When Hannah was sectioned in 2007, her world fell aside. Though she had suffered from despair up to now, she says she had been in denial about how unhealthy issues had been. “I grew up in a really spiritual family, and at all times thought of being unwell fairly shameful. However, after a number of severe makes an attempt at self-harming, it got here to a head and I had to surrender my job as an HIV nurse.” A yr later, she was recognized with emotionally unstable persona dysfunction (often known as borderline persona dysfunction). For the subsequent few years, she says, she was out and in of hospital “like a revolving door”.
By the point she arrived on the Cassel hospital in Richmond, London, it was 2012. “Nothing had labored and it was a final resort after quite a few suicide makes an attempt,” she says. “I used to be referred for psychodynamic remedy, a holistic remedy that encourages sufferers to develop extra consciousness of their feelings.” The remedy mixed particular person and group therapies and actions, the place sufferers help one another’s restoration in a therapeutic neighborhood.
Two months into her keep, she met Sean for the primary time. “Sufferers had been requested to take different new sufferers across the amenities after they arrived,” she explains. “I volunteered to point out him round, though I used to be so unwell that I used to be just about mute at that time.”
Sean, who has suffered from extreme epilepsy since he was a baby, was referred to the Cassel after having to depart his job within the civil service. “I used to be having dissociative episodes in addition to seizures, and the medical doctors realised that my seizures had a psychological root in addition to bodily,” he says.
When he arrived and met Hannah, he says that constructing a friendship didn’t happen to him at first, as he was centered on getting properly. “I used to be married, too, and positively didn’t take into account the potential for a relationship,” he says.
Hannah and Sean began to go on organised journeys with different sufferers, to the theatre and the ballet. “For 5 years I’d misplaced the flexibility to snort, so my time at Cassel was about popping out of myself once more,” says Hannah. “I discovered it straightforward to speak to Sean, and he was a very good listener.”
Slowly, they constructed a friendship, which continued after they moved to outpatient care. “We had been each hospitalised for about 10 months,” says Sean, “however we continued to see one another within the outreach teams within the following years of remedy.”
In 2014, after leaving hospital, Sean separated from his spouse. It was later that yr that he and Hannah grew nearer. “I’d struggled to know what I wanted from relationships earlier than I had remedy,” says Sean. “However Hannah and I had grow to be such shut pals and been by a lot collectively. It was on a bunch vacation to Weymouth with different sufferers that we realised we had emotions for one another.”
Hannah says it felt like one thing had shifted: “We’d had this friendship connection for some time. Then sooner or later he was placing solar cream on me and I felt a spark.” Regardless of their emotions, they didn’t need to do something that might jeopardise their restoration. “We spoke to our care staff they usually had been actually constructive,” says Hannah. “It was simply beneficial that we take issues sluggish.” She additionally needed to take the time to get to know Sean’s seven-year-old daughter, and ensure she was snug with their relationship.
As soon as that they had determined to present issues a go, they moved into separate outpatient restoration teams and got {couples} remedy by the hospital. Hannah lived in Fulham, whereas Sean remained in Ealing, however they spent a number of nights per week collectively. They married in 2021, after all of the lockdowns had lifted. “We had our wedding ceremony images taken on the Cassel as a result of it was such an essential a part of our relationship,” says Hannah. They now stay collectively in Fulham.
Sean, who nonetheless experiences common seizures, took medical retirement in 2012, whereas Hannah made the choice to return to nursing in 2020. “I work in a hospice, which is what I at all times needed to do,” she says. “It’s been nice for my vanity, and exhibits there will be life past severe psychological sickness.”
She loves that life is “by no means boring” with Sean. “He’s thrilling to be with as a result of he at all times has one thing to say. We each know what it’s wish to go to a darkish place and we help one another after we are struggling.”
Sean appreciates Hannah’s wide selection of pursuits and her quirkiness. “She’s her personal particular person and may be very in tune along with her feelings. She brings out the perfect in me.”
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