Update From a Mental Health Ward

I thought I would write here some things I’ve been going through to get it off my chest so to speak. I’ve been in a mental health hospital for about 5 months to date and its really gotten to me a bit staying in an acute ward for this length of time. I experience schizophrenia and generally have a range of symptoms from hearing voices to talking to myself. However, my illness doesn’t get in the way of my pursuit of spirituality and granted my parents can sometimes mistake my pursuit for spirituality for my illness and I don’t blame them for this. I went through a traumatic experience at a young age that has left me debilitated and I intend on finding a therapist when I’m out of this ward.

It also doesn’t help my situation when the Dr on this ward is arguably more unwell than the patients he is suppose to be helping. I’ve raised several complaints about my stay here and these have generally been overlooked, granted I didn’t speak directly with the contact for the complaints because I’ve been busy in here doing spiritual work. I also want to be clear that I don’t blame the person or person[s] responsible for my traumatic experience or “birthday party” as one expert on trauma suggested I should describe it.

I would just like to add that I’ve been focussing much more lately on the moment and this has brought some unwanted memories to the forefront of my mind. However, I’m not able to recall the experiences because it simply doesn’t enter my mind and its like I’m two people living a shared experience. I also feel that waiting is on the cards in my life… Like a LOT of waiting because I spread a certain message on this blog and advertised it, selling out the group that gave that message – most unwise of myself to do this and I’m slowly but surely paying off my debts to society in doing this and suffering on this ward for that act of mine.

Most people on this ward get the wrong idea about me because I’ve simply been here for this length of time and its conditioned me to being an unkind person. They make me out on this ward to be some kind of celebrity which I don’t like – the reason they do so is because I’ve been on this ward for 5 months and the staff are generally able to recognize that the fruits from my tree are wholesome and good compared to others and they also gossip about me on this ward behind my back about me, which I do not appreciate.

I to be honest want a quiet life and prefer not to be known to those I don’t know. Its quite the experience to be a well regarded Ajahn on a mental health ward and have the staff celebrating the fact that I’m on the ward with my presence when its the staff and some patients who are stacking up debt in their spiritual bank account for their actions towards me in shamelessly treating me as equal to some of these low life people on this acute mental health ward and the staff act like everything is fine when I am been severely mentally wounded by a 5 month stay on their ward – I just have learned to disguise it well and have my guide and angels and masters whom I place myself in their hands at the start of each day looking after me, ensuring that I am healed just enough to endure the mental health ward.

Let me be clear the staff here are and will be once they realize their transgression will be deeply remorseful for keeping me held here for this length of time because I shouldn’t be here on this ward and they have very little right to keep me here as far as I’m concerned because there is very little wrong with me, but yet the symptoms of my illness is due to the conditioning of being on a ward for a prolonged period of time, again the Dr – my responsible clinician is more unwell than he seems and does not have capacity to be in the position that he is in as far as I’m concerned. The staff are also the people that are responsible for the breaking of the covenant between God and his people and are utterly shameless in having be held here against my will.

Furthermore, it doesn’t help that my health care coordinator isn’t and hasn’t helped me at all in the slightest to leave this place and my independent mental health advocate I haven’t heard from in over a month and I don’t have his number saved on my phone. On the upside however I may be getting a tribunal next month at some point to perhaps get me discharged from this ward and my solicitor is useful in fixing and managing my care.

I’ve gone through hell being on this ward and it doesn’t help that the smallest of things that I do is judged and scrutinised to such minute detail that it makes me feel unwell even being seen on the cameras they have here. It also doesn’t help my illness when I can sense my Responsible clinician watching silently me eat food such that I feel like I’m some kind of lab rat. They have truly made an idol of me on this ward and I am not the person they believe me to be on this ward – The staff are suffering more from mental health and illness than the patients they are suppose to be helping and aiding.

To conclude, I am a my wits end with the level of care I have received on this acute mental health ward, this hospital and trust have utterly failed in providing me with care to a high standard, the staff have failed in their role to provide support and care and the clinical team have failed in the “quick in and out job” support that an acute mental health ward is suppose to provide. I am now scarred for life in my long stay on this ward and if they were to apologise in writing I would not accept their apology. I hope to pursue legal action and my hope is that the staff lose their jobs for their complete and utter failure in providing the first of his kind 2nd generation with the mental health care he was in need of. The staff are a disgrace to mental health nursing and the Dr is in need of professional help and I only hope that he doesn’t experience the level of care that he himself has provided me with. I wouldn’t wish it on my worse enemy half the staff I’ve had to go through on this ward. The silver lining is that worldly events are going well with the Gaze ceasefire.