One of the things you mentioned at the beginning was that when you started to feel unwell that you thought that what was happening to you was quite natural.
Yeah exactly because you just, honestly you just feel normal, you just feel like it’s, it’s when you feel, you know, when you feel , when you get the ‘flu you, the ‘flu is natural it’s just, you know, it happens and you feel poorly but you just still feel the same, you still can do your stuff, you can still do, you know, gardening or cook or, or make yourself a cup of tea. You can still do your ordinary day to day things but it’s just that you have a feeling where you have something coming over you like you’ve got the ‘flu but you have to deal with it or you have to try and keep it out or you have to try and, you know, try to recover on your own etcetera. That’s how it was like, I feel it was just natural that I was experiencing and that other young people may have experienced it as well. but I didn’t want to tell anyone about it, I didn’t want to tell my friends I just thought it might be a bit embarrassing, maybe I’m going through something or whatever so yeah I just felt it was just a natural part of a, a human being and what they go through. and because I feel that I’m sort of, because I’m all over the place and I’m very active and I go all over the place I feel that maybe because of it, I’m very, feeling very weak and that’s really putting pressure on me etcetera but [pause] I don’t think it was. Now I see it wasn’t.

Did you have an idea of what it might be then?
No I didn’t because I didn’t, the thing is I didn’t even think the slightest that it was to do with anything, I didn’t think it was to do with my heart problems, I didn’t think it was to do with anything else. I just didn’t think anything, I just thought, you know, I wanted to get on with the day and do my college and etcetera and I didn’t think any of it, anything of it.

And you said in the beginning you just tried to sort of cope.
Yeah exactly, I tried to get on with my day to day stuff at college and do what, what I had to do. I had, you know, I tried to sort of keep it completely up but on some occasion it was quite difficult because I experiencing very, you know, feeling very anxious and very, you know, my hands were getting very sweaty and I was getting very frightened for no reason, I don’t know why. But there were times when I could sit in the classroom, I had to walk out and go to the woman that was based at our college to go and tell her this is how I’m feeling etcetera. And this may have been during the class that I’d walked out, and etcetera so yeah.

My experience of mental illness well, I think that really started when I was about five years old. I got my first experience of mental health professionals when I was eight. But my first cogent memory of anything is being locked inside my school, when I was five years old, in a classroom. Now as you can see I’m of mixed race or you may think I’m Mediterranean, Greek, Italian or Turkish or what ever. But in fact my father is Libyan and my mother is white English. Basically back in those days it was 1970’s and things were pretty grim then for anyone that wasn’t white. I remember somebody called me maybe a Paki or something like that. And being in the area I was in, which is basically a pretty rough part of [city], I knew all the bad words that you shouldn’t know at that age. Well I told, basically told someone to go forth and multiply and as it were and I ended up being locked in the classroom during lunch break. Now that seems to have a very, that was a very seminal moment for me because that kind of defines my relationship with other people from there on in. And I know that sounds a bit weird but you’ve got to remember that at five years old it’s still at very important age when you’re developing. And being locked in a classroom I didn’t know how long I was going to be locked in for and I was left all on my own unattended and I was very frightened. And I was left quite dumbstruck by the experience.

After that, that was my first day also at junior school, so that wasn’t a very good experience for me. And as I said that seems to have defined my experiences with other people from then on in. What happened after that was I went then, I continued in school, and my first experience of mental health services was actually after I injured someone quite severely, again it was racial abuse. And I just grabbed this guy that had basically been bullying me and I threw him against a wall. His head split open quite badly and he ended up having to have quite a few stitches. I was really shocked at what I’d done. I’d slammed him into a wall and I just remember blood all over the place. I couldn’t believe what I’d done. It was quite traumatic for me. The school authorities thought I should see a child psychologist. I saw a child psychologist the recommendation was that I had better breakfast. And a that time my name was Farid it’s an Arabic name, so I changed it by deed poll in the past to try and fit in a bit more as it were. I was recommended to have my name changed to Fred and to have, have a better breakfast in the morning because I didn’t really eat much in those days because I couldn’t really. I was so stressed out really. Why was I stressed out? Now that’s a good question. At eight years old you’d think people were living in a stable family. Well unfortunately I wasn’t, my father and my mother split up quite shortly after I was born.

And then I had my first son. He was about 8 months, no, sorry, he was, he, when I had him, about he was 2 months old, that’s when I started working. And my sister took over the looking after him. She had a daughter as well. Nine days between them. And she looked after them while I worked, me and my mum. We brought us wages and put food on the table and everything for them. And we used to take, take it in turns sleeping because there were only three rooms and there was six of us in one house. So we had to wake one person up and say, ‘Get out of the bed. It’s my turn to sleep now. So it, it carried on to be rough and everything but we got through. And then we got us own association house, me and my husband. And we settled down.
And then after that they told me that I couldn’t have no more children. It took about three years to have another child. And I got really down, I got really depressed. Anybody used to talk to me, I used to just snap at them. I used to get up at night and just open the door, just wander off. And my husband had to go looking for me. And I’d be walking the streets not knowing where I were. So he had to bring me back. And then I used to just get really annoyed with my husband. And my husband were getting fed up of me. He were just saying, you know, ‘I try my best here. I used to nag at him all the time. And he’ll come home and say, ‘Is the food cooked?’ I’ll say, ‘No, it’s not cooked,’ you know. ‘Why haven’t you cooked owt?’ ‘I can’t be bothered. And I was just getting that way, I couldn’t do nothing. So we started arguing.

Then he turned to drink. He turned to drink and every night kept on coming home drunk. Then he started gambling, spending money what we didn’t have to spend. So that got me really down. And then his family came on top. His sisters and that. And they started interfering with everything else. So I just told them where the door were. They didn’t like it. So me and my husband started arguing again over them.

And when I got out there I got to meet my mother didn’t I, for the first time, and that was a terrible shock. She wasn’t well and we just, there was some kind of toxic communication system where she frightened the living daylights out of me and I frightened the living daylights out of her. Once when she had one of her more lucid moments she said to me, you know, ‘What happened to the baby on the boat, I don’t even remember, what happened to the baby?’ You know, this is on the journey coming out.

I said, ‘Look the baby is here, you’re talking to the baby, the baby’s okay. You know, but it’s just one of those tragic things where she couldn’t even remember what was going on. She was conscious of the fact she had a child, that the child had been taken away or whatever, you know, and she’d lost it, so couldn’t look after herself or the child. And I, I don’t know but the, the, the shock of migration there, because when you’re there the first year I didn’t understand what people meant when they said what they said, it was a, just because they drive on the left and speak English doesn’t mean a thing, you know, it’s a huge culture over there to get used to and often people failed to get used to it have to come back here don’t they? But of course I had to stay for two years because otherwise I’d have to pay the fare back and I couldn’t afford that.

and anyway I had connections there so after a year it was okay but in the first few months after I met my mother that’s when I had the first psychosis, after about five months I was not well, just after Christmas, between Christmas and New Year in 1968 I was in, I volunteered, I signed myself in because I know that I wasn’t, I was having hallucinations and a terrible anxiety 24/7. I felt anxious the whole time and I didn’t know what it was about and I knew that wasn’t right. And I’d seen my mother, how sick she was and seen the effect it had on her where you couldn’t sort of determine the difference between personality and illness you know so the boundary line was very vague and it was quite scary because I was closely related to her you see and that made me doubt my own capacity to stay well. And as soon as that self doubt seeped into my conscious state of where I was going and where I was headed, where I was headed, I became anxious on the basis of my mother’s, you know, outcome.

I was relying so much on medical help that I didn’t mind going to the doctors and having whatever they gave me. But never in my life I thought I was going to be mentally ill, or psychologically ill.
Did you recognise what you were going through at the time as a mental health issue, when No?

No. Not until they took me to the psychiatric hospital then the, the shock came, and my awareness began. I began to change everything around me and looking for my own answers.
And what did you think when they gave you, well initially they gave you Valium and then they changed that, they gave you Prozac.

Prozac and something else.
So what did, what did you make of that, what did you think they were giving you that for, did you think at that point that you had a mental health problem or’?

[Sighs] The doctor gave me Valium and the day of the, when they took me to the emergency team was when I realised it was psychiatric unit. And then seeing the psychiatrist later on, changing my medication, by then I was aware of, that it was not a physical illness.
So did you, when you first got the Valium from your GP did you, did you think it was a physical?

No, no I didn’t think that. I thought that maybe I think this, I was so na’ve, thinking that the nerves is something like a tummy, so a tablet for the aching of the nerves [laughs], something like that, well it wasn’t like that but. It’s a very na’ve way of seeing things, I suppose. Mmm’

I got sick I don’t know. My brother was killed, mummy was in [the general] Hospital, and I heard that she was going to stop walk, talk, all the functions and I was sleeping things that was happening to her. They chopped off my brother’s two arms, opened his head and his back, he died cruelly I just couldn’t cope no more and I never had a boyfriend, I was going to church, couldn’t cope no more, couldn’t cope no more.
So you became unwell?

Yes
And then who was it that took

It was getting worse, because [my husband] was in the church and they were pray for me, it was getting worse, I was losing my memory. [Name] was my social worker at that time and I was living with a family in New Town, yeah because I went up to my brother, [yawns] my brother just stay, spend some time with him because when I broke this ankle, yeah, so I had to come to be alright, to go to clinic. And a woman, she’s dead now, my Church sister, she offered me, said I could come and stay with them. So I eventually lived over there for six months, not that’s wrong, three months and the daughter, then comes a mental breakdown. In Jamaica we say nervous breakdown, they were scared and I had stopped sleeping so I used to go downstairs and talk to myself and they talk, I talk loud and quarrelling and wake up mother and then she went to her daughter and they say I can’t stay there no more, she just sick she’ll have to go in the hospital. So that daughter called then at the time it was [doctor] and, [the] Hospital but my care coordinator along with my, that CPN they came from the Crisis Team upstairs and they came to the house and they took me because they see that hospitalisation was what I wanted.
And did you want to go to hospital?

I’d never dream of going to [the mental health hospital] no I’d never dream of going to [the mental health hospital], I didn’t want to go in a hospital because I used to go, every day [general hospital] I walk and go there every day. And then when they killed my brother it was a great shock to me.

As time went I don’t know what happened but I started feeling much worse , far more suicidal and it came to the extent where I just felt that I wanted to smash everything up around me and just break everything and whenever people spoke I started to get annoyed, I didn’t want anyone to speak around me, I wanted to sort of peace and silence around me and it was sort of like that. And then within the last few weeks before my exam it was, it was at such an extent that the condition, my condition worsened to, worsened so much that. I was, I found a difficulty even walking to the college because I was feeling so anxious, so down, so upset but I didn’t give it off as something that was obvious, I didn’t make people around me feel suspicious, why is he feeling, you know, why does he look like that, I tried to keep my sort of try to act as normally as I could but deep down I was sort of ripped up completely and I couldn’t think straight etcetera. but then after a period of time as the condition worsened it was decided we had, I had a meeting with the, the, the advisor and also we had a mental health nurse at our, our, at our college, we decided that the best way was we made a number of phone calls in the office and it was decided that I’d go to a local hospital because I was feeling really bad at that time. So all three of us, both of them came along with me because I wanted them to be there, we all went down. rather than going to the local one in that particular area where I had studied college they went down to my, the local one in my area so we drove down to that area. I wasn’t, I wasn’t sectioned or anything, I wasn’t taken into hospital but what was decided I was given medication, I was subscribed medication there and then and then they, I went home and it was decided that, by the people at the hospital decided that the crisis teams that are now everywhere that they come and see me in my home every single day from that day on.

My Mother didn’t know where I was in the borough. So someone said to her they saw me walking around the street looking a bit like I needed some attention like. I needed someone to look after me. Because I stopped eating. I was just drinking alcohol, smoking drugs, and partying every night and not taking care of myself, because I was grieving.

So I went round my Mum’s place. She had just came back from Jamaica on holiday and she brought back some stuff for me. And she cooked dinner. And she said to me, ‘I have not seen you for a long time Devon. Are you all right? I have called a doctor. I am concerned about you.

So not long after that the doctor came and examined me at my Mother’s place and then he said, ‘I will speak to you another time. Then not long after that another doctor came back, this was from a hospital doctor. So he came and examined me and said they would take me to the hospital. I am saying, ‘I am fine. There is nothing wrong with me. But my Mum is saying, ‘You go with them Devon. You are not well. So I am saying, ‘I am fine.

Anyway so not long after that the police came at the door. So I am thinking what is the police here for? Have I done something wrong? And then my auntie was there, my Mum said, ‘Go along with them Devon. Don’t worry. Take the treatment they give you so that you will be well again.

But this is all like I couldn’t understand what it was all about. Because I did nothing wrong against the law. I felt fine. Just a bit stressed, you know hungry, but I came home for dinner.

Anyway they took to me to the local hospital, mental hospital, and admitted me. And they were in the office talking to the doctor and the nurse about me. The police was there, and my Mum was there and my Mum’s sister. And the police asked me, ‘Have you been smoking dope, Devon?’ I was a religious person. My hair, long locks. So the first question was, ‘Have you been smoking dope. I said, ‘I do smoke, because I am religious. I don’t smoke for fun. I am a religious person. And then they talked among themselves.

Not long after that my Mum left, and my aunt left, and the police. And the woman, the nurse, said that is my bed over there. So they took me to another room, examined me, the duty doctor, and they took my clothes and gave me some other clothes. And I started to sit on the bed, and I thought, ‘There must be something wrong then, because I trust my Mum. Something, might be wrong, something that I don’t know of that I am suffering from.

In my case I suppose, you know, there was no, I suppose maybe I was lucky or fortunate and that, you know, I was taken, you know, you know, in terms of I was, I supposed forced really to, you know, to, to, to go and see a psychiatrist. I mean I really wouldn’t have gone on my own, on my own accord really. You know, so of course there was a process of coercion and, you know, force but I think in hindsight it was probably good for me. Because it, you know, it would have, had that not happen I would probably have deteriorated to an ill, to a stage where, you know, I was at risk myself because, you know, some of my actions were quite dangerous. You know, I was doing some perhaps a little bit crazy stuff. You know, like just going in the middle of the road and, you know, just putting my hands up and saying, you know, I can, I’m going to stop the cars. It’s like the, you know, programme Heroes at the moment where you can use your powers [laughs], you know, to stop bullets flying at you or whatever. So that kind of, you know, actions, so of course I was at risk of not only, you know, I was putting my life at risk and others, you know, for that.

So in terms of had I not, you know, been forced into going to see a psychiatrist and medication I don’t know whether I would have, on my own I wouldn’t have. You know, so in hindsight it was a good thing that, you know, I was, I was taken, you know, by force into hospital, you know, for my own good. And now I probably understand why sometimes people who have, who go through a psychosis, you know, at that stage they may not, they may disagree to say well, you know, be forcibly taken into a hospital or sectioned. But sometimes, you know, we are human being, you know, sometimes but it’s the manner that that happens. Yes, you know, it could be construed as, you know, very, very oppressive or very, but I think it’s, you know, it’s how it’s contextualised, you know. So, of course people say well, you know, I was sectioned, you know, I was forcibly taken, yeah but sometimes that’s one of, that’s the only way sometimes. And I’m not advocating that, you know, that’s the right way but for some maybe it is. For me that was and, you know, I have no, I have no qualms about it, I have not complaints. You know, because otherwise I don’t think I would have accessed services at all.