It wasn't long after I met Samantha that she was actually sectioned.
What I can see on looking back perhaps there are many factors in her life that brought her to her nervous breakdown, some of which can be in terms of her relationship with her father and perhaps in terms of a marriage breakdown. During the time, the lead up to her illness, we were only just recently together and I didn't really see too many changes in her until she did have a full breakdown. The very difficult situation was that I didn't have any influence or say in her well being, also in terms of her being sectioned.

Looking back I can understand why her father did allow her to be sectioned and it is not a case of actually being vindictive in any way shape or form, but nobody quite understood Samantha. Suffice to say that she also wasn't very communicative either in terms of her feelings and what she was going through. I visited Samantha every day whilst she was in hospital. She was very very distant, very vague, but this could be attributed to the quantity of drugs that she was actually taking. She only seemed to confide in me, there was a major mistrust of everyone around her, which I suppose, is understandable.

Samantha did almost bluff her way out of hospital, we sat down and it was almost like a game plan to get well quick! When she came out it wasn't too long after that time that we actually moved away up North and I felt that being away from all the influences that possibly led up to her illness was like a retreat in its own way. We actually made new friends, we started to forge a life together which made us feel very very strong. It can be seen on the surface that I gave so much to her in terms of the time given, but Samantha gave so much to me in terms of my own well-being and gave me real direction.

When we moved back to London she fought for the custody of her child, which she duly gained and we moved to a different area. On moving back down South we have since become very active. Samantha more so than I, in our local community, especially in terms of the church. This has actually given her real strength and perhaps all in all, it was no direction and sense of well being in the first place, that may have been a contributory factor to her illness. Now she is very very strong, her family tend to think that any day she could lapse back into her past condition. I very much doubt it because at the end of the day who can judge sanity anyway?