Hades.

We were in a positive mood.
Determined to be surprised.
I ignored the difficulty in parking...usually parking a motorbike is fairly simple...it was difficult to see where we could park without getting a ticket.

I ignored the parking problem because I was focusing on how I didn't have to concern myself over Service User's care.

After all, why should I care, I don't know anything...

As we waited for someone to open the door, we could see Service User beyond...looking towards us.

And once inside the room, I allowed all the impressions and memories thst assailed me collide as I watched my self contract and become rigid.

Happy and smiling on the outside.

Inside I'm distraught because this moment is too appalling for words, and expressing my feelings wouldn't help anyone.

Service User was white. Appearing traumatized. The air was full of random screaming and sudden jolts of violence. The people there were psychotic, and unwanted. Some shuffled like zombies

The idea that this place offered rest and recuperation, was almost funny, the saddest, sickest joke.

My husband who works in the care services found the nurse in charge and went with him to have a chat.

Husband came back and asked me to listen to what the nurse told him....

That in his opinion, Service User would not benefit from being here, and we could take him home as long as we brought him back to the ward in Monday to see the psychiatrist...

Then Service User was allowed into the room and asked if he wished to leave. At first he perceived it to be a cruel test, another instant in which he should be brave and speak the words that taste like bile...

But he could not see how this trick was supposed to work, so he replied, yes...I want to go home, is it just one night?

And so, Service User is home.

I wish all the kind people who told me it would be better for service User in hospital, could see and hear....and feel the sense of physical and mental threat in that place of the lost and unhomed, the unwanted...no wonder there is no information about parking, or visiting...

It was worse, much worse than I'd believed.

Any doubt I had before about my reaction to the threat of sectioning was gone.

And my son's intimation that he was being taken to Hell, were vindicated.