The one that got away (part 1)

This is my first time in hospital. It's actually the first time I've had any contact with NHS mental health services.

Something that has become startlingly clear as my admission has gone on is the chronicity of mental illness. Viz, most people are here for the 4th, 5th, 10th or even 20th time. When people get (re) admitted, they greet patients and staff like old friends. Most of the serious mental illnesses (schizophrenia and bi-polar) typically emerge in late teens or early twenties. This means that it is not at all uncommon for a 30 year old to be admitted, and to have known some of the staff since his teens or early adulthood. The staff don't leave either!

All in all, it's one big, massively dysfunctional, family.

But occasionally, people are admitted who are floridly psychotic - like, seriously, seriously ill- and within a month they are gone. When I say 'gone', I don't mean 'gone until the next time'. I mean gone. These are a different sort of patient. And watching their recovery is enough to give you goose bumps. These very few patients are enough to convince anyone that modern psychiatry, and psychopharmacology, can work wonders.

Let me tell you about one of those that got away.

Emily is 23. She has an infant of 9 months'. She has a lovely face, and figure. When she is admitted, she is the ill-est person I have ever seen. It was late in the evening, when the ward was suddenly full of Emily's concerned, and possibly distraught, family. The whole lot of them were here until 11pm. Already a sign that this was no usual admission. Admissions tend not to be accompanied by a 9 month old baby and ten of the patients' extended family. Nor is anyone allowed to remain on the ward after visiting time has finished. This lot were here until 11pm.

When they have gone, it becomes clear why they were allowed to remain for so long. Emily walks around slapping everyones face, takes her clothes off, spits, growls and is quite obviously not living I the here and now. The staff chase her around the ward, trying to orientate her to time and place. But their "this is the male dormitory, you can't be down here" is met with utter bafflement from Emily. She simply cannot comprehend what is being said. During the next few days, all of the rules are relaxed to try and accommodate her. She is allowed to sleep wherever she can. She has two members of staff with her at all times. She is injected (rapid tranq-ed) every few hours. But there is no sign of improvement. It's hard to describe the demeanour and behaviour of someone who just 'isn't there'. I used to sit in the 'quiet room' and watch dvd's. Emily would sit next to me for about 30 seconds before climbing all over me, punching me and turning the tv off at the wall. She then pushed the tv off the table it was sitting on.

This was how it was.

She didn't use the toilet, she had an aversion to wearing clothes, she didn't know who her baby son was and she most definitely didn't stay in the girls' dormitory,

After about 10 days, I really thought that this was the end of her life, as she had known it. She was, quite simply, so far gone that I couldn't see how a whole, coherent and orientated person could ever re emerge.

Seeing what happens when the brain goes so wrong is terrifying. This could be your friend. Your sister. Your brother. Fuck, this could be you.

And if it was any of these people, I can promise you that you could do far worse than ending up on this ward. The staff were brilliant. Patient, caring, tolerant and discreet.

Emily went to the PICU for two weeks. (PICU stands for psychiatric intensive care unit. These are locked wards, and they hold people who are too ill or disordered to be contained safely on an open acute ward.)