A couple of years ago, during my last episode, I was locked up for a month in a maximum security forensic psychiatric ward. It was co-ed and I am a woman so it was particularly intimidating. During that time I was driven in the cage in the back of a van in shackles on both hands and feet. There was no seat belt or anything steady to sit in or try to hold on to as I bounced around in the back. I was stripped searched each time I came back from the downtown court house. The first night i had to sleep on the floor in a suicide smock, with a blanket made from the same coarse fabric. It was freezing and I hardly slept. At least they gave me a pillow and a thin mattress but the draft just blew through the gaps. It was like sleeping in a cardboard smock and blanket.

I had a stack of charges against me all of which were eventually dropped in favour of a mental health diversion. I did other things for which I was never charged too. I really didn't appreciate my rights or how the court system works or that I needed to get a lawyer. I had imagined I had famous lawyers working on my case, but that was a delusion. That is one of the reasons I think I was held for so long.

It makes sense to me that mentally ill prisoners would be held longer. A lot of the people I was locked up with considered the forensic psychiatric ward to be a step up from jail.