M. – on life in a psychiatric ward (part one).

Cork, Ireland
October 12, 2000

Dear Margie,

This time when I entered the doors of the psychiatric ward in the Mercy Hospital, I was not afraid. I was prepared. This time I knew it was not like all the other times. This time I knew I was as sane as I ever will be.

My psychiatrist encouraged me to go into hospital when I confessed my vomiting, which she was very concerned about. It was worrying me, too, as I couldn’t keep anything down and sometimes the food I was eating tasted like dead bodies, which is a right turn-off.

But I think the main reason she wanted me to go into hospital was that I told her about my secret life in my mind. I told her that I can talk to God, that He does magic for me and that He is making Heaven on Earth. My psychiatrist listened to me and suggested in good faith that I should take some time out to relax and allow time for my vomiting to cease. Our conversation was the same as all the other times:

“Will you go into the hospital for a while, Mairead?”

“I s’pose so, if I have to.”

To be honest, I discuss very little with my doctor. She’s a middle-aged Roman Catholic mother. She knows her stuff on psychiatry, but that ain’t satisfactory for me. I believe in magic and God – things that can’t be explained by psychiatry. Sometimes I tell her my serious delusions, other times I just tell her I am feeling fine, working 9 to 5, and taking my medicine. Then she writes a prescription for me.

When I get the chance to let it all out of me, I bawl crying to my doctor. But usually I keep what’s in my heart in and try not to bother her with too many of my troubles. I can’t trust her fully when the inside of a psychiatric hospital looms in the background should I confess too many of my thoughts. What’s the point when I know how she is going to react, when I know she is going to tell me my thoughts are disturbed?

I have a choice as to whether I go into hospital or not, as I sign myself in voluntarily, but I really don’t have a choice. It’s either hospital, or big trouble at home. I feel I should get out of my parents’ way when I need help with my illness, so I just comply with my doctor’s advice even though a psychiatric ward is one of the most boring and frustrating places in the whole world. You have to do absolutely everything you are told to do by the nurses and doctors. You have to be so careful not to appear mad to them. You have to be good all the time in order to be let out again.

This time I was in for nine days.

Before I went into hospital I was working in a factory here in Cork, testing computer boards for Intel to see if they were functioning properly. I loved the job, and may go back to it again, but I am still not ready for a permanent commitment to a full-time job. I like to work so that I have money, but sometimes I can’t handle the job because my mind goes out of control, I suppose.

All in all I have been in three psychiatric hospitals as a patient: St. Mary’s in London, St. Anne’s in Cork, and now the Mercy Hospital’s new psychiatric ward in Cork.

The worst time for me was definitely St. Mary’s, because I was under one-on-one observation and in a locked ward. The night I was admitted to St. Mary’s, three years ago, I was brought to the Accident and Emergency section, and there I thought I saw Hitler waiting for a doctor. I started to panic, because I thought I was in Hell, and began screaming at my sister, asking her where the damned doctor was. The nurses put me into a white room that I christened the “Suicide Room.” I was left inside there on my own. I felt like everyone in the world wanted me to kill myself. There was only one thing in there besides a chair and a table, and that was a baby’s pacifier. I picked it up and gritted it with my teeth as hard as I could. When I looked out the window, I could see a type of generator which I thought was some sort of nuclear-bomb factory. There was smoke coming out of the chimney and I began to scream while banging my fists against the window.

The noise brought my sister and the nurses in. The Suicide Room was dead scary to be left all alone in with only a baby grip to soothe my pain, especially when I thought I was being admitted to Hell.

In that hospital the people were crazy. “Mohammed” would rattle off the Koran all the time. There were loads of Jesus freaks there too who would wear Jesus T-shirts and listen to the Christian radio station. I would tear out photographs of famous people and glossy advertisements from magazines and paste them up on the walls around me. Then I would have something to look at. It made my lonely bedrooms more personal for me.

The Mercy Hospital was a lot better than St. Mary’s. I’ll write you about it tomorrow.

Love, M.