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I peep around the door to the room they want me to enter. There’s 4 people sitting in there. I feel outnumbered. I walk away and think I can’t do this….

My husband encourages me in. I sit and they all introduce themselves. AMHP, AMPH in training, Psychiatrist and a nurse from the unit. They spend the next half an hour or so determining I did not have capacity and was at risk to myself.

I was detained but this time I didn’t need to go anywhere. I was already in lock up but this time I wouldn’t be leaving the building so easily to go on walks or visits to the shops with my fellow mothers in the unit. I would require two escorts with me to go for a walk. I was watched more frequently.

I was given leave to return home for the weekend. I was pleased about this but anxious. The nurse said my husband and I made a good team and we would be alright. Although my thoughts were less confused and reality was trumping paranoia, I was also realising even more clearly now how depressed I was and the burden I was placing on my baby boy and husband. I felt guilty and that I was letting them down. I had been having suicidal thoughts but I had not acted on them. That evening at home I had finished having a shower and was alone upstairs. I then decided that I might try to see if I could do what I wanted to do. I tied the hairdryer cable around my neck and tightened it. I loosened it and realised that if I was going to do it I could. I would later disclose what I did which then led to another MHA assessment as I demanded to be discharged.

One night at the Unit baby boy was fast asleep in my room and I was with my husband in the communal area. When your baby cries you know if it’s yours or not. I heard baby boy cry so I ran into my room to find the cot mobile on. I panic and grab baby boy from out of the cot.

I was convinced someone at the unit had come in and turned it on to freak me out. I could not be reassured it wasn’t.

Later in my stay when my husband and I reflected on it and when I was less paranoid, we even considered it was a ghost and the room was haunted. In actual fact we eventually discovered the cot mobile had a noise sensor that if the baby cried it would turn on automatically.

One day when the psychiatrist left the room briefly I saw on his computer some key keywords that he had typed up. High risk to suicide and self harm. Severe psychomotor retardation. This was before he decided I was psychotic too.

Although I was a informal patient the psychiatrist was reluctant to let me off the premises but eventually agreed to let me visit the local area under the supervision of my husband as long as I promised to come back.

One day on a visit out we were walking in a local town and I saw a baby toy on the pavement that baby boy also had. Thoughts ran through my mind that they, the government, were following me and to let me know that they were, they were putting toys that baby boy had in places I could see.

Psychiatrist was determined I needed to be on antipsychotics. By this point I was so exhausted by the distress and anxiety I just gave in. If my tablets were already contaminated what was the point in refusing another tablet. I had given in to whatever they wanted to do to me.

There was another mum at the unit who had postpartum psychosis and believed the NHS was evil. I thought she was being paranoid. How could I think that given I was paranoid myself? I think I had moments of lucidity but in a way I was also ego centric. Why would they be bothering with her when they are preoccupied with contaminating my medication!

I was put on Aripiprazole initially because I had gestational diabetes so this was the best one to be on. When the psychiatrist changed back to the usual psychiatrist who they were filling in for, she changed it to Olanzapine. This would have be one of the biggest mistakes I would make. I was 52kg when I was admitted. Olanzapine increased my appetite massively and slowed down my metabolism. A CMHT psychologist would later deny Olanzapine does this despite the fact it’s well documented that it does. My faith in psychiatry was minimal. In the course of 2 years I gained 2 stone. I never felt full up. It was depressing.

I was left me feeling even more at an unease with my environment and those responsible for my care. I went for my first ward round.

The psychiatrist who did the check in assessment was there. The first thing he asked me was “do you see faces of dead babies?”… I was starting to think these people needed locking up, not me!

I refused medication again but then the unit manager said there’s no point me being there if I don’t take medication. I felt bad. I reluctantly accepted to start on Sertraline.

When it came to giving me my first medication I was uncertain about it’s origins. I feared it could still be contaminated. I asked to see the box it came from. From then on every time I was given my medication they would have to show themselves taking the tablets out of the box and poured straight into the paper cup.

My baby boy was used to sleeping with me in bed at home but this went against their policy at the unit. He slept in a sleepyhead so I put him on my bed and went to sleep. The room had a faint green glow that emitted from the fire safety alarm on the ceiling.

I somehow managed to get to sleep as I was completely emotionally exhausted. In the middle of the night I was in a deep sleep when all of a sudden I hear my voice being said and someone touch me. As I open my eyes I see two figures looming over me in the glow of the green light. I forget where I am and think I’m being abducted. I scream my lungs out and flap my arms as I try to fight them away. I wake the other patients in the unit and these two figures jump back. They reassure me they are the nurses and tell me to put baby boy into his cot. As they walk out of the room one of them says I scared the shit out of her…

It slowly sunk in that I was locked up. The windows couldn’t be opened and the doors to leave the building were locked.

The first night I woke up and I couldn’t breathe. I started to panic that I couldn’t leave and this felt suffocating. I walked into the corridor and one of the nurses asked if I needed help. I said no but then returned back into the corridor. She asked again. I was having a panic attack but they didn’t realise this. As I sat on the edge of the bed three of them surrounded me and took my blood pressure and tested my blood sugars. When they realised there was nothing physically wrong I pleaded to go and stand in the back garden for fresh air. She told me no because she wouldn’t be able to see me. I promised her that I would stand by the door but she refused. She said to go to the window and sit by the mesh covering for fresh air. I reluctantly did this and eventually returned back into bed.

I packed mine and baby’s things ready for the next day when we would be travelling to another county for me to stay at a mother and baby unit.

I think I was numb to what was happening until we reached closer to our destination in the car. The unit called us on our way there wandering if I was coming.

I sobbed uncontrollably as we pulled into the car park. I didn’t want to go. It was sinking in that I was going into a complete unknown. I was so scared.

We buzzed into the unit and as the doors shut behind us I didn’t fully appreciate that I would not be leaving those doors unattended for quite some time.

We were taken to my own room but everything was blurred through my tears. I was shown around and introduced to various people but didn’t take anything in.

Back in my room they wanted to check my bags I think but I was in a state and I think I was let off. They were trying to be respectful. They asked if I wanted someone with me all the time or to check in on me. I declined and said I would like to be on my own.

I eventually saw a psychiatrist x2, clearly one was in training, for an assessment. Thankfully they didn’t ask me to take medication.

I was then escorted to a clinic room where two nurses used an instruction manual to try and wire me up to the ECG. This did not fill me with optimism that I was in good hands as they fumbled around with the various wires as they said to each other they hoped they were doing it right and would work ok. Somehow they managed to get it done.

Whilst this was going on I noticed a notepad with the letters QA on it. This caused me to panic. Prior to my admission I had started to see a car with QA written on it. I believed it was from social services following me because at the back of the envelope that the social worker’s report was sent in had a return address to the QA team. Now there was QA at the unit. No one could convince me that they were unrelated. I felt I couldn’t trust these people.

The MHA assessment meeting concluded that the AMHP would leave it for the weekend to allow for baby boy’s christening. She would phone next week.

I spoke with her the following week and expressed my annoyance when she confirmed that the last meeting was a MHA assessment. I pleaded with her to not detain me. She explained her dilemma saying she was being pressured by the psychiatrists and the perinatal mental health lead to section me. She said she would be visiting again.

The second time this AMHP visited she had my care coordinator and another lady present. I felt deflated. I’m a private person and all these people felt like they were invading my privacy. The new lady turned out to be the AMHP Lead. The AMHP wanted a second opinion and a pair of fresh eyes on things. Husband took baby boy out for a walk and I was left outnumbered 3 against 1. After much discussion I reluctantly agreed I would take the medication as long as it meant I did not go into hospital.

Husband then arrived home and shared his opinion on the situation. He explained that when he came home from work he didn’t know what he would come home to find. They said he couldn’t live like that and discussion again ensued about what was best. I couldn’t make up my mind what I wanted to happen- hospital or not? The lead AMHP said she could make the decision for me. I ignored her. In the end I accepted going into hospital- thinking I could leave at any time. AMHP corrected this assumption but I was barely listening. If I wanted to leave I would I thought.

CMHT knew of my mistrust in them and my stubbornness to fully engage with them so it’s no surprise that the next people to call at my home failed to introduce themselves and what they were doing there.

In walk two new people into my house. One, who I later work out is the psychiatrist asks for a cup of tea and then says very little until the end of the meeting when he talks about the history of psychiatric hospitals… The other I find out later was an AMHP (Approved mental health professional) who did most of the talking. I can’t remember anything that was asked. I just know I didn’t want to take medication and didn’t want to go to hospital. What I do strongly remember are my final words towards the end of the meeting when she says she already has one psychiatrist recommendation for hospital. It then clicked that the meeting was an MHA Assessment. I reply:

“This is bullshit. This is bullshit”…