July 12th - blog 1 - a shock and apology for you all...

To all of you whom I love very much:

Yesterday I was assessed and sectioned under the Mental Health act of 1983, Section 2.

Practically this means that I can be treated against my “will”, in actual fact it means I am to be observed at every meal and snack time by one of the nurses and that my intake is recorded and confirmed by the observing nurse. It also means that first thing on Monday I will be seen by a dietician who will tell me what to eat, essentially. This has been done under the auspices of care and the perception that I have been resistant to co-operation and openness about the precise nature and quantity of the foodstuffs that I have been consuming. It is also believed that I have been resistant to change and to the suggestions of dieticians and nurses alike with regard the food I have been eating. More than that, it has been implied that there is a huge amount of ‘concern for my safety and health’ wherein there is a belief on behalf of the medical staff (and by this I do not actually mean my medical doctors, who have presented a slightly different front, I mean Dr Gordon, a Dr from the community in Shoreham and Sue Lovell – a social worker linked to Shoreham’s mental health team) that I am not either trying hard enough, open enough to the consumption of more or essentially putting on weight quick enough to convince anyone that I am fine.

Understandably I am traumatised. If I was not emotionally affected by my prolonged stay in hospital, I am now. I cannot now leave – at all. Even trips outside which have been my lifeline and saving grace have had to be refined to in between snack times and meal times for at least a week. Beyond that there is little to be done except be watched, be patronised and be sad. I am mortified that this is the impression that has been gained by the outside world of my principled conduct, stance and insistence on being allowed to experiment in my way. Despite immense success where I have learnt that rice-based meals are not as affective as protein-based ones, where I have recognised that to be pushed in the gym requires upping calorific intake to compensate for the essential gain in mobility and cardiovascular strength which I am gaining from my time with physiotherapists, where I have essentially spent a mere 3 weeks re-learning about meals and snacks and food…I have left an impression amongst those supposedly caring for me that I am not capable of the level of sanity which would have the wisdom to recognise that I am incredibly thin, underweight and require more calorific intake to boost my weight.

It is also implied by my sectioning that not only do I not have the wherewithal to consciously, logically and intelligently apply extra calories and better formed meals, but that I would be resistant to anyone else’s suggestion of what to eat. Perhaps I have, in the past, given entirely the wrong idea about where I have been coming from in terms of diet. It has seemed obvious to me that I have had – and will continue to have to – learn how to eat from my own hands, if you like. There is no other way when living in the world that one can survive other than through ones own portion sizing, meal deciding and self-attribution of foodstuffs. Building up my own confidence around my own capacities has had the fundamental element that I have not only decided what to eat but when to eat and – most importantly – the amount to eat at every meal/snack time. Initially this was run by conscious attempts at following regimes, subsequently this has been led by appetite, by desire and by incorporating an appreciation of the quantity of the food I require.

Yesterday – as you all know – I was disappointed immensely by not having balanced – or perhaps ‘over-balanced’ is the correct word or sentiment – the equations of energy in vs. energy out. It didn’t take me long, however, to recognise and appreciate where within my diet I could put extras and change my meal types. By 11am I had planned the weekend and next week to include more chicken/fish and less brown rice based foodstuffs. I then ate Philadelphia and Babybel – cheese – for lunch, along with ¼ sandwich, a new potato, 3 spoonfuls of rice, a huge dollop of mayonnaise and coleslaw, several olives and a large salad. Followed by a large melon salad, a slice of pineapple and a large helping of Fromage Frais.

Although unorthodox and picking it was a sizable and enjoyable lunch. Any nurse who had asked what I was eating would have received a response from me that would have questioned their need for examination – what I perceive has always been the root of my objections to observation up until this moment. There is so little I can say now, however. I have objected to observation, to monitoring and to the dictation of a dietary regime because I believe it smacks of being treated like a mental health patient incapable of sufficient sanity to recognise and respond accordingly to the needs of their own body. Little did I realise that my resistant to treatment as a mental health patient which stems from the knowledge that I am not someone who requires such overbearing ‘assistance’ when it comes to calorific intake and the intelligent consumption of food would invite the very labelling against which I have fought from day one of my weight loss.

God knows what they actually perceive of me. Someone resistant to supplementation – yes. The reasons? My responses have been negative to intaking calories through inauthentic means when the whole point for me has been the concept of eating sufficient and eating sufficient to do it so that supplementation is a last resort, not a necessary crutch which becomes essential for survival. There is the desire within me to establish a regime that works without the need for supplementation because it would feel a) more natural, b) more realistic and c) demonstrate more towards the health of my capacities around digestion.

I have resisted observation – yes. The reasons? Because it smacks to me of patronisation as if I would either engage in subterfuge, avoidance, lying and untruths when it comes to reportage of my dietary intake. Perhaps if I had been more specific in terms of the grams of food or the amount of new potatoes in my diary I would have been believed to be being more ‘open’ but I sense that there is little I could have done differently and still I would have been tarred with this brush of a lack of openness and a lack of co-operation which has been, I believe, misconstrued as something which requires a sectioning to gain my willingness to ‘co-operate’.

Thus far, however, there has been very little to ‘co-operate’ with. Suggestions made by dieticians – more milk on cereal, higher calorie biscuits, full fat yoghurts – have been incorporated and attempted. Perhaps not quick enough, not often enough, certainly not something enough to demonstrate what they wanted to see. Do you know the irony…at any stage I would have felt comfortable with anyone reading this blog. It has contained the privacy of my heartfelt emotions and feelings, my desires and my hurts, my life has been documented in the pages of this blog – for good and bad but in total openness. When I have had a dodgy moment – the stodgy pizza e.g., or Jelly – I have recorded it. When I have been anxious or hurt, elated or deflated I have written in detail about it to all of you. It was only yesterday that it occurred to me that Jackie Gordon could, quite happily, access such privacy to attempt to deliver an impression more reflective of the total experience within this hospital. It is too late now, however, to make this relevant.

Perhaps this will simply serve to, in reaction against such a damning label, speed up my process of recovery into health. It certainly did last night where I ate an officially noted down ‘supper’ and then had another two biscuits, half a cereal bar and handful of sweets – approximately another 275 calories in total. It was survival - not calorific, but moralistic. I don’t need anyone to imply that I cannot eat…or don’t want to…or need someone watching me so that the ‘treatment’ (i.e. calorie intake) is both guaranteed, observed and then decided and tweaked by those in charge.

Nevertheless on Sunday I will go to Waitrose and select a load of Ready Meals. I will then show Natasha the selections and tell her that I intend to eat them. Lunches will be pretty much what they are now – only watched. Breakfast will be what it is now – only watched. Snacks will be boosted (but they were going to be anyway) – only watched. As if observation would change what I, in desire for weight gain, was going to do anyway…

…you can tell I’m hurt. You can tell that for someone whom life is dependent on behaviour and the purity of such perfected examples of behaviour within the world I feel affronted that this is the professional assessment of my own conduct. Appeals and tribunals are all potentials but for the course of this weekend I feel trampled all over, attacked and completely misinterpreted and therefore misrepresented by this new banner I am wearing over my head. I am horrified, too, that this can be done under, as I said earlier, the auspices of care and concern. The implication within this whole thing is that a) I did not have enough care and concern for myself and b) I would not have changed and modified myself and c) I was being reticent and hiding anything about my intake. My lesson in openness continues – it is perceived that you are concealing if you don’t think to demonstrate and are not asked by nurses what you’re having. I’ve lost count of the amount of discussions I’ve had about my consumption with Jen, Alison, Adele and Cheryl…not even taken into account. According to Dr Gordon the nurses felt ‘left out’ and the dieticians – who themselves decided to visit only once a week – felt isolated. I must have removed their control so far and then not had the incremental success that they desired and they panicked. Horrendous how a panic can take someone to damning another human individual with a scarring label for the rest of their lives. If this is the nature of the world then I am not sure that it is a place I am encouraged by…

….nevertheless, and despite this…it is a place I want to be within. I look at the sunrise, the sea and the seagulls and I hate that I am not out there interacting with it. I hate that I am now not only in hospital because I am not of a right weight to leave, I am now forced to stay ‘even against my will’ to receive ‘treatment. And I feel as if someone – i.e. Dr Gordon – has pinned me to the floor and squished me so that I am immobile and flailing and struggling to emerge from her sticking me to the ground with her thumb. I am subdued into a shocked silence. In this silence I will go to supermarkets and find meals/salads/sandwiches of 350-400 calories to partner with yoghurts and jellies. I will also buy some Hob-Nobs, perhaps some chocolate biscuits, some grapefruit juice and buy back my dignity.

I want you to know that I will handle this with Grace, regardless. Whether or not I am watched I will not do again what I did last night – I even went to report my additional consumption to Jasmine, not out of guilt but out of pride in my conduct wherein I had put calories into my system via response. And because they wanted to know. I do not know what Grace looks like through this. My head is not held high, my heart does not feel strong, I feel aghast at the way my life has taken shape when I gaze at the demonstration of what the Universe believes is appropriate for my journey. I actually have not dealt with harder challenges than this. This is a slur on my reputation, my material representation in the world and, I believe, a defamation of character based on so little. I feel betrayed by the nursing staff, the dieticians and Dr Gordon who without consulting me called in the big guns and without asking made judgements. Even when there was the courtesy to ask there was a damnation of a lack of belief in my response. I feel as if now, more than ever, I am labouring under a label that does not fit. It is uncomfortable to wear and horrendous to feel that people saw fit to even try the costume on me for size.

Perhaps all that is left is my demonstration that it does not fit. If this requires openness – they can have openness in silent submission. I will become the vegetable of co-operation if they demand spark-less-ness to imply contribution to teamwork. If total acceptance of their every word is what implies co-operation and sanity then this is not therapy and for the good of the individual – it is dis-empowering, emasculating, destructive, demeaning and homogenising. Submission derived from a horrified root and a rejection of the label…it is one motivation, one way of doing it. It feels like I am in a bad film wherein this is the way they treat human beings: beating them into submission emotionally and mentally. Still – I love it when I don’t talk. I love my silence. Here is an opportunity to practice that, and to show the ease with which I eat. But I want to go and buy the meals. It saves any effort on my part of making an impression re: portion sizes and it saves any mis-reporting by nursing staff. Packages will be kept, recorded and kept track of. As will every mouthful – by me and by anyone who I entreat to watch. And I’ll quietly object. Silent as a mouse I will put out in my aura how wronged I feel by this prison sentence. They did not need to force me to stay. Now, through complete co-operation, I will not only demonstrate my capacity for submission but also make them wish they hadn’t done this.

I have seen films where someone mentally disabled appears almost to have lost their mind and part
of their personality with it. To the nurses who have learnt about Victoria the next phase is going to shock them – I will voluntarily sacrifice my spark and my personality, I will act for them all as if I have lost my individuality and mind…the 33.3 – public acceptance of superior forces with a private resentment of their power. This is beautiful. I have striven throughout the last four years to retain and hold onto my uniqueness and individuality. Little did I realise that in taking that away from me Dr Gordon has given me an experience of the foundations of my sunshine and my light. There will be dignity and a lack of turmoil in this retreat and damnation. This is my ‘self’…the silent submission which masks inner gumption, truth, stability, strength and a purer soul than has ever walked this earth…mine.