For 2 years I was trapped in hospital in a Neurological Centre.
The aim was to rehabilitate me, so learning to walk, talk and eat again.
What I didn’t know is that I wasn’t allowed to leave.
So basically I was sectioned for 2 years not including where I was to go next! Urgh.
The centre was a really bizarre place, it reminded me of One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest. People screaming all through the night, shouting all day, padded cells for some, my experience was hell. And at the time I didn’t realise I was stuck there.
I could tell you some horror stories, one woman had been on holiday, had a few too many glasses of wine, fell and ever since hasn’t been able to stop screaming her own name. She was there for life! There was a gangster who had been run over twice, had a brain injury and started lashing out at himself and doctors so had to spend his whole time in a padded cell. A 23 year old girl who had had meningitis, was forced to have her teeth taken out because she wouldn’t stop biting other patients, she was obsessed with wheelchairs and sitting on my knee which was pretty scary.
They say this centre is to help you rehabilitate but it felt to me it was just there to house those other hospitals couldn’t manage.
I spent my days thinking even the staff were loosing it.
On my 28th Birthday I had been there for about 3 weeks and that is when I realised I was blind. I had been so heavily medicated that it hadn’t even occurred to me that I couldn’t see. It was only when my sister gave me a birthday gift to open I thought ‘Shit! What’s going on? I can’t see it!’ I asked to talk to a consultant and asked if I would ever be able to see again. It was then I was told its not a problem with my eye itself, its the connection in my brain so I could wake up one day and see again. It’s been 8 years so I don’t think it’s going to happen now but Im still going strong living with this.
Learning new things about myself everyday.
Christy
x
