In January 2025, I wrote a personal essay for The Guardian about my experience in prison, and living life inside of a severe mental illness

“In very real ways it’s a deeply flawed and tragic environment, where women who self-harm measure their own blood in bottles, to prove they have lost the required amount to warrant a trip out to the hospital; anything to get off-campus. It reminded me of living in Calderdale, a deep valley in West Yorkshire. There was a phenomenon known as valley bottom fever: you were so surrounded by tall, imposing moors and so deprived of vitamin D that you’d often feel an undeniable urge to run, jump, escape. The suicide rates were high, and there have been at least 11 self-inflicted deaths in HMP Styal in the past 18 years. When a prisoner dies, the governor calls an emergency meeting in every unit and explains one of us has passed away. This happened three times during my six-month stay, and each time the governor said these were suspected suicides. That smell of blood sticks with you, like burnt, sugary pennies, but it’s a traumatic environment you’ve invited yourself into, so to feel in any way affected by it just adds an emotional guilt to the guilty plea – this is the mess I had got myself into, how dare I feel anything but sorry?”