"I feel my inpatient stay made me worse!"

I was admitted with acute anxiety after suffering a breakdown 6 months ago. I was on the Safire ward at North Manchester General hospital. I feel that my treatment was disgusting. Many of the staff seemed to only care about looking on the internet, and on once occasion when I asked for my medication I was told to wait, while they ordered something from online. My wait was approximately 20 mins, as they were chatting as well.

While I was there, I was told by one member of staff to 'stop putting my illness on' and get on with my life, because my fiancé would leave me. This was so insensitive to say to someone with PTSD who had no idea of what was going on. I was constantly fainting because no-one had explained to me how to breath during a mega panic attack. I couldn’t eat. I was given a leaflet to read, when I wanted to talk to someone, but I couldn’t read it due to my eyes being so blurry due to my fight or flight response.

I was suicidal and I told one of the support workers this. My support worker discharged me when I said this, and then explained how I wouldn’t do it - but how could they know!

I feel my treatment was rude, disrespectful and uncaring and made my condition much worse. It would have only taken one of them to sit and talk with me. I had a bad struggle when I was made to leave, depending on family that lived 30 miles away. I feel that I was marched out by one of the support workers. Unfortunately, I feel this unit only made me worse!