is significantly undermined for an extended period of time, it is soul destroying, and for me, it certainly contributed to my escalating mental distress.