"The MCU"

The MCU is a psychiatric ward in Great Ormond Street and my time in there was the worst time of my life.

So many young people have had bad experiences on this ward.

They sent me on to a care home/boarding school miles away from home where I couldn't have gained any useful qualifications.

Now I'm at home and will be going to university in September.

If their plans had worked out I'd still be at the school, without any qualifications or a social life.

One of the doctors repeatedly said I'd been isolated before going into the unit, yet the staff acknowledged the amount of social activities I attended, therefore contradicting themselves.

By keeping me in the ward for almost a year when my mental health problems were no where near severe enough for such a long admission, they kept me away from my social life.

I had to give up so many activities and lost close friends as a result.

At the school they sent me to I also could not keep up social activities.

The school I went to was designed for children with special needs and although I have some difficulties I have no learning difficulties of the sort that would require me to be in a special needs school.

I am completing three a-levels and have also completed three level 3 courses, gaining a distinction in one of these.

I would not have been able to achieve this if I'd stayed in the placement they put me in.

I have never had a worse experience in my life.

I have nightmares about the MCU and ending up back there and so do my friends who were there alongside me.

I have the same difficulties as I had before my admission and I cope with them as I did before.

I cope with life well despite the struggles, as I did prior to my admission.

I was often called an attention-seeker whilst on the MCU by staff and peers.

They wanted me away from my family who had done nothing wrong.

When I went to an open day a few years after my admission they told me I had to move on from what had happened during my admission,

Yet they didn't say that to anyone who had had a positive experience.