My Lockdown Story

My big concern with lockdown is around abuse, I have personal experience of abuse and if I had to live with that person now, I would be in a permanent state of fight or flight, I may be suicidal. His rages would have been triggered by even more insignificant things and I would be doing everything to keep him happy.

There is going to be an escalation of women experiencing abuse, those who are already experiencing it and those who will witness new abusive behaviours coming from their partners which will be terrifying. De-escalation needs to happen immediately and we need to spot the signs of abuse, otherwise, we will be breeding new abusers.

Lockdown will also be having an effect on pregnancies, with there being an increase of unwanted sex in violent households and difficulty to access abortions for many women.

The economic impact of this crisis will force many women to sell sex, which brings up questions around the transmission of COVID-19 and whether they are able to have safe sex. I have been on the frontline at the age of 17 doing this work myself and it’s something you end up doing because you need to feed your children and survive. I think many more women will be forced into sex work during this crisis.

I feel apprehensive about the future and what it means in terms of my safety and for the safety of family and friends. I’m worried about managing my illness as I was already waiting for a minor operation. Anxious about asking for help if and when I need it as I know many, many people are struggling right now also and I don’t want to be a burden on anyone.

I have always relied on myself and helped others and now like most people, I am having to self-isolate due to a pre-existing illness (caused by my experiences of trauma previously). So many people like me are living with the damage life has thrown at them already.

I think everyone’s mental health has been affected by this. A lot of people are suffering from brain fog whilst they are having to cope with life’s problems and adapt to this new way of life. So just imagine what people who already suffer from poor mental health are experiencing? I have PTSD, so the isolation (which is already an intrinsic part of my ‘normal’ everyday life I constantly battle with) has now been furthered by not being able to enjoy nature or going outside and meeting people. This has amplified my anxiety so much more than usual and triggers a PTSD ‘red alert’ as my brain is trying very hard to come to terms with this all. I now, once again, have insomnia and feel restless and fatigued most of the time, most days. The negative media stories and conspiracy theories only serve to worsen the negativity.

My advice to others is to try to make some sort of daily routine for yourself to help you manage to create some sort of normality. On a bad day go back to basics and try and eat, wash and sleep at regular times of the day. On better days make a list of achievable activities or a task to choose from so you don’t feel pressure but at the same time don’t feel hopeless.

Plan your day, (even if you end up waking or sleeping late) and just be realistic with your expectations of yourself and others. Remember that everyone is struggling right now and that you are not alone.

Phone someone if you need to reach out. Be kind to yourself. Just take each day as it comes. If I do 3 things from my list then I know my day has not been a waste. I try to avoid watching TV for more than an hour as it makes me feel lethargic and lazy. I’ve also found that contentment lies in helping others, it really helps you and acts as a distraction. Hobbies like reading, praying, sewing, crochet, knitting and gardening, or helping an elderly neighbour are really rewarding.

I have been struggling with mental illness for my entire adult life but I have a history of abuse which led to problems with my mental health even when I was growing up. I developed Anorexia in my late teens alongside depression, anxiety and what was later recognised as Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder (EUPD).

Over the past 11 years, I have been hospitalised on several occasions for my mental health, including one long-term admission where I was sectioned and detained under the Mental Health Act for my safety.

Whilst I have experienced a lot in my adulthood, the circumstances surrounding the Coronavirus lockdown are proving particularly difficult to navigate with poor mental health.

Being at home and left with your thoughts and emotions 24/7 is difficult if you suffer from a mental illness, especially EUPD where emotions are felt far more extreme than in the average person. Dealing with this would be hard enough if I was getting normal levels of support. However, this virus has significantly changed how support can be given. I am lucky that my mental health team are still contacting me each week but the degree of support is different and reduced. When this is combined with the exacerbating factors of a global pandemic – higher anxiety, fear, lack of purpose, abandonment, I feel more overwhelmed than ever. I also find change very difficult to deal with and lockdown is a whole series of huge changes.

For me, being instructed to stay at home and told that you can’t see anyone has taken away the purpose in my life and disrupted my entire routine. This feels a lot like being sectioned – suddenly I am not allowed to do what I do every day without thinking and my freedom is taken away. The time I spent detained in the hospital was a particularly traumatic time for me and being reminded of it has caused increased flashbacks and negative thoughts and feelings.  Due to reduced support, I now generally have to ride these out myself. Sometimes I have been able to do this positively but at others, I have returned to my maladaptive coping strategies.

Having to occupy myself all day every day is also reminiscent of the hospital – during my last two lengthy admissions I had a lot of time to fill with self-directed activity. The lockdown’s enforced isolation brings all the overwhelming emotions I was feeling at that, very vulnerable, time flooding back.

Another factor that I am battling with concerns my eating disorder. With so much fear initially around not being able to find what I needed in the supermarket, my anorexic brain tells me that the sensible thing to do is to ration what I do have. So, if I skip dinner tonight, I will have food for tomorrow. This makes eating three meals a day a real battle for me, and again, stirs up all manner of unhelpful thoughts and emotions linked to a lack of control.

Already being prone to anxiety and catastrophic ways of thinking, I have had to severely cut back on my exposure to news in recent weeks. However, news coverage has also impacted me in a less obvious way. There is a huge focus in the media on key workers doing a magnificent job but those of us who can’t work, even in normal circumstances, are left feeling guilty, useless and lazy by this rhetoric.

I feel guilty that I am not doing something to help with the ‘war effort’. However, whilst I would love to do something useful like volunteer, right now my anxiety levels are so high that I struggle to leave the house to do my essential food shop.

Working in the homeless sector, I see how the pandemic is affecting the lives of women already facing and surviving extreme disadvantage. I’m a trustee of Manchester Action on Street Health (MASH), and it’s that, that gives me the most pride. MASH hasn’t missed a beat in supporting its women, while still keeping the staff team safe. As quickly as the guidelines changed, MASH responded accordingly. Ensuring the most vulnerable women, who have no other choice than to go out on the streets to sell sex, get their basic needs met.

Trying to put myself in their shoes I drew on an experience I had in 1996. I had woken up from a drug-induced sleep, took more drugs and got ready to go out “on the beat” to fund my crack and heroin habit. It was Saturday night and I had high hopes of earning enough to really party, not just feel better. As you can tell, it was all about drugs. That evening I did notice the streets were quieter than normal, but that didn’t interest me too much, I had bigger fish to fry. I got to the Mancunian Way bypass, there was police tape blocking the way. Armed police told me in no uncertain terms, that I was to “turn back” and that the “city centre was closed until further notice”. I did as I was told (obviously, I’m not a fool). But all I could think was how can they just “close” town? More importantly, how was I going to make money without my regular punters knowing how to contact me (before mobile phones). Never mind the constant stream of office workers and pub drinkers that stopped to buy sex from the street girls. This was my livelihood, my survival.

The town remained closed for a few weeks and making enough money to survive day to day became hard. I had no way of accessing support services based in the city centre. To top that off, I was living with one of a string of guys I provided with sexual services to keep the roof over my head. My mental health was shredded. Mainstream services were not an option for me. I was on my own, and I knew it.

I’ve tried to stretch my imagination in so many ways to fully understand how the current crisis is playing out in the lives of these women. The IRA bomb of 1996 affected one city, not the globe. It lasted weeks not months. I agree the connection is tenuous, I do however have to find a connection to women I once considered myself to be one of.

What really stands out for me is the reaction the MASH outreach team have had from the women they support. A lot of the women couldn’t believe they were still coming out onto the street to support them. The centre is still open for a “through the door service” and this is what one woman said, “I can honestly say, hand on heart, I was in such a bad way I didn’t think I could carry on. So, from my heart thank you. I genuinely believe you saved my life”. Now, I think we’ve all used the line “OMG, you saved my life”. When in fact all they did was give you a lift to the shops or something of the like. But for these women, the mortality rate is normally twelve times higher than average. Thinking about it logically, there’s probably more than a grain of truth in that statement.

If you’d like to learn more about the life saving, life-changing work MASH do keeping her safe during the pandemic, read a message from our CEO, Annie Emery, about the work the team are doing to keep women safe in Manchester. You can also donate to my “Woman Army” fundraising campaign here, all proceeds support women to be safer, healthier and happier.