ANNUAL REVIEW
I am flexing each of my fingers. I press, the tip of one into the table, see the flesh swell with the pressure I make against the surface. Then I switch to the next finger and try to shuttle across with all the fingers of my hand in quick succession, try to make a sort of ripple effect.
I can hear everyone’s voices but I don’t particularly want to. They are kind people; they have their heads cocked slightly to the side when I say I am the most disgusting person that ever existed and they have that slight softness; a hint of a hint of a gentle concerned smile to show they are listening to me intently and want to understand the garble I am giving them.
Afterwards Wendy said she wanted to burst out laughing when I raised my voice and told them that it was their duty to have me put down; that they knew in their hearts that I was evil and responsible for Covid and Global Warming.
I like that, it made me giggle. By that time we were walking at Ardmore, watching the seals on their rocks and Wendy was very kindly helping me relax; telling me about her fear that she would disgrace herself with her irreverence as evidence that I was psychotic was prized out of me. It is funny! Even I know it.
I know how awkward it can be when people say and believe things that are patently untrue and yet devoutly believed and you just don’t quite know how to respond in an inoffensive way; hence the cocked heads and the hint of a smile, the giving of presence and the refusal to embark on an argument about fact and fiction and right and wrong.
I loath this time of year. Every year just after Christmas they review my Compulsory Treatment Order and every two years this results in a visit from an independent doctor followed by a tribunal a few weeks later, which is even worse than the review I have just been through.
I can’t be bothered to try to explain my views on the outcome as some of the activists of the world tend to want to dismiss my complacency and want to say that with a bit of effort I could easily stop being treated against my will. I sort of like the well-meaning expressions of outrage that I am controlled and have my autonomy and choice restricted in ways other people don’t, it is comforting to see that support. However I also know without medication I will end up in hospital and that I get closer and closer to killing myself with each admission, and I know that I now have a life incomparably better than it used to be.
I also know I fear dying and despite that think I should not be alive. And explaining it to outsiders? My Mum is bewildered; on the phone that night, said why don’t I just take my meds and that she just doesn’t understand.
I wish I could explain to those people who think that with a bit of responsibility and maybe the equivalent of a kick up the arse all would be ok. I have to try to persuade myself that such people are ignorant rather than malicious.
If the tribunal decides to continue with my compulsory treatment I will breath a sigh of relief that I will probably live for another couple of years and at the same time try to tuck away my knowledge at how wrong it is that I am given these extra years.
I am weary beyond belief at these yearly assessments or reviews, as they call them. For me they literally are life and death events with me completely confused about what outcome it is I want but terrified none the less.
We arrived prompt on the Friday morning with our masks on, our lateral flow tests taken, our hands scrubbed. As we waited I talked to Wendy about how I don’t know how to pronounce my psychiatrists second name and as I talked, another patient piped up said that no one could pronounce it and that every one called him by his first name instead but with doctor in front of it.
It is much easier but seems very wrong somehow. He is Nigerian and very, very, large and much as I try to get his last name right I cannot do it. It took me ages to get to know him and to grudgingly like him. He remembered Wendy from the last tribunal; got her name wrong, but made the effort some people don’t do.
While we were waiting for him to arrive, we talked with my MHO and a student nurse who was observing. It is weird having a conversation that lilts and lifts, that has laughter in it; stories of Christmas and of worries about mixing with people now covid is so rampant. We talked, passing the time and ten minutes later I was making ripples of my fingertips, staring at the table, letting everyone’s voices wash over me.
I like that they are seeking out different therapies that might help me believe I do really have schizophrenia and that my delusions are really delusions. I like that they look into ways of helping me deal with elements of the past but that they worry about how dredging up the memories might impact on me. I like that they talk about the stress of work and ways of reducing it and the stress that would end up piled on my family if the workers stopped taking responsibility for dealing with my medication. But most of all I am staring at the table; feeling curious about the feel of it when I apply pressure to its surface.
Most of all I am tucked away inside myself; hearing the conversation but letting it splash past me, creating eddies I do not want to peer in or become aware of.
An hour later I am at work, talking about the technicalities of a report and very much hoping that when I disagree with people I am not causing offence. Really, really, anxious when people go quiet and so unsure how to disagree in a way that leaves people feeling ok with it. I used to be able to do that with ease, now I don’t know how to.
And then as I said, I am with Dash and Wendy, and we are at Ardmore. Ardmore teems with birdlife; it has seals and seaweed and mudflats. It has a big house in the middle of it, surrounded by woods and fields with horses and sheep and occasionally flocks of geese. Wendy holds my hand. I hold Dash the dog’s lead.
She makes me giggle all the time; the brick wall of the memory of the morning fades but much as I say that, now it is over, I am completely fine. I’m not. It never will be fine.
I have no idea how to make such things better, I couldn’t train, or change culture, I wouldn’t stop things like this from happening but no it never, never, will be fine.
(Photos: invitation to review and Ardmore January 2022)
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