About

My name is Sonia, and I created Life After Being Sectioned as the resource I wish I’d had when I was first discharged from the psych ward in 2020.

This site is for anyone trying to make sense of life after psychosis, bipolar disorder, being sectioned, psychiatric hospitalisation, or the long and messy process of rebuilding afterwards.

In 2020, I experienced psychosis, was sectioned, and spent time on a psych ward in hospital. At the time, and especially afterwards, I remember looking for information that could help me understand what recovery might actually look like.

Not just clinical information.
Not just crisis advice.
Not just definitions.

I wanted to know things like:

  • How do you make sense of what happened?

  • How do you talk about it?

  • How do you return to work, friendships, family, identity, and ordinary life?

  • How do you live with the fear of relapse while still building a future?

I was sectioned again in 2023 and was subsequently diagnosed with bipolar disorder type 1. Since then, I have spent a lot of time learning about my condition, understanding my early warning signs, and rebuilding my life with more care, honesty, and support.

I also know that I am incredibly fortunate to be here, able to write about this now. Recovery did not happen because I was uniquely strong, or because I somehow had all the answers. It happened because I had support - from mental health professionals, from services, and from family and friends who stayed close when life felt impossible to understand.

Not everyone gets that kind of support, and I don’t take it for granted. Part of why I wanted to create this site is because I know how much it matters to feel less alone. I can’t speak for everyone who has been sectioned, but I can speak honestly from my own experience, and hopefully create something that helps someone else feel a little more held.

Young woman with long hair, wearing a white T-shirt with 'Love wins' inside a heart drawing, black shorts, smiling, standing in a doorway, holding a canvas tote bag, next to a bed or cushion in a room with wooden flooring.

Life After Being Sectioned is a lived-experience project. It is not medical advice, and it is not a replacement for professional support. Instead, it is a space for reflection, recovery, resources, creativity, and the reality of life after severe mental illness.

Being sectioned can be frightening, confusing, and deeply stigmatised. But it is not the end of your story.

There can be life after hospital.
There can be joy after crisis.
There can be identity after diagnosis.
There can be softness, humour, creativity, work, friendship, love, and meaning again.

This is a place for the messy, hopeful, human work of rebuilding.