I attended the Cassel for 9 months in 2016; I am now receiving therapy for the trauma it caused. They denied my autism despite having been diagnosed by a professional in that area, and denied any comorbidities. I have ADHD and they told me off if I rocked or was fidgety; they told me I looked like a mental patient. What I learnt at the Cassel was to hide your feelings, otherwise you would be confronted aggressively and your side was not listened to. It felt like everyone was on the attack if you ever felt anything negative. They all tar everyone with the same brush of EUPD/BPD even though I did the SCIDD test and the result showed I didn't have it, which brings me to another point: the research. It seemed unethical that we were required to do research when we were in a hospital for our vulnerabilities, there was no choice in the matter (and if there was a choice, it wasn't advertised). All the patients at the time were very angry and if you were having issues and asked for help, they would chastise you for it and there would be negative accusations. I was told I didn't deserve time. The patients I were with have not improved; some still self-harm, some have anorexia, a couple of suicides happened. When a patient would self-harm they would send them away from treatment which seemed counter intuitive to me. It was like a punishment, especially when you came back to the anger of the community meetings. The staff made assumptions about me and if I stood up for myself and said it wasn't true they would attribute it to personality disorder. I wasn't treated as a person. My words had very little weight. Both patients and staff worked with assumptions as if they were true. My truth didn't matter. There was no follow up after discharge and there was essentially nothing there unless you lived in London. For someone with autism, it was a very high stress environment with no escape. But of course, according to the Cassel who are not experts on autism deemed me not to have it. When I left the Cassel, I had learnt to hide my emotions so well that even I didn't know what I was feeling. I now have to try unpicking that in therapy. There was no choice when attending treatment; you had to attend all groups whether they helped or not. My medication remained unchanged despite my symptoms. Even years later, I feel violated by my time at the Cassel by the patients and staff. I feel like I came out with more problems than what I had previously. The one positive was the one to one therapy, but I feel I could have had that in the community if it was available and would have been better off in that sense. It was the one space I felt listened to and a place without major conflict. Perhaps I got a particularly confrontational set of patients when I attended, but the staff would egg them on. It didn't feel helpful.

awful ‘specialised hospital’