Raye - Interview 30
More about me...
Raye is 28 and lives in London. She describes herself as Black British, and both her parents are from the Caribbean. Raye cares for her father who has paranoid schizophrenia, her older sister who has schizophrenia and her older brother who is manic depressive. She also has a younger brother.
Raye describes home life when she grew up as a little 'dysfunctional'. Her parents split up when she was very young. Her mother belonged to a small, strict Christian church who, unlike other churches worshipped on Saturdays, and Raye felt they were to some extent outsiders. Family life revolved around school and church. Raye was happy at primary school, but says she felt a bit daunted when she started secondary school. This was also around the time she realised something was wrong with her sister. Over the next few years it became apparent that her brother and her father also suffered from mental health problems. From around the age of 15 Raye took on caring responsibilities. Initially it was simply checking up on whether her sister was OK and generally keeping an eye on things. She was also given a lot of responsibility for her younger brother and they spent a lot of time together.
As she grew older, Raye got more and more involved in the care of her family. Both her sister and brother didn't want to interact with their mother or their younger brother when they were unwell. She also became the next of kin to her father. She was therefore involved as all three of them went in and out of hospitals.
Twice, Raye has tried to change the situation. Fist when she moved away to go to university. She ended up coming back quite a lot, and on reflection she says she should have gone further away. Then, a few years later, she went to Japan where she taught for two years. When she was away her younger brother had taken on some responsibilities, but when she returned, she says it was 'like I never left'.
In her experience, the lack of coordination between services adds to the strain on carers. For example, the lack of hand-over notes often means she is the one informing professionals about her father's medical history. She has also been asked by professionals about whether or not he is in hospital at a given time. Recently, she was contacted by her father's housing officer and asked to go to his house to turn off his radio which was disturbing his neighbours. Raye doesn't think these sort of things fall under the duty of 'next of kin'. Being so closely involved and knowing so many intimate details about her father makes it impossible to maintain a normal father and daughter relationship.
Raye is critical to the over representation of people from Black and minority ethnic groups in mental health hospitals. She fears that many of them -like her sister- become institutionalised, perhaps as a result of wrongful sectioning, and then are unable to return to a normal life afterwards. She thinks issues such as poverty and poor housing is partly to blame for the inequalities in mental health.
The constant worry and the many practical and emotional impacts on her life have taken their toll. Over the last year or so, Raye has developed depression and has also been fighting her addiction to food. She says that given her family history she is in some ways glad her problems are not even more serious. At the same time she is very tired and has come to the realisation that for her own sake -and for her family- she needs to step back from some of the responsibilities and focus on rebuilding her own life. She is receiving counselling and she has also found that the 12 steps of Overeaters Anonymous have helped her find a practical and spiritual path towards recovery. She says she can't go on thinking she has to live for everyone else and forget about herself.
Raye felt she had to take on responsibility for her father, brother and sister but she says she...

Raye felt she had to take on responsibility for her father, brother and sister but she says she...
Raye describes how caring for someone with a mental health problem requires time and expertise,...

Raye describes how caring for someone with a mental health problem requires time and expertise,...
Raye thinks there is racism in mental health services and in society generally.

Raye thinks there is racism in mental health services and in society generally.
And that's not, -I don't think that's just about mental health, I think that's about quite a lot of things. You see a group of black boys standing on the street together you immediately think they're up to no good. Where does that come from, it comes from stereotypes, where do they come from. The majority of what you see is reported about these people on TV. If the world suddenly flipped and on TV for every black person you saw a white person, and for every white person you saw a black person, you know, I don't think people would be able to cope with that. It's just, there's all the little things as well that perhaps other people don't, don't think about. My name sounds English, I show up for job interviews and I see people and they're a bit, 'oh OK', I'm not what they were expecting. I think it's always little things. It's uncomfortable I feel, and so when you add mental illness on top of that, people don't really know where to put themselves.
Raye says her sister, like many other people from minority ethnic communities, has become...

Raye says her sister, like many other people from minority ethnic communities, has become...
This was before she started getting ill and every time she, -it's almost like she loses the will to live, she just, she does the bare minimum now and she doesn't really wash her hair and, and stuff like that, doesn't really look after herself so I've tried those things and then I've tried to do her hair for her and all those sort of things, we've been shopping and all that sort of stuff.
Being a 'super hero' isn't good for Raye or those she cares for.

Being a 'super hero' isn't good for Raye or those she cares for.
I just have to, yeah, accept that I am powerless over their stuff. I can ask my dad about his medication and he can tell me the truth if he wants to. And my sister, she can do her own thing, my brother can do his own thing but I know wherever I go that, that's always going to be there and it would be nice to just be a sister or a daughter and not have to be their, sort of caretaker, it would be nice to not know so much about what's going on in people's lives, you know, but I live at home with my mum at the moment and I don't really see that happening until I move out.
Raye puts everything on hold when she worries about her father.

Raye puts everything on hold when she worries about her father.
When she returned after two years abroad, her brother hadn't taken on much of the care for their...

When she returned after two years abroad, her brother hadn't taken on much of the care for their...
While wishing for normal relations, Raye feels she needs to check up on her father and sister to...

While wishing for normal relations, Raye feels she needs to check up on her father and sister to...
My sister, it would be nice to see her relaxed and it would be nice to not have to go and check to make sure she hasn't done anything silly with the money. It's all the checking and the remembering of conversations and, you know, it would be nice to, - it would be nice to see everyone more as well. Last time we were all together as a family was at my granddad's funeral in February and my mum and my dad, my sister and my brother and my younger brother, we were all there and I haven't, you know, had that, - us all in the same room together at the same time since I was what, I don't know' must have been 10-11 and I think maybe the relationships with my mum would be better and maybe we could do stuff as a family and it would be the way it's supposed to be in a natural order which is I'm my father's daughter, they are my brother and sister, I'm not their caretaker, I'm not their mother. I try with my dad, we go to the cinema every now and then and I try and arrange to do stuff with my sister but for me it's, it feels like such an effort. I think it would just make, it would just be so much easier.
While her father can present well to doctors, she is used to having him sectioned when he needs...

While her father can present well to doctors, she is used to having him sectioned when he needs...
It's hard, but now I feel like I do it and I don't really think, I'm detached from it because I know what it's about and back then it wasn't really explained to me, the powers I had as a next of kin, so they would end up staying mostly the full term or near enough. My brother won't really have me as a next of kin. My sister, it's not really been that bad but with my dad, it's more often than not my dad that I end up doing it for. And that time was particularly bad because when he gets ill he goes running round with not many clothes on and things and he's not a danger to anyone but himself but we'll find him in the park at four in the morning doing his exercises naked and all that sort of stuff and, you know, he keeps getting picked up by the police and all that sort of thing. He's on to the game, he knows, they're all very smart and I think when you have an illness like that you know how to play the game. He'll turn up at the doctor's appointments and they'll appear to be, you know, normal and OK.
She thinks a mix of genetic and environmental factors caused the mental health problems her...

She thinks a mix of genetic and environmental factors caused the mental health problems her...
Raye has depression and an eating disorder, but feels luckier than her father, sister and brother.

Raye has depression and an eating disorder, but feels luckier than her father, sister and brother.
What is OA, sorry?
Overeaters Anonymous. 12 steps like AA but for food because that's how I cope, I eat, I just binge is what I do. So I don't, -I think maybe it was just loads of things at that point in my life and I just really couldn't cope anymore, I just kind of broke -and I didn't tell anyone until it was over which is what I always do with stuff like that because I don't feel they can handle it and I'm trying not to do that so much at the moment, you know.
Raye feels she needs to set new boundaries both for her father and for the health and social...

Raye feels she needs to set new boundaries both for her father and for the health and social...
As a teenager she was 'freaked out' by her father's irrational thoughts.

As a teenager she was 'freaked out' by her father's irrational thoughts.
The next day he came back and I realised afterwards he made a real effort to appear normal and he was asking me, do I prefer him the way he was the day before or the way he is today and I didn't really know what to say and I said, 'Today', because he was a bit, a lot calmer and there was none of this, 'Don't marry people called Paul', type of thing. So I've always, I don't know, always found that hard because after then I realised the little things that my dad has with his paranoia, like he thinks people have been into his flat and they haven't so he leaves notices up like, 'The police are watching you', and, 'The milkmen aren't really milkmen, they're the police and they're watching you', he has all these notices up in his flat and I realised that maybe it wasn't what he thought it was or what I thought it had been.