My flat viewing

Part 13

Misinformation Kills

People think that when you are sectioned following a suicide attempt, you are treated with medication and therapy, and only discharged once you are no longer a risk to yourself.

The opposite is true.

In my experience, you are given neither medication nor therapy, you are simply held there until one of three things happens-

1. You demand a solicitor, which is your legal right when you have been detained in hospital against your will.
2. The time they are allowed to hold you for, based on your diagnosis, runs out, according to the girls I met who also had BPD during my last hospital stay, for me that would be four weeks, and the psychiatrist sort of confirmed that.
3. The psychiatrist in charge can believably claim they were sure you were no longer an immediate risk to yourself.

You are discharged, usually with no follow up plan for out patient care, unless you were already getting it.

The reality is, and this is an actual statistical fact, that you at greater risk of not just reattempting suicide, but doing it successfully in the weeks and months following your discharge.

So, when Phil told me that my ESA would be stopped, I was a hight risk for a successful suicide attempt.

In the hours after my flat viewing, I sat at home, staring at the wall contemplating suicide.

I could not fail again.

When my mum got home, she called Gary, the person Phil had informed I was taking the flat, as though I had a choice, in a “surprised” tone, and asked him would he please check whether my ESA would be stopped when I signed for the flat, as he was the person we needed to see, to sign the tenancy agreement.

He agreed to double check.

Then went and actually checked.

The answer, was no, my ESA would not be stopped, the information Phil had been so adamant was correct, that had caused me to sit and contemplate suicide, was wrong.