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‘I felt so low, I would silently hope someone would crash into my car’
From the outside, Elle Ward looked like the life and soul of the party; funny, outgoing and confident. But inside, she was crumbling.
‘I could be in the middle of a conversation, looking like I’m having a good time. But in my head I am constantly asking if I’m doing it right, if these people even like me. I had a constant internal voice questioning everything,’ the mother-of-one from Orpington explains.
Elle, 28, struggled with self-harm, depression and poor self-esteem as a teenager, and often clashed with her parents. By her late twenties, juggling single motherhood and a demanding teaching job, she was dangerously low.
‘On the drive to work, I would be silently begging someone to crash into my car, so I wouldn’t have to do it myself,’ she tells Metro.
In October 2024, burnt out from work and depressed after the end of a long relationship, Elle decided she no longer wanted to live.
‘I was going off the rails. I was driving, taking recreational drugs every Friday and Saturday night. By Sunday I wasn’t a very nice person,’ she remembers. ‘My relationship with my parents was worse than ever. Everyone understandably thought I was selfish, but I was ill. I just felt – I can’t do this anymore.’
That week, without anyone knowing, Elle quietly said her goodbyes. She took her eight-year-old son on trips to the zoo, the amusement arcade and London, spent time with her grandparents, and had dinner with her parents.
‘I was at peace with ending my life. And it sounds strange, but it was probably the best I’d felt in such a long time,’ she recalls.
Elle doesn’t remember what happened after she kissed her parents goodnight and went up to her bedroom, but a chance visit from a neighbour saved her life and she was rushed to A&E. Two days later, she was transferred to a psychiatric ward in Sidcup.
Arriving at five in the morning, Elle was greeted by a man in a dress playing loud music in the communal area.
‘I was petrified, and not in the head space to speak to anyone,’ she explains. ‘For the first week, I was so scared. I didn’t think I belonged somewhere like that – but that couldn’t have been further from the truth.’
With her phone and toiletries confiscated, Elle was shown to her room, where everything was bolted to the floor. There, she stayed in bed for days.
‘I refused to talk to anyone and just lay on the plastic mattress staring at the ceiling. I didn’t shower, I didn’t eat. I might as well have been dead, because that is what it felt like,’ she admits.
One morning she woke to find another patient hiding in her room. ‘I heard a voice say, “You’re finally awake.” I didn’t know if it was real or a dream. Later, staff found him. I was terrified.’
Gradually, Elle began to talk to other patients. ‘A lot of the people were so nice. And so were the staff. I look back on it now as the best and worst six weeks of my life, because for the first time I was around people that understood. I didn’t have to hide anymore.
‘One man, who wore women’s leggings, a high-vis jacket and had no front teeth, turned out to be one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. If he hadn’t seen me, he’d get staff to check I was eating. I could kick myself for judging him.’
However, Elle says she was disappointed by the lack of professional support. Besides medication, she only saw a psychiatrist twice in six weeks and had no individual therapy. Promised activities were often cancelled due to staff shortages and she found group work to be useless.
As Christmas approached, the mum felt desperate to return home to her son and she was discharged. Once home, her suicidal feelings returned.
‘I felt safe in hospital, but as soon as I’d come back, there was just everything at your fingertips. And no one can protect you from everything all the time.’
Elle was told she would see the home treatment team within 48 hours. However, she says that the appointment ‘was the most pointless 15 minutes of my life. A complete box-ticking exercise. I was then discharged from them and told I’d be picked up by the community mental health team within seven days.’
Weeks passed, then months – all with no support. Her mum desperately phoned services – her GP, the hospital, the home treatment team, the community mental health team – again and again, only to be passed from one team to another.
Eventually Elle received a letter containing a psychiatrist’s appointment in May. ‘I cried and told my mum – I don’t think I can last that long,’ she remembers. ‘We thought about private care but couldn’t afford it.’
At night, Elle would lay wide awake, her mind whirring. During the day she was too nervous to leave the house. ‘Everyone around me was on eggshells. I could just see the worry in their faces. It confirmed the idea in my head that I wasn’t really worth it,’ she says.
Sadly, Elle made further attempts on her life, but she stopped going to hospital, because, she says, ‘she didn’t see the point.’
It wasn’t until last August that Elle finally received meaningful help, when she received a referral to see an ‘absolutely brilliant’ NHS psychologist.
‘She follows me up, books appointments, and calls weekly to check in,’ explains Elle. ‘She treats me like a human being.’
The regular support has been invaluable and feeling stronger and stable, Elle has since begun sharing her experience online. She’s also heard from others who have been through the same and seen gaps in care, which inspired Elle to set up the charity What About Now, named after the question she asked when discharged with no follow up.
With the aim to create community spaces for people who feel isolated or unsupported, the charity’s main initiative, Chatty Corner, partners with local cafés in Bromley and Bexley where Elle sets aside time each week for anyone to drop in for companionship, a listening ear, practical advice or simply a safe place to talk. She hopes to expand the model nationally, building an inclusive network that makes support accessible regardless of income.
‘I don’t think anyone should be discharged from hospital into nothing. People deserve meaningful aftercare and more needs to be done to protect people when they are at their most vulnerable,’ the mum, who has written a book about her experience, adds.
‘I am much stronger now. I keep busy with my son and the charity. I still have bad days, but I feel the best I’ve felt in a long time. However, I am angry because I nearly died, and my little boy nearly lost his mum because I fell through the cracks. I don’t want anyone else to go through what I did.’
Metro has contacted Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust for comment.
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