I mean I think it’s a shame, because a lot of people haven’t heard of direct payments orand they’re just trying to bring it into mental health and it’s quite a slow process and I think it would work for a lot of people. I’ve got one friend whos getting it, and I’ve got another friend whos applied, but she’s waiting to hear, so we will have to see what happens with that. And it’s been changed now. Called Self Directed Support’ and I helped her fill in the form and it took us an hour. And it’s quite lengthy. it’s a bit like the DLA form about what you have to do, what help you need and what your needs are and things like that. And yes. So that’s the new scheme and I’ll see how it goes for people, but I really recommend the direct payments if you are a person that does suffer a lot from being in hospital to be monitored all the time. I mean my direct payments worker’s never had to make the phone call but she knows the numbers to contact, my Mum and my CPN if I’m showing any signs of becoming unwell. And that can be all sorts of things like overspending and getting up on a high, having lots of energy, you know, talking too much. Things like that to going the other way and being low and not wanting to get out of bed. She does see me have duvet days some days and I refuse to get dressed. She’ll say, Are you getting dressed today I’ll say, No, I’m having a duvet day I don’t bother to get dressed, but I don’t do that very often now. So that’s nice. And she’s very supportive because she’ll help me with things round the house and cleaning and shopping and doing my clothes and things like that because I’ve got lazy-itis which nothing to do with having an illness, it’s purely the fact I’ve had her for a couple of years now and when she first came in, I was quite depressed and she’s helped me through that bad period and now I’m better, I’ve kind of got used to her doing it. So I am treated like a depressed person when I’m actually fine. But there you go.

So I take advantage of that, so it’s really like having a housekeeper. But it’s the company as well that’s the important thing. you know, I know that when I get up, she makes me a cup of tea which is really nice, and she lets herself in the door and shouts up, good morning and I drag myself down and then I spend a couple of hours just talking to her in the morning and that’s how we start off and that’s quite nice. So it’s companionship.

And I think particularly for me because I’m single. I think if I was in a relationship it would be different, and I probably wouldn’t need direct payments, but I don’t like being on my own and so for me it works, and long may it last. I don’t know with the present government what will happen with the funding or things like that but for me it’s really working. So for me it is quite amazing really and I just hope more people can get access to it.

So I just kept working, but periodically I’d go into hospital and I’d have about six months off work. So it was very stressful keep becoming unwell, get better, keep becoming unwell, get better.

So it was really, really hard work and I now feel a lot more relaxed and people say that I am a lot more relaxed, but one of the reasons is, is that not that I was non compliant but sometimes you start to get high and you’d feel better and may be you weren’t as organised with your medication and things like that where now they bring it to my house, and they bring it to my house every three weeks in blister packs and the other thing is that is I’m monitored. Because she comes to my house, my CPN every three weeks, that means that, you know, whereas before with other times in [name of place] and [name of place] where it was very busy you had to go to them. If you became slightly unwell, you would end up missing appointments because you felt unwell, so you didn’t go. If I feel unwell at home, there’s a knock on the door, and I just open the door and there she is and just, How are you And I say, I’m not very well you know, and it’s a completely different set up. And that’s only from being in [name of place] where services are very good. So it really is a post card lottery as to where you live as to what standard of care you get. Which is quite amazingly different to be honest. And when I was unwell up here, they got the crisis team and they used to come out to me, including weekends, and they come out to me every day for at least a couple of weeks until I felt better to do without them.

I wonder if you could start off by telling me what life was like before you had any contact at all with mental health services?

Well I didn’t have contact until I was 19 and that was when my parents split up. So that seems to have been the trigger. But before then… people have asked me since what was our childhood like, and looking back I can remember being quite depressed at times, and that was quite funny on reflection so but I had a normal schooling. I went to a convent school and the nuns were aggressive and they hit you, and we had to get the nuns out of the school with my parents help. Because I got hit across the face with a bunch of keys and my Mum had to ring up and the nuns were taken out and we had to write a letter to the Sister Superior France and that was when I was about 14, and I still stayed on the school because they were taken over by a school of governors. And that was until I was 16.

And then when I was went to sixth form, I went to a mixed sixth form in [name of place] and so we moved and my Dad had come out the army and that was fabulous because it was boys [laughs]. And that was a whole new world. And I didn’t study very much and I did my A’ levels but I had to do retakes. So that was quite hard.

I find talking is a real therapy for me and gets it out of my system and I feel a lot better once I’ve said it, and it kind of, it works for me to, you know, to be able to do that. And I’m sure that for other people that same system of discussing things, you know, is all important and if they’ve got access to it, instead of just being given medication they would find that they, they got better in a different way or quicker or things like that. So, you know, I wish well I hope more people get access to talking therapies and I think that’s a thing there’ll be doing more in the future as well. You know, it will be less medication orientated in the future and more in support. So I’ve been very lucky with that really.

The Psychodynamic therapy I just had for a year. And I didn’t take to her as much and she was the second one I saw. And that just flew by a year and yes I didn’t find it very proactive. I didn’t really enjoy that as much. The psychologist I saw, who did a bit of CBT was very good. And in fact, he made me fill a questionnaire out when I started and a questionnaire when I was leaving about how I felt, and it was quite interesting at the end to realise what I’d written at the beginning and how much better I’d got which showed, and I was with him only for nine months, but it was very effective. So that was really good. So that really worked yes.

I think what I did was when I got diagnosed was I made sure that I read up about it. And I made sure that since being ill I’ve always read all my notes, and that can be really interesting. The other thing is make sure you get what you’re entitled to in terms of support. And I’ve made sure that I’ve got DLA, Incapacity Benefit, Income Support, Direct Payments, anything I could access, I made sure I got what I was entitled to. And with talking therapies as well, I’ve pushed for in the past. And I’ve got it, and so I’ve fought the system if you like to make sure that I’ve, you know, that I have got everything going that I could possibly get to make myself as best as well, to the best of my ability. And I think that’s the most important thing I can say about that really.

One of the nicest techniques my psychologist taught me was the compassionate friend. Have you heard of that?

Yes. But say a bit about it?

Yes, I will do, it’s lovely. Because I’d go in and I’d feel awful and I’d feel very guilty about not looking after my son properly and I would have been down, and I wouldn’t have had much energy so I would have confessed that I hadn’t taken him out enough or done enough with him and things like that. And my psychologist would say, What would a compassionate friend say And I would always come up with the same answer and that was quite strange actually. I would say, I’m doing the best I can at the time And it would take the guilt away. It was just giving me permission to do what I do but not feel bad about it, and that was a really good technique and it’s one that I keep now, you know, you’re doing the best you can at the time, you know, and that is, has been really valuable for me. So I’m glad that I’m glad that he taught me that technique. Because it sort of saves you from the upset. And guilt’s quite a big thing when you’ve got a kid I think.

And what’s your attitude now to the diagnosis? In general the psychiatric diagnosis?

Well I think it’s important to give a diagnosis because when you read the symptoms, because I got the Oxford Book of Psychiatry and I thought they haven’t got me right. You know, they haven’t, they diagnosed me with schizophrenia and didn’t take into consideration my moods so they, you know, I’m schizo affective definitely in between the two, you know, definitely and I mean you need to read up a little bit, don’t take somebody else’s word for it really and you need to make sure that you feel happy with what they’re telling you.