Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

is a serious subject and we have been privileged on this forum to learn more about it from the excellent posts of Gingerbeard and others.

However I must confess to seeing a little black humour in this exchange that took place on the Radio 4 arts programme Front Row last night (25 November). The interview was with an American cartoonist whom has a well documented history of mental illness.

INTERVIEWER: ..." if you don't mind talking about it what is the nature of your mental illness?"

CARTOONIST: "I don't mind talking about it at all-schizophrenia.

INTERVIEWER: "I see. Do you think that your history of drug taking contributed to this?"

CARTOONIST: "Yes and no"

I see what you mean!

But - er,um, "schizophrenia" is actually a bit different from the popular culture split personality thing...

An abnormal perception of reality. Severe disabling brain disorder resulting in auditory hallucinations and paranoid delusions. Aren't I being a bit dreary here? Sorry!

Before being forced to retire with MS, Jan worked with schizophrenics and people suffering bi-polar.

A very interesting subject. I met many of her clients and still do from time to time.

I have a t-shirt which reads:

Roses are red
Violets are blue
I'm schizophrenic
And so am I

Suddenly, I remembered an occasion when I was filled with fury...

I was on night duty - an ENT ward. A very frail half-starved little old lady was admitted with perilously low haemoglobin. It was the wrong ward because there were only a couple of beds free in the whole vast hospital.

She was to be transfused with packed cells. I discovered that she was in a state of terror because she believed that an evil spirit, which she saw as a little black dot - I forget its name - was constantly climbing up her neck trying to ascend over her glasses and possess her. Well, fair enough... if you have a protective blanket pressed to your face at all times to stop an evil spirit from possessing you, you can't eat or drink much.... Poor little lady! No wonder she was starved and anaemic.

She arrived with a carrier bag full of scam letters claiming money. She'd sent "them" most of her savings.

Anyway, I warded off the evil spirit during the night, looked after the transfusion and coaxed some mouthfuls of a hospital sandwich under the protective blanket. I wrote up my opinion of her mental state and asked for a community psychiatrist referral - social worker referral etc.

Next night, I arrived to find my little lady had been sent home as quickly as possible. "We don't want A&E's rubbish here" said the Sister, handing over. "Treat 'em and street 'em" that's what I say..."

General mirth at the handover.

Fortunately I have never come across quite such callousness though when I was doing my mental health secondment as a student we did find a young woman dropping Christmas cake down the loo. When asked what she was doing she said it was for her Dad (who had died recently-probably tipping her over the edge) because Christmas cake was his favourtie. Which gives a whole new slant on "Talking to God on the great white telephone".

There is a famous saying used a great deal but the fabulous dedicated mental health-workers.............

"There, but for the Grace of God............... !"

Absolutely John, would not wish the deptression my husband and father suffered on my worst enemy.

There is a postscipt to my memory of the "threatened-by-an-evil-spirit little lady".

A couple of months later I was booked to do more night duty. (I disliked it, but wanted to raise some cash to pay my dentist!)

I was asked to go down to a surgical ward to cadge some i/m analgesia - we'd run out of the stuff during the night. Waiting at the work station I noticed a familiar name on the patients' board for Bay 'B'. It was my little lady, back in. I crept to her bedside - none of my business, but I wanted to see her.

To my horror, she seemed to be undergoing some abdominal crisis - lying there in an incontinent mess on a badly made "pressure sore relieving" (???) inflatable mattress. IVI, drains - the whole works. I bent over her, and said her name - very quietly.

She opened her eyes and looked back at me. Her eyes were not that of the same person. They glared back at me with a sort of hideous implacable malevolence, flickering with nystagmus. Then I saw her lips form a swear word. Something else had taken possesssion of her.

You may think me completely wrong, but I felt that the "evil spirit" had taken over.

I actually had the reverse experience. We had an ekderly lady brought in off the street, found wandering in her nightgown, in a filthy condition.

The police had located her daughter and by the time she arrived we had cleaned the woamn up and made her look half-way presentable. She wasn't swearing or anything but was incoherent, incontinent and incapable. this went on for about three days with no-one having any idea whyshe was like it. Though cleaning her up once I did seem to make a connection.

Then I had a day off and came back to find her bed empty and thought the worst. "Oh no,she is in the dayroom watching TV". I went to find her and there she was, drssed in her own nightgown, bathed, hair dressed, made up and talking as though nothing had happened. I don't know if anyone ever found out what the problem was but she was discharged home happy and healthy.

For about 6 years a gentleman (in the proper sense) whom we know well was in and out of mental hospital and really terrified of everything. Of course he was on heavy medication and able only to shuffle around, never leaving the house except in an ambulance under sedation.
For a man who was absolutely brilliant at his job (multiple doctorates, IT director of one of the world's largest companies, university professor ......) it was a terrible situation. Yes, he had been a bit of a stickler for ensuring that all his arrangements had been made and confirmed, his diary up to date ...... but that was a need in his job.

In March this year (somewhere I have the actual date) he decided to do "cold turkey" and is now almost as good as new, driving a car, meeting old friends, going for walks ........ The medical profession has a lot to answer for, having deprived him of many years of his life.

As for schizophrenia (?sp) isn't it normal for Geminis to have split poisonalities?

sejintenej wrote:

As for schizophrenia (?sp) isn't it normal for Geminis to have split poisonalities?

I'm a Geminian, and I'm absoluteyly fine.

No you're Not !

Yes I Am !

No you're Not !

Yes I Am !

No your Not

Yes I Am !

No your Not

Okay time to be honest with the world. I suffer from quite bad depression and I need to take a fair bit of medication so that I can feel anything at all. I have no clear idea what started it off, I do know that it is a defensive mechanism against whatever it was. I know what is helping me to deal with it, my wife (simply amazing woman), my daughters and some bl**dy good friends who keep me laughing with their constant supply of hilarious e-mails. Thank you JR and EA, pals in the very best sense of the word.

Slushy bs over with. ttfn

Mwah x