What I Mean When I Say ‘Trauma from Hospital and Inpatient Settings’
Last week, Fi Hollings (@finding_fi_ on Instagram) shared this post titled ‘When I say ‘trauma from hospital & inpatient seeings’, what I mean is…’ and it really got me thinking about the trauma I have from my time in hospital, both as a teenager in a CAMHS unit and recently on adult acute inpatient wards.
So, when I say ‘trauma from hospital and inpatient settings’, this is what I mean…
Waking up in the night and panicking that I am trapped because there is half a minute where I question ‘am I sectioned and locked in again?’
Being terrified of becoming unwell again because being unwell has led to my freedom being taken away, lack of autonomy, restraint and coercion.
The sound of alarms instantly triggering a meltdown because they remind me of past incidents.
Not trusting medical professionals because they have taken away my liberty, restrained me and forced medication I hadn’t wanted into me.
Feeling panic in small spaces and events where I can’t easily escape because for a long while I wasn’t able to go outside as in when I wanted to.
Feeling the need to have complete autonomy and control over myself and my own body because I didn’t for so long.
Constantly feeling the need to over-explain myself when I am struggling and back up my thoughts about treatment with evidence and research because I haven’t always felt listened to.
Being scared of being touched because I have been restrained and injected without my consent too many times.
Feeling anxious about not being able to make my own food because I wasn’t allowed control over my food for so long.
Having a constant need to be outside or desire to run because for a while I couldn’t escape the same four walls to even get any fresh air.
Being sectioned and in mental health units are traumatic experiences, and there are a variety of blogs and articles on this. For example, Priya’s article for Mind that ‘I have never felt more unsafe than I did in hospital’ and an article for The Guardian titled ‘Sectioned children face more trauma in the institutions supposed to protect them’. Even research backs up the distress - ‘Patients' experiences of assessment and detention under mental health legislation: systematic review and qualitative meta-synthesis’.
I was sectioned when I was 16 and 18, and then not again until I was 23, but the effects of being sectioned as a teenager still impacted me in my early twenties. And now I have more trauma to work through from my recent admissions.
We have to acknowledge the harm, distress and trauma that services can cause, and we have to allow patients time to trust and autonomy to make decisions as much as possible to reduce any further harm. I wrote about iatrogenic harm in mental health services here.
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