Where it all went wrong
- bethanysfightforfr
- Oct 7, 2023
- 2 min read
Updated: Oct 14, 2023
December 2020 Beth came home from uni for Christmas. We had a good few weeks of stability but New Year 2021 moods were heightened and Beth got sectioned for the first time for an assessment period of 2 weeks. Due to covid there were no visits allowed and there was no consent to share information.
This was a difficult and traumatic period.
Once discharged Beth went back to uni halls, which I was concerned about due to the covid situation and teaching and learning was not face to face no longer meaning she would be more isolated.
After no more than a couple of weeks, Beth was sectioned on a section three, 3 hours away from home and family. This was a challenging time as we could only visit weekends for one hour.
She was placed on a PICU ward-psychiatric intensive care unit
Our psychiatric intensive care services are adept at dealing with patients in a severe phase of illness, who cannot be managed on an acute or HDU service. Our staff teams have extensive experience in managing high levels of disturbance (The Priory Group)
Do autistic people need to be in inpatient units and why do they get ‘stuck’ there?
It is widely recognised that for most autistic people, care in an inpatient unit is rarely helpful – in fact, it can be deeply damaging.
Wards can be noisy, bright and unpredictable. Without reasonable adjustments to the environment, and support from a professional who understands autism and how to adapt care, it can be completely overwhelming, particularly if you have an extreme sensitivity to sound, light or touch. It can increase someone’s level of distress, which can lead to further restrictions and make it even harder to move to support in the community. On top of this, there aren’t enough of the right type of mental health and social care services in the community for autistic people to move into. (National Autistic society)
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