What Resilience Means To Me After Being Sectioned

I recently submitted a poem to Rethink Mental Illness’ Pringle Awards, where this year’s poetry theme is resilience. Writing it made me think more carefully about what that word actually means in the context of my own recovery.

For me, resilience has been thousands of tiny steps, small choices and decisions that have kept me here and kept me trying to rebuild my life.

After my first hospital admission in 2020, following an acute psychotic episode, I didn’t know anyone who had experienced psychosis. I didn’t know where to turn to make sense of what had happened in a safe and structured way.

Being sectioned had taken away a lot of my self-trust. I questioned myself, my life and the way I understood the world. The storm had passed, but that didn’t mean everything suddenly became sunny again. Life afterwards still felt grey.

There were small glimpses of light, though.

Friends came to see me. We did puzzles. We drank tea. We talked and talked. My family and friends showed up for me in ways that gave me safety when I didn’t always know how to create that safety for myself.

Then I was admitted to hospital again in 2023.

At the time, part of me felt as though I had failed by ending up back there. But that second admission also led to my bipolar diagnosis, and with that came language. I began to understand patterns. I began to understand the weather of my mind.

Later, I found community too. Other people knew where I had been. And I didn’t feel so alone.

That is a huge part of why I created Life After Being Sectioned.

I wanted to make the resource I wish I had been given when I first left hospital. Something for the gap between crisis and understanding. Something for the person trying to work out how to live afterwards.

Recovery, in my case, hasn’t been about getting my old life back exactly as it was. It’s been about understanding where I am now, being honest about that, learning my own weather and continuing to move forward — sometimes very slowly.

You don’t need to perform wellness.

You don’t need to make your experience inspirational.

Sometimes resilience is simply being here.

This is the poem I submitted to Rethink Mental Illness’ Pringle Awards 2026.

Life After Being Sectioned

After being sectioned
I was scared of myself
Where to begin?
To learn the words
For my weather within

After hospital
My friends visited me
We did puzzles
And drank cups of tea
We talked and talked
And I could think things through
They gave me safety
Over a brew

But life after hospital
Felt thin and grey
Though the storm had passed
It was still dark
I was moving slowly
Still finding my way

Small glimpses of light
Shone on my path
From family and friends
In the aftermath

Finally, I learned
About bipolar disorder
It forecast
A pattern
And not just
A wrong turn

The label gave me community
Where I felt seen
It meant other people
Knew where I’d been

There’s life after hospital
There’s life after crisis too
But it might not look exactly
Like the life you once knew

Resilience is just being here
Finding joy when times are tough
There's no requirement to perform
Being here is enough

— Sonia Ginty

Glimpses of light, even when the sky is still grey