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

Cork, Ireland
October 13, 2000

Dear Margie,

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.

In Mercy I met up with Fiona, Sheila, Oona and Theresa – three diagnosed schizophrenics and one anorexic, suicidal alcoholic. I had been in hospital with each of them before and so I had automatic friends this time. I like to make new friends but it’s amazing how many old faces you see back inside again. It’s kind of scary to think that they’re still trapped by their illness too. But what I love about them is the solidarity between all of us, that you are accepted among them and understood for having problems of your own.

The first time I was in hospital with Fiona, in March 1997, she was very suicidal. She tried to kill herself a few times when we were inside together. Since then she has become addicted to alcohol.

Sheila admits that she has schizophrenia, but she’s ashamed of being schiz. She told me about times she would burst out laughing for no reason and how she would bark like a dog in her back garden sometimes.

I call Oona “Joan of Arc” because I could see her hallucinating as she would walk the corridors. I asked her if she was seeing fire and she told me she had been, so I know from that that I truly can see other people’s hallucinations around them. Oona had a lot of electric-shock treatment. Her thoughts are still racing and she is still suffering from depression.

Theresa’s father is dead. She showed me her poetry about him. Also she is very musical and plays the tin whistle a lot. She has many plans and is full of ambition, just like I am.

These girls are all between the ages of twenty and thirty-five. I am not sure of their exact ages because that’s not what we talk about. We don’t talk about our lives outside the hospital as much as our lives inside.

I have always chosen my friends when inside. I figure people out in my mind to see if they are good or bad. I usually judge people very well. However, patients can use you if you are too generous with your smokes, your biscuits, your shampoo, whatever. I gave my walkman to the girl in the bed next to mine a lot. She thought she was the Virgin Mary. She used up my batteries and didn’t thank me for loaning it to her so I felt taken for granted by her.

The smoking room was a place to feel at home. We would listen to the radio there, drinking tea and eating food. Smokers stick together, I find. I would feel so out of place in a mental hospital if I did not smoke. I would feel isolated.

In the smoking room, we often talk about our illnesses and the doctors’ and nurses’ treatment of those who may fly off the handle. For example, in the Mercy last week, there was one middle-aged lady called Mary who wouldn’t stop chasing everybody around and gripping on to them with an iron hand. She was very strong and it was a bit scary to be gripped by her. She had lost her son and was going on about prayer and him a lot. I think she thought some of us were actually her son. This woman was very ill and was the main topic of conversation in the smoking room. At times the nurses would lose their patience with her and lock her into our bedroom and she would bang and pound on the doors for ages. We thought the nurses weren’t handling her right and that all she really needed was someone to talk with her through her confusion. I guess they did their best, but at the same time, they seemed so inexperienced when it came to handling her properly. By the time I was leaving, Mary was much calmer around everybody. Sometimes the patients are better nurses than the nurses themselves.

I am still on 25 mg of Zyprexa. Admittedly, before I went into hospital I had only been taking my medication occasionally, because I had begun to believe that I am my own cure. Also, I hate taking medicine because of my father. I hate the way he asks me if I have taken my medicine. I hate the fact that he thinks that without my medicine, I would be crazy. I completely disagree with that. I KNOW I can cope without medicine. I think anti-psychotic medicine damages just as much as it aids because of all the bad side effects. The side effects I experience are a groggy head in the morning, not being able to remember my dreams, memory loss in general, and also tardive dyskinesia where my lower jaw grinds itself off my upper jaw all the time. I don’t need or want to be drugged up for the rest of my life. I want to be healed. I want to cure my schizophrenia. There simply has to be a cure for it. I believe if there is an illness, there is also a cure. That’s Karma to me. For all there is bad, there is all that is good.

My doctor wants me to go on another drug called Clozaril, which would be a major step for me. I don’t think I am ready to commit to a drug that is so demanding. I would have to commit to going to the hospital to give blood once a week. (Apparently Clozaril affects the white blood cell count in your blood and so that has to be monitored regularly.)

I will have to be weaned off my Zyprexa and put on Clozaril over a period of three weeks, which I will have to spend in hospital so that I can be monitored properly. And they don’t even know that Clozaril will work any better. They merely think they should try me on a new drug because none of the others like Respirdal and Dolmatil and Zyprexa are getting rid of my “delusions.”

The doctors want Oona, Sheila, and I to go on Clozaril together so I would have the company of others who are trying it for the first time also but I have so many doubts about it. I know ultimately it’s my choice but for me, in reality, it’s my parents’ decision. I know my Dad, who believes in medicine so much, will more or less force me to make this life change.

In St. Mary’s, I was put on Chloropromazine, which is the most mind-numbing drug there is. I was a complete zombie when I had to take it. I would go completely blind for up to thirty seconds after rising from my bed. It made me feel like an animal being drugged up like that. I just pray that I don’t turn into a zombie under Clozaril.

Now that I am out of the hospital, I am living with my Mum and Dad again. Because I can’t hold down a job, I have no money and thus can’t move out. I love home as I do have a lot of freedom here but I can feel suffocated sometimes. I rebel against my parents at times. I always honour them but really I can’t be my true self in their house. I would so much more prefer to have an apartment but as I am broke, I am dependent on my parents all the time.

My Dad is completely anti-smoking and anti-drinking, which he likes to lecture me about. I am curious about everything, so I try anything, which goes against my Dad’s principles. I have done lots of drugs like ecstasy and speed. My Dad thinks I live in a world of fantasy, and I do, but I love my world…usually. My mother adores me as I adore her, but when I am in a bad mood, she annoys me with her “s-mothering.” I love my parents, but I know they will never understand me properly, the way I want to be understood by a partner. That keeps me searching through the darkness.

All in all, I am glad to be out of the hospital. I believe in myself as an individual, and I don’t think categorising myself as a schizophrenic is totally apt. I may have schizophrenia but that is not a totally appropriate label, in my point of view, for what goes on in my mind. It’s more a madness or an insane river of emotions, rather than something schizophrenic.

At home I stay in my room most of the time talking to people while I am listening to music or watching television. I am always talking to my soul-mate, Rebecca. She is in me twenty-four hours a day. We go to sleep together. We eat together. We go to the toilet together. We have a bath together. We drink together. We have sex with ourselves together. We talk and laugh and play together. We are apart but yet we are together all the time.

My own bedroom at home is done in the same way I decorated the walls of my rooms in St. Mary’s. At home now, I have pictures up of Bono, Madonna, and Tori Amos. I tore these photos from magazines and pinned them up because I believe they love God as much as I do and sing about Him. I hope to meet all of these people one day. I feel I will, too.

I am tired now. So I will send this even though I am not totally happy as it ain’t perfect.

Love, M.