And you love it, don't deny it! I brighten up your day.
I try my best, thank you!
Well...I don't know everyone here on Facebook.

Oh wow that's pretty cool! I only have 4 people on Facebook xD

Hell, it's one more than three!

I dont even know how many i have!

I am bored. I can't wait until my driving lesson!

FabulousMike very true!

I'm watching Bargin hunt at the moment. They rarely make any profit. Seriously, I could make so much money on this show!

When is your driving lesson Beckie?

I havent watched bargain hunt in ages. I used to have to watch it all the time at hospital!

It's at 2pm.
Not long to go!

I take it it wasn't your first choice in programme in hospital xD
Oooh yes! Not long!!

Not exactly! Lol!
And Jeremy kyle seemed to be on the tv a lot as well!!

Oh not Jeremy kyle!! Not a fan of him!! I would have put movies on my phone and watched them instead!

I did but it drained the battery so quickly so it alwas forever on charge!
So i had no choice! :p

In one long stay hospital i was in, the ward only had 5 people and the living room and kitchen were in the same room. And the bedrooms were locked off during the day so i was forced to watch all the twilight films!!
There was absolutely no escape!!

Hey guys. Twilight *shudders*

Ikr!!

How are you luna?

Its so grey here, it looks like its threatening to rain!

Haha!!! Twilight, the glitter vampires xD I've never seen them thankfully. I feel for you!
Having the bedrooms off limits sounds tough though, what if you needed time out to chill or something?! Crazy!

Hello Luna!!

It was really annoying having the bedrooms locked up all day!
You just had to sit in the lounge with no very comfy chairs! Dont know how i coped with that for a year!!
Horrible place!!

A year?! Wow yeah I wouldn't be able to cope with that!!

How comes they locked the bedrooms? I would have been lost without retreating to my room.

I think it was to encourage us to go to groups and be social and shiz.
Even when i was really physically ill, still had to come down. Was horrible!
Not as bad as the seclusion room though!
One blanket, no clothes, not allowed to the toilet but given a sick bowl type thing instead. Door with 6 locks on it and no windows at all.
Hard to believe thats still allowed these days!!
At least those days are well and truly over!!

That sounds horrific. Surely that can't be allowed. Especially denying someone the right to go to the toilet. Sounds like abuse!

Wait what?! That's like a torture room or something!!!!

It probably was abuse tbh. I can only hope it's changed now. But i doubt it! :/
Longest i was in was for 3 days but i know of people who got longer! You lost all sense of days and time. It was really disorienting!

That's disgusting. I hope someone has made a complaint or something. It makes me so angry how much abuse staff can get away with in the name of 'treatment'. It's wrong and needs to stop.

Yeah, some horrible things went down in that place.
I could easily list many more!!

I doubt anyone has complained. It was a medium secure forensic unit so who's going to believe crazy criminals?!
And funnily enough, when the CQC came round, i heard a nurse say 'Yes we don't use the seclusion room anymore'
Lolz
Anyway. I will shut up about that now!!

I agree with Luna 1000%, that is disgusting. I'm really sorry you had to go through that. Horrible. I would have complained.

There used to be this one member of staff that would overdose me on benzos at night or inject me for no reason because he 'wasn't in the mood to deal with me'. When I needed stitches, he got a dressing and threw it at me and told me to deal with it.
Luckily there was a patient who saw it all and she wrote it all down and made a huge complaint about the ward.

Thanks. Its all behind me now.
I wasn't really in the right state of mind to complain.
I did complain once when a nurse told me i was going to hell but manager just said she was joking :eyeroll:

Oh my goodness this is all so horrible!!! I'm glad I don't tell the doctors everything about me now in case something bad happens to me too. This is terrible!! D:

It's not all bad. I've met lovely, caring members of staff and met some interesting people on the wards. The ward I used to work on, I was so impressed by how much the staff cared and interacted with the patients. It's a bit of a lottery really.

Id still tell doctors stuff though!
Ive been in many, many hospitals and this is the only one that has been like this!
The other places dont have seclusion rooms or anything like that and the staff are a lot nicer!

But if you get put in a hospital like that, are you able to leave if you want to? Go home? Or do they trap you?

They can't section you without a good reason. You'd have to be deemed a danger to yourself or others and be refusing treatment. It's a very last resort.
You can go voluntarily which generally means you'll get out quicker.

This one was a private, forensic secure unit. You dont get send there unless you've commited some sort of crime like arson or gbh or something. And 99% of patients came from prison.
So i think its vveerrryy unlikely that yoi would get sent somewhree like that!!

Yes, you'd be sent to an Acute ward which is a lot more laid back. I've never been on a ward with a seclusion room.

NOT saying you'd be admitted to hospital.

Okay....that's kinda put my mind at rest. I still can't believe how inhumane these places were to you both!
Oh Beckie, isn't it time for your lesson?

So what are you doing for the rest of the day Rebecca?

I'm just waiting for my mum to get ready. We was going to asda, but I've been sent an appointment to get assessed to see how 'bad' my epilepsy is, and it's somewhere we've never been before so we're going to take a trip there so we don't get lost on the day. Getting tired of all these tests they're doing on me to check my epilepsy, almost like they don't believe me.

How about you?

You don't have me on facebook!

I'm sure it's not that they don't believe you. It's probably they want to make a detailed assessment of your condition to know how to best treat it. I hope it goes well finding the place.

I'm meeting a friend for coffee later then we're off to see our mutual friend's new play.

Don't worry, I'm not on her Facebook friends either dawn!
That sounds good Luna! I'm out at the moment and here it is quite cool here so it should be nice to go out!

I've been on a fair few wards that lock you out of bedrooms during the day. Some in theory to force you to interact and socialise, one or two blatantly said it was because they had too few staff to keep track of us all if we were all in different places e.g some in living room some in bedrooms so they locked off the bedrooms to make it easier to know who was where and what was happening because we'd all be in the same place.

Really? I must have been bloody unlucky :P

Seriously though Rebecca, I've been on more good wards than **** wards,local one isn't terrible, some really good staff there, except that they seem to play Jeremy Kyle on a none stop loop :P And it helps if you enjoy scrabble for passing the time (which luckily I do) :P. They only use hospital as a last resort I've been honest with MH people about some pretty serious stuff and managed not to be admitted so please don't let that worry prevent you from being honest.

Ha ha you can add me on FB Rebecca if you want, just PM me for my full name.

Oh that sounds okay I guess. I'm still worried about that seclusion room, sounds awful. Like, what is the point of it really, surely it would make people worse not calm them down!!

Okay, I'll PM you Katy, thank you xD

I have never been to a ward where there has been a seclusion room either. The ward here has a **** reputation for people committing suicide whilst ip but I was ok. Actually our trust has a rubbish reputation for its mh wards but I have found them ok. None of the locking people out of bedrooms here just the boredom factor. If you ever end up IP I can recommend taking plenty to do. I have bought a portable dvd player in case I end up IP again.

Oh a portable dvd player is a good idea. But won't they get angry if you need to recharge all the time or if you need to ask for batteries?

Feel free to message me too Rebecca!

Try not to worry. I would recommend being honest because it's the only way they can help you effectively. They will want to treat in the community as much as possible so try not to worry about hospital too much.

Dawn and Rebecca, you should add me on FB!!
Im not very interesting though :p

My current mh team was voted the best in the country so im lucky!

Driving lesson was really good!
He said he's never had a student go so far in just 6 hours!
So I'm very pleased about that!
I had to drive down a rather narrow road outside a school at pick up time so that was a little stressful but no one got hurt so its all good :p

Lies.

Well if I ever have to move areas I know where to go :P

That's ace, well done you!!!! Maybe you should write down comments like that, all your slimming world achievements, passed exams etc in a positivity notebook or something for when you have your self doubts.

I've just been trying on new stuff I got in a sale (I am a sale ninja :P) Got two good quality cardigans each reduced from £30 to £4.50 (win!!) and a bright yellow T-shirt with Happy on it and a smiley face for £6 instead of £12. Did get a pair of jeans as well but they're a tad too small so going to return them some time soon and ask to replace for larger pair.

That's a good idea!!

Sounds like a good haul!!
Gotta love a bargain!

yup :D

That's awesome Beckie, congrats!! You'll ace your driving exam no problem!
I dunno where my mh are ranked, but I guess they're okay. Though my social worker has gone on holiday for 2 months and left me with no one so they're not amazing!

Wow, reduced to 4.50 from 30?! That's epic! You really are a sale ninja, I've never seen a saving like that before!

Thanks Rebecca!

Its awful that shes left you with no one for 2 months!
Did you find out if there's a duty worker?