I will share a little of my experience with this.
I was put in prison awaiting trial for a crime that I did not commit. I was classed as a suicide risk and so put in a grim, suicide-proof cell. I was monitored 24/7 by a CCTV camera and at the first sign of anything untoward two nurses and a guard would come charging in. The living conditions were vile, the window was broken and so the cold winter air flooded in every night, and as I was a suicide risk I was not allowed normal clothes, just a thin hospital gown and a single suicide proof blanket - this is essentially thick, padded nylon with woven edges designed to prevent you from looping or tying it into a noose.
The ceiling of my cell was covered with dried faeces, mould encrusted toilet paper and blood, so much blood smeared over the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the remnants of so-called dirty protests from past prisoners poorly cleaned up. For my 'safety', I was put in solitary confinement. I was allowed out for barely half an hour a day, I spent the rest of the time sleeping or pacing in circles.
My entire life was falling apart around me. I believed I had no option but to end it. There were no ligature points, I was allowed no personal belongings with me, I was being monitored, the electricity and water to the cell had been turned off, I was stuck in what was, in essence, a stone/steel cube. Sleeping was impossible of course, you were awoken every fifteen minutes during the night with a light shone in your eyes to check that you were still 'alive'. Sleeping during the day wasn't an option either, my cell-neighbour was a paranoid schizophrenic who was convinced that I was the devil and spent most of his time banging and screaming through the wall, sounding the alarm and threatening to kill both myself and the nurses in increasingly brutal ways. You would be surprised how inventive your mind becomes when you face such grim circumstances.
The most desperate of my plans was to drown myself in the cell toilet, which happened to be the only place the CCTV didn't cover and where you would have a reasonable period of time uninterrupted. The toilet itself was horrific, a solid stone hole weathered by decades of abuse. What little water remained in the basin I can only describe as looking (and smelling) like a rotting animal corpse floating in a canal... But desperate times called for desperate measures, I had calculated there was just about enough water to ensure drowning with the aid of a Zopiclone I'd talked the doctor into prescribing me.
For various reasons, I aborted that attempt. Next, I exploited the architecture of the furniture bolted to the cell floor to wedge my head into an airtight gap. I quickly began to suffocate, assisted by the pressure of the stone forcing my shoulders up against my neck. It was barely a minute or two before the dreaded hypercapnic alarm response set in and I began to panic. I felt dizzy, but then someone pulled me out.
That doomed attempt led to an even greater level of supervision. My next thought was to obtain some illicit drugs from another prisoner and take an overdose, unfortunately, that proved trickier than I anticipated. A few more weeks past, I had largely stopped eating and was feeling the effects, pain, tiredness and deep depression.
Eventually, the supervision eased and I was transferred to another cell, this time away from cameras and with ligature points and bedsheets at my disposal. I had stayed up all night practising the correct knot and writing a short will and note to my family. I then waited until the wing had emptied and set to work partially suspending myself.
After a minute I became hot and flushed and dizzy, my survival instinct began to set in and panicking, I desperately tried to loosen the noose. I had designed for just such a scenario and loosening one part of the noose tightened another. Suddenly, I found myself in the most horrific pain. I don't know how to explain it, but there was a part of my brain that told me I was choking alive. I thrashed and squirmed violently until the room dimmed and faded out and the next thing I know I was on the floor being resuscitated.
Not long after that I was released and sent home without so much as an apology for the error of justice. The PTSD from my time in prison remains with me to this day.
