Eileen's story

I had indirect contact with the mental health system from early childhood. My father was first hospitalised and drugged when I was about 6 years old. He had two more spells in hospital while I was growing up and besides being given various labels and a wide range of psychiatric drugs over many years he was also given ECT . One of the hardest things for me in all this was the fact that, due to the stigma he felt about being deemed “mentally ill”, he could not face people afterwards and would look for a job in another part of the country. So we moved house frequently, and the family became increasingly isolated. My parents were young, poor, Irish in England and from different religious and class backgrounds and they were very much alone. I learned very young not only to not show my feelings, but also to not feel very much. I became the child my parents did not have to worry about, and was counsellor for my mother.  

When I was 18 my brother, then aged 15, nearly died overdosing on alcohol and the prescription drugs he found in a bathroom cabinet when at a party. When he was 22 he had a “breakdown” and spent some time, heavily drugged, in psychiatric hospital.

My turn came the following year. There were several difficult things going on in my life, including my father’s terminal illness. I stopped sleeping, and got to feel incredibly bad – with really frightening thoughts about death and destruction which I was utterly convinced were really happening. I was admitted to hospital where I took largactil and haloperidol. The use of ECT was threatened, but fortunately a great ally and friend said “over my dead body”. I left hospital after two weeks and reduced and came off the drugs as quickly as the doctor would allow me to, finishing after about two months and getting back to work within three.

 I took major tranquillisers again when, three years later, following a very stressful time at work, I stopped sleeping and could not slow down my racing mind. I had married and was heavily pregnant at this point and it was very hard to take these drugs when I felt sure they would affect my baby, but was told that it would be more harmful to her if I did not take them. When she was born she yawned non-stop for several days. I now realise this was her body’s natural way of ridding itself of the effects of the drugs. 

 Soon after this I took a class in Re-evaluation Counselling, see www.rc.org for more information. I really liked RC theory, which states clearly that every human being is good, whole and can completely recover from the effects of any hurts they have experienced. We recover spontaneously from hurts by the natural process of emotional discharge ( crying, trembling, raging, laughing, yawning ) but this process is usually interrupted as it is misunderstood. I liked the egalitarian nature of the process, with each person taking a turn as both client and counsellor. I have continued to use RC ever since, and have found the practice to be helpful in every area of my life. The work which has been done within RC on mental health liberation is, I think, very inspiring.

My first breakdown

I had to study extremely hard to get the A level results I needed for my chosen career. I managed to get the grades, but at the expense of my health and about 6 weeks after celebrating getting into university, had completely burned out, stopped eating and had not slept for nights. I had not realised I was speaking rubbish and wandered why people were worried about me. My friends did not seem to understand me anymore, I refused to sleep in my own house at Mum and Dad’s and got strange ideas about one of my parents being abusive and how it was up to me to communicate this to the authorities which would result their imprisonment. The pressure of being ‘the only one who knew’ was the last straw and the sense of responsibility, overwhelming.  The day I was admitted into the local psychiatric hospital, I could hardy walk and needed an adult either side of me to physically support me. I had no idea I was so seriously ill.

I was immediately forced to take high does of anti-psychotics and depot medication. I was pinned to the floor, had my clothes torn off me and was forcibly injected against my will. I now use the term ‘psychiatric rape’ to refer to this procedure which I would not wish on my worst enemy. Unfortunately, flash backs of this torture remain with me to this day. Having hardly been in hospital at all to this date, I was a very naive 18 year old girl, unused to the hospital regime of regimented mealtimes, having to get up at 7am with no purpose to the day, having nobody take an interest in you as a person and waiting a long time for visitors and familiar faces. I had never heard of the mental health act and nobody else in my wider family had ever had a mental health problem at all so this was a massive shock to the system. I did not tell anybody about the psychiatric rape as I feared nobody would believe me or be able to help me. I was told that running away would result in the police bringing me back. Difficult words for this academic high flyer to take in!

Five weeks later, drugged up to the eyeballs and bearly able to recognise myself in the mirror, my friends Mum had persuaded the psychiatrist to allow me home. I was so relieved, I cried. I bundled my things into a black carrier bag and told myself I was never going there again. My folks agreed to me being at home to recuperate and get my life back in order, but it was on condition that I took my medication exactly as prescribed by the psychiatrist at the time, who I had by then developed a deep seated hate towards. Grudgingly, I saw him in outpatients, answered his questions ‘yes, no, no, yes’, with absolutely no chat and no rapport whatsoever. This was the man who had ruined my life. It was like going to visit your own rapist every 6 weeks for them to see how you were getting on! I swallowed the anti-psychotics and attended to get my depot ‘like a good girl’, but totally disagreed that I need both. I stopped feeling, thinking for myself and lounged around the house like a zombie. I carried on with my waitressing job but was advised to give up any ideas of going to university. I was immediately offered a council flat (did the psychiatrist believe the untrue story that I was getting abused at home?) and a full set of benefits, both of which I turned down. I would hug my Mum ever 5 minutes which must have been annoying, but I just felt so alone and constantly needed reassurance.