TRIBUNAL NUMBER 8

Giving an insight; hopefully.

I am not sure why I hate these times so much but I do. Its sixteen years now, so that must be eight tribunals I have been to; to decide on my compulsory treatment.

They do try to be nice and kind, they really do but they are somewhere deep down a phone line and although I have a piece of paper saying who they are meant to be, it doesn’t match up with the names they give me when we all speak on the phone line.

I haven’t a clue who they are, these people who will be deciding whether I live or die. I don’t know if they are sitting in the same room as each other or, if like me and Wendy, they are sitting in the sitting room with their dog sleeping on the chair opposite them.

My heart is low in my stomach, beating a hollow tap of fear. Wendy makes gestures at the phone when we are getting frustrated; pretends to be sick or waves her hands, points at us in frustration when they are seeking answers from the psychiatrist and the MHO. She does it to make me relax, to help me smile at the situation but I can’t.

My mind is falling away from me and although I register the bits that I would like to interrupt with; I am lost from the noise of what is, after all, an impromptu court room.

I am lost and yet listening as if my life depends on it which, after all, it does.

I put my fingers to my lips when Wendy says she is struggling to stop laughing at their ponderous intensity. I want to mute them all and at the same time I want to say listen to me and at the same time, in the same mind, try to be invisible in the hearts of these decision makers.

There is that bit where the panel are questioning the people who have prepared the section request. They are asking if I have just had one episode or more. They are asking if I have ever self harmed; if suicidal ideation has been a large part of my life. And the doctor is answering; saying their computer is on a go slow and in any case their records only go back to when I came to live here. They are telling the panel they don’t know; they are almost apologising but all they really know is that once, some time ago, I was in hospital on a section.

And Wendy is gesturing in indignation, mouthing;

‘Ask us ask us!’

I am slower; a bit lost at the absurdity. I am tempted to interrupt them, give them a lesson about what it was like to be a patient in an Asylum over forty years ago, or to somehow summon the numerous admissions before I moved here; to tell them about the razor blades and boiling water and then those jagged edges found when on the ward. The overwhelming determination to die.

To tell these people who provide care for me something of my life and maybe ask them how they think they can do this when they know so little about me.

I do, in a very brief clipped monotone when I am asked to comment at some point and I get thanked for that, but I am not sure I want the thanks.

Both my doctor and my MHO are at pains to say I am very high functioning, that I do a job that provides value to the community and that although I attend a wellness hub I also volunteer there.

It sticks in me like I barb, this language. The almost surprise that I am high functioning and the willingness to use that phrase about other people. To my mind it is dehumanising, demeaning.

‘I am a capable, feeling, everyday human just like the rest of you’

I want to say. I do not just function and the fact that I function well is not extraordinary and even if it is, this is not the language to use about other people.

I am not a piece of machinery or a computer program that broke down or crashed.

Functioning is not the key thing you look for in people you meet or describe; usually it is assumed and certainly doesn’t needed pointed out as a great achievement.

I am tempted to say I have an MBE; that I played a large part in the creation of the legislation you are imposing on me. I am tempted to say I have a series of awards for what I have done, so stuff your talk of functioning and how well I do it.

I want to say the work I do is not a token gesture to keep people like me amenable and content; that it is maybe just as valuable as the work you do, but I don’t.

I look at Dash the dog and grin when Wendy says Dash doesn’t worry about things like this and that I should be like him.

I am, I must admit, glad that they don’t ask me many questions and do not quiz me too much. I was annoyed when they asked me to speak before anyone else. I wasn’t prepared and did not know what I wanted to say. I did not know what anyone else was about to say either.

Instead, I said I did not want to speak much because I was feeling delicate; having heard the night before that my mum’s cancer was also in her lungs and we now needed to look at life in a new way. And, to be fair, they were kind about that.

And I didn’t want to speak; I just didn’t.

I have had to say it so many times.

I try to ignore the reality of my inner life; it harms me when I have to speak it out loud.

Those words about evil and the end of the world. The knowledge that my medication keeps me alive but only because it stops me acting on what I know I am really.

I don’t want to have to say that given the choice I would let reality back; a reality so horrific that it would destroy my family, the life I have built up, the love and friendship. A reality where, once again, I would be desperate to die. I don’t want to have to say how guilty I feel that I am still alive.

At the beginning they asked about my care plan and, to give her credit, my psychiatrist said that there was a care plan but I had never been involved in it and that now I was under her care she would make sure I had a say in it when it is next drawn up again.

I felt a brief flash of pleasure at that, which disappeared when they spent ages asking if the recorded matter from last time had been fulfilled. I wanted to wave my hands and say;

‘Ask me, ask me, I know the answer!’

And then they were asking about the restrictions being asked for and we did not know what they were because they were referring to them by letter, so Wendy had to interrupt and ask them to explain. And yes, they did and yes, they did ask Wendy if she agreed with them and yes, she did.

They went away to deliberate and we shuffled on the couch while we waited. Wendy asked me again why I put myself through these sessions as they ruin not only my day but my week and I grinned in a sickly sort of way and said I didn’t know and that I hadn’t intended to. But last time I got my depot, my nurse had encouraged me to go along and said they find it very difficult when we don’t attend and I felt too guilty to refuse after that. Wendy said;

‘That is their problem, not yours’

and I was inclined to agree.

We went back onto the phones again, got briefly told the CCTO had been extended. We said goodbye and shortly afterwards I went upstairs to bed and fell fast asleep.

Later I woke and read a post on Substack about the killer in Nottingham who like me, has paranoid schizophrenia and who, unlike me, killed three people when he was ill. In the comments on the article someone said people like me and him were vermin. It is hard nowadays realising that, with the relentless media coverage of that event, that many, many, people cannot see someone like me as anything other than an aberration, a monster.

It makes me hope those around me are right when they say that I am kind and gentle and pleasant and hope that I am wrong when I agree with the people who, normally, I would say are bigoted and ill informed.

This, on top of the tribunal, made me even more sad.

I am in the same mood today. I did have a really good morning at the photography taking pictures of broken things but I am tired.

It is Valentine’s day.

I’ve bought Wendy three bunches of daffodils and she has promised to cook me my tea.

I should be delighted. It is rare that I get a meal cooked for me.

We are planning to curl up on the couch and watch a film later but to be honest I want to hide away; I want to stop speaking and I want to stop smiling and speak to no one at all.

And as a postscript. No, I don’t know how tribunals could be improved and no, I am not angry with my Psychiatrist or my MHO. I am fairly sure I like them and pretty sure that they want the best they can do for me.

However, the tribunals, they do harm me and I wish I had the courage to refuse to attend.

And this evening? I phoned Wendy at four thirty; she had just woken, as had I. She was smiling and promised to go shopping for our meal soon.

I had the loveliest of evenings. Starters of feta cheese dip and warm olive bread bought through to me, along with a zero alcohol gin and tonic with ice in a large glass. That was followed by a card saying I may be a weirdo but I am just the weirdo that Wendy wants which made me laugh and then patatas bravas, prawns with chilli and lime and veggie meat balls with tomatoes and beans.

I loved it and I loved the raspberries with smashed up magnum ice cream.

We watched ‘Marley and me’ which Wendy said she couldn’t watch because she prefers Dogs to Humans and it is too upsetting. I have now left to go to bed; leaving Wendy watching Dirty Dancing which she has seen dozens of times. Wendy will even tidy away the plates and dishes.

I have been spoiled rotten and feel very loved.

And I am still sad and I am still lost from yesterday and I am still trying to stuff the reality inside of me back away into a corner but cannot.

It is difficult knowing things like this harm me but knowing I have no one to blame or get angry at. The world is not always fair or easy and justice is not a smooth ride.

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.