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| on Isle of Coll 23Jul17 |
"In 2008, aged 55, I got involved in mental health matters because I’d shared my personal story on the Scottish Recovery Network website in 2005 and attended their Glasgow Peer Support conference in the December, and so in January 2008 I started a voluntary organisation Peer Support Fife alongside my own website promoting recovery. It was an exciting time, anticipating changes in the way that mental health services were run, giving more power to people with lived experience of overcoming mental health challenges. Or that’s what I thought it was all about. Empowerment and a civil rights movement. Similar to the work I’d been doing since 1980 in communities, developing grassroots projects and providing opportunities for learning, to adults, young people and children.
Eight of my family through 3 generations have experienced psychosis and psychiatric treatment: my Mother and Father, two younger sisters, my three sons and I. For us psychosis was a way of externalising mental distress which resulted in coercive drug or shock treatment which further re-traumatised. In my case I experienced psychosis after the births of my second and third sons, 1978 and 1984, due to very painful, induced with oxytocin, labour, the drug increased so that I would deliver on the day shift, both sons born just after 3pm. The effect of this was to cause altered mind states, acute sensitivity to the environment, difficulty with sleeping, and so I voluntarily entered a psychiatric ward, both times, separated from my babies and forcibly injected with antipsychotics. I managed to make a full recovery after both these treatments, tapering the drugs myself, getting back on with my life. Then in 2002 I experience another psychosis at the menopause, existential and hormonal, again voluntarily going into a psychiatric ward and being coercively drugged. My stories can be found here: http://chrysmuirheadwrites.blogspot.co.uk/
In this See Me story I’d like to highlight the
stigmatising and discriminatory impact and nature of psychiatric diagnosis and
“family history of” written in medical notes, particularly in 2012 when my
youngest son, who lives with me, experienced a mental health crisis or psychosis. He wanted help and asked for help, then
eventually was locked in a seclusion room of the IPCU (intensive psychiatric
care unit) with no toilet, light or water plus other failures in duty of care. I raised complaints and won an Ombudsman
complaint in September 2014, and an apology from the health board (Scottish
Sunday Express article). However
during the first year 2012 following my son’s negative treatment I became aware
of investigations by social work into my character, having done an FOI request
for the Adult Protection Investigation report which found nothing amiss with
the hospital practices. I asked for
copies of my son’s hospital notes and saw written there “family history of
schizoaffective disorder (my diagnosis)” and comments about me, including
“difficult and demanding Mother” which appeared to justify my son’s coercive
treatment. I’d been advocating for my
son in clinical ward meetings after he asked me to.
Therefore
the fight for justice following my son’s abusive treatment was further
complicated by attempts made to lay the blame at my door because I’d been a
psychiatric patient in the same hospital and was known to the nurses, having
raised concerns already in 2010 about things I’d witnessed in the acute ward
when visiting my son. That year I had
highlighted issues with a range of senior staff in different organisations,
including our health board, the Mental Welfare Commission and Scottish
Government’s Mental Health Division. In
retrospect I believe that my raising of concerns negatively impacted on my
son’s treatment in 2012. I’ve been
called a “troublemaker” by a Professor in Mental Health Nursing and excluded
from meetings for speaking out about my son’s treatment. It’s not been easy.
Then in
August 2015 I experienced another reactive psychosis following the years of
campaigning for justice and fortunately this time around managed to avoid
psychiatric treatment. I got Lorazepam
from an out-of-hours locum Doctor at a community hospital and taking one pill
on two separate nights helped me regulate sleep. My son supported me through and I also
engaged with clinical friends by Email.
I found this to be a positive experience despite at times being
unsettled by altered mind states and extreme sensitivity to the
environment. I reasoned these through as
being helpful scenarios eg if people were watching me then it was for my own
good. If insects and birds were somehow
more noticeable then that was positive and natural. That love of nature has continued to be a
positive experience and I’m much more appreciative of the environment,
following this last psychosis.
I don’t fear
another psychosis as I believe it will be a life-enhancing experience, just
like the last one. It was far more risky
for me entering a psychiatric ward as a voluntary patient. The drugs don’t suit me, I find them
iatrogenic. And so I am now working to
promote, and hopefully research, Safe Houses for Psychosis, alternatives to
psychiatric inpatient treatment."
