TAKING A HISTORY

TWO DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS

Today was not quite as I wished; the first proper day of our Christmas Holidays. Wendy slept in the same bed as me. Now I no longer smell of alcohol she is much happier to be there with me, especially as I am snoring slightly less. I loved last night. I was up there early to wrap presents and write bits and bobs and then to settle to read and listen to the radio.

Just as I was dropping off, Wendy arrived. I wasn’t too sure how well I would sleep, so used am I to being alone and, in some ways, I didn’t sleep so well. No radio, no shipping news and then, in the early hours, reading my kindle but hoping I didn’t wake Wendy and yet that shift and glide of two bodies in bed. Sometimes joining to cuddle and at others turning our backs to try to get space for sleep. I loved it, loved the warmth of her nearby, loved listening to her when she snored, even if gently, loved being aware of her body moving around as she dreamed and then, as I was waiting for the morning to fully arrive, the doorbell rang and, thinking it was the telly man, Wendy got up and rushed downstairs while I dressed more leisurely only to find out that it was Tom delivering Buddy the dog.

I made coffee, Wendy appeared later and then the handyman arrived to put our new second hand telly on the wall in the kitchen. He quickly told Wendy it was too heavy for the wall and was so old that it was pretty much worthless and then with some cash in his pocket for his trouble, went on his way.

We then had a half hour of resentment. The telly had been expensive and was now no use to us. Wendy texted the seller, who had said to get in touch if there were any problems. To give the lady some credit she did reply but clearly had no intention of giving us a refund or anything back. It led to some morose pondering, both of us wanting to send back cutting texts and both of us realising it would make no difference and would be of no help. We gave up our grumbling and bought a new one for the same price we paid for the old second hand one and it is due to arrive tomorrow. Now we are not rich but that is wealth isn’t it? To be able to afford a telly, almost on a whim.

Wendy decided the old telly needed to be out of the house as soon as possible. So now it sits outside the back door in the rain and maybe if I ever get a car again we can take it to the dump.

We were cheerful again by then and I was still pondering Wendys revelation to me last night that when she goes to bed, she reminds herself of the day’s conversations. She can remember the words people said, the expression on their faces and the tone of their voices and this shocked me. I can barely retrieve the slightest theme of what I have talked about in a day and certainly not the words or body language of the people I am with. I am so utterly different to Wendy. We share interests, politics, values but while Wendy is bright almost always, full of ideas and thoughts and adventures, spontaneous and funny and wise, just a bundle of vivacity and energy I am almost the opposite. My thoughts are slow, I notice little and really possess little curiosity. I don’t spark and I don’t remember words or activities or much at all really. Some people mistake my silence and my placidity for calm and wisdom but I think that is more a product of my accent and my background. I am rarely calm and usually I live with a buzz of paranoia and anxiety about the world I inhabit.

Anyway, we ended up walking the dogs. When we take them to the fields in the park and let them off their leads they take off in a blur of speed and sleekness, just delighted to have sprung into the freedom of motion. And then we have to retrieve them!

Not long after I got home; having said hello to a newly surfaced Louie, I went for my bus to get my jag. The bus was late but not too late and I was seen quickly in the Jeanie Deans. I don’t remember the name of my nurse or the nurse who was with her but I got my jag and then it was time for the interview I had been told I would have.

Apparently, they needed my contact details and they needed to take a photo and they needed to check they could share information with Wendy and they needed her contact details and then they needed an entire history.

The nurse quickly asked if she was upsetting me when my replies became a bit hesitant and I said she wasn’t and that she could ask me anything but I must admit I find it hard to refer to things I know to be true as if they are signs of illness and delusion and wish those questions could be asked in a more sensitive way and then we were off on a wild journey. Medications, illnesses, alcohol, work, my childhood, my admissions, traumas, my ex-wife and my son and my friends and where I have lived .

I hadn’t expected this and was impressed in a slightly sad way. I can’t remember being asked such things in such detail ever before and yet I have been involved with mental health services for forty years. I was confused about this and even more confused when they said they would now be doing this every year.

And yes, it was upsetting. I said a lot that I rarely ever say and at times I really wanted to say more and yet at the same time was aware that maybe the detail I wanted to say, the release from speaking that I sought, was not the purpose of this interview and so I would cut down and become brief and miss out some things.

The nurse was good and kind. I was grateful that sometimes when I said that something I was talking about was probably trivial that she would disagree and say that such things are hard to go through and experience and could explain something of how I am today.

I wonder what they will do with all this information? Will it lead to something new?

Increasingly I wonder about the treatment I have had for so many decades; nothing has ever really changed and it is only in the last couple of years that I feel much has made a difference when I was referred to psychology. But maybe I skate over realities I prefer, in a sort of sullen way, not to notice. Each hospital admission I have had, apart from the very first one, has been on a section and at such times I am desperate to harm myself. Those admissions have meant I have survived and without them I would have most probably died. And then seeing some of my CPN’s; some of them have given me the confidence and skills to learn the most basic of skills in living a life and some of them have certainly provided a place where I have been able to talk and to be heard and to feel, in some small measure, safe.

I think back to the earliest of days when I was actively seeking help, in a prolonged shriek of help me; a take the pain away, stop this horrendous journey I am on. Make it different. Give me the life I thought I might have had.

I do not know if that was me being unrealistic or if it is some strange product of our society and what we all seem to expect from mental health services. With mantras that are almost old fashioned now, of hope and responsibility and recovery; of the possibility of living our best lives, it can be hard when you wake every day and the sadness and the beliefs are still very much there.

When this has carried on almost as long as I can remember and, despite having a wonderful life, I still think I should die; I sometimes feel let down, betrayed almost. That sense of; what have you been doing for year on year of assessment and support and medication and sectioning? Why do I still feel much the same way I always have?

I wonder why I feel the absence of the life I think I should have had as a way of being discarded by services and yet of course it isn’t.

If I am not ill and what I believe is indeed true, then of course, my life will continue as it does and despite the love around me I will still feel guilt and despair and if I am ill and this is schizophrenia as everyone tells me it is, then why would I ever expect it to stop?

No one has ever claimed there is a cure for it and even those who have different interpretations of this experience do not tend to say our experiences will change.

I wonder why I would ever have expected something different?

It is maybe as simple as if you go to a doctor you tend to think they will make it better and that if they don’t, they are doing something wrong.

I think maybe what they have done wrong is that they have failed to explain to me that this really will not stop and that I need to, finally, late in my life, get used to it and even that is a bit hard to expect.

I still do not really believe I am ill and therefore how easy is it for someone outside of my life to help me accept something I do not countenance in the first place?

Either way, when I got home from the Clinic I was tired and I was out of sorts. It is hard to talk of things I try not to even think about without it hurting and leaving me sad and a little lost and a little shocked.

Wendy had been at her Mum’s with the children and she also came back tired and exhausted. We may love our families but family life is often a bizarre and busy place.

Now I am back upstairs. I have wrapped the last presents, Buddy the dog is asleep beside me. I am comfy and sleepy; later Wendy will come up as she too likes this sleeping in the same bed and if Wendy comes up Dash the dog will come up. Our bed is not particularly big so I am not too sure how we will all fit on it!

The children are in their rooms being busy and being children.

I am being old and soon I will be asleep but asleep in the way that means I will be waiting to wake when Wendy arrives.

And now, now that I am some distance from that history taking, I am feeling pretty good.

To learn more about my life and life with a mental illness do read my memoirs START and Blackbird Singing. Available from Geilston Press. Best got from Amazon at the moment.