MANIC DEPRESSION

My name is Rachel Western and I've got manic depression. Last year the familiar signs started to show up: "a lack of sleep, spending money way too much and being argumentative." Does that sound familiar to anybody?

During that time I was planning a trip to Norway and the day I was due to leave I had a final check with my psychiatrist. He said he had thought I was going into the manic phase, but thought I was OK. So off I went.

I should really have admitted myself into hospital, as I had done the year before, but I was determined that I was "sane".

It didn't go well. I ended up in Oslo and got mugged and assaulted in the bus station by the security guards. When I tried to complain to the police I get hauled off to a psychiatric ward. When I told the Norwegian psychiatrist what had happened he said the security guards "probably had their reasons".

In the ward I was held down by about four men and forcibly injected. I was tied to the bed and left to wet myself. My books were taken away from me. I was refused a pen and paper in my room. I was thrown to the ground. My food and drinks were sometimes taken away from me and I developed stress excema on my hands. The skin broke and they bled. I didn't sleep and I was petrified.

Eventually my friend Helen came over and rescued me, but I refused to see my psychiatrist and behaved very badly. My mum was worried about me and phoned up the police to check on me. I didn't hear their knock and they broke the door down. I persuaded them I was OK and they left, but two days later I came home and they'd broken in again and left a "Warrant for Search and Removal of Patient". I didn't feel safe in my own home and stayed away for a few days until I felt they'd leave me alone.

The next week they managed to catch up with me and I was sectioned. It was very shocking but still I was adamant that I was OK, but I wasn't. I spent some time at Homerton hospital in Hackney —a dream compared to Norway—and got back on my medication.

While I was manic I upset and lost a lot of friends and eventually I lost my job. My life doesn't have the verve it does when I'm manic, but I appreciate the stability and don't want to upset people in the way I do when I'm manic.

Who knows what the future holds?

RACHEL WESTERN

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