All of Me (22 page)

‘Now, here at the Maudsley we believe in therapeutic treatment.’

The Maudsley. I knew that place. A huge redbrick psychiatric hospital in Denmark Hill, near Camberwell. I didn’t know why I was here but, I’d learnt, it paid to go along with their ideas. Or at least appear to.

‘When do I have to come in?’

The doctor looked surprised.

He didn’t expect me to say that.

He certainly didn’t – any more than I predicted his response.

‘Oh you don’t have to come in,’ he beamed. ‘You’ll be staying here for a while.’

Oh no you don’t. I’ve got my life. I’m happy. You’re not ruining it again.

‘I’m eighteen. You can’t keep me here if I don’t want to be here.’

He shrugged. ‘Technically, I’m recommending you stay with us for a while until we get your eating under control. However, if you choose to walk out that door I will apply for a section.’

‘A section?’ My mind was reeling.

What for?

He nodded. He was serious. I slumped in my seat.

‘You win. Where do I go?’

The Maudsley, I’d heard, catered for all sorts of nutters and weirdos and psychos.

And me.

I was on Ward 3, the therapy ward, with a complete range of oddballs. The ones with eating disorders were the worst. Anorexia, bulimia, you name it. Half of them wouldn’t eat anything; the others cleaned the plate, then threw it up within minutes.

What’s wrong with people? Who would want to live like that?

The same accusations had been levelled at me, I remembered, so it was best to take them all with a pinch of salt. In my experience my fellow patients turned out to be some of the sanest people you could meet – with perhaps a few things to work on. Funnily enough, though, no one else denied their diagnoses. That was weird. Why was it just me who was locked in by mistake?

The ward was split in half for group therapy. Half a dozen of us went with Dr Young, the registrar, the rest with someone else. Overall control for the ward came from Professor Julian Leff.

I don’t think a lot of the patients had much experience of therapy prior to those sessions. They struggled with the rules and the incessant questioning and analysis, whereas I’d seen it all before. If anyone had asked, I could have predicted the therapist would sit there, nodding, umming and ahing, and peppering everything with ‘I see, I see’ and the classic ‘And how did that make you feel?’

I was right. But I still had to get through it and try to convince these idiots that there was nothing wrong with me so I could go home.

Mum didn’t come to visit, although Jennifer did and so did Dad. The Maudsley wasn’t too far from his new house, so he was a regular sight. He was never as embarrassing to talk to as Mum – who sometimes struggled to hide how uncomfortable she found being among my fellow patients – but we’d been through the whole patient-and-visitor role for so long there wasn’t much left for us to talk about. Still, at least he wasn’t weird. One of the other girls in Ward 3 was regularly visited by her dad but, if you ask me, he was the one who should have been a patient. He’d barely say a word. He’d just stand in the lounge, near her chair, and pose like he was a ballet dancer caught mid-dance. It was fascinating to watch. He had such grace, such poise, like a bird, but what the hell was he doing? I wasn’t surprised to see him on television years later but he was a painter, not a dancer.

The Maudsley has had its share of celebrity patients, actually, and while I was there I shared therapy groups with someone with royal connections. I wondered if she was being kept there by the same lies as me.

No one looked exactly pleased to be there but some coped better than others. We were all sitting around doing nothing as usual when there was a big fuss out in the corridor. That wasn’t new. But the screaming was worse than anything I’d ever heard in Warlingham.

There was a crowd blocking the door by the time I got there. But I was just in time to see a man outside completely on fire. He’d obviously tried to kill himself but I don’t think he’d been prepared for the slow pain. He was haring up and down, flames pouring off him like the Wicker Man.

Oh my God, he’s going to die!

Then out of nowhere a nurse shoulder-charged him and they both went down. A second later he was wrapped in a blanket being rolled over and over. The fire was out. He was alive. It had taken about five seconds.

It’s only in an emergency that you see what people are really capable of. Who’d have thought Ward 3 staff knew what to do when someone immolates himself? They also had a procedure to prevent escapes.

The Maudsley was a big hospital and you were allowed to wander, by and large. The entrance to Ward 3 was at the top of a flight of stairs, but if you got through the door there was room to roam. With permission you were even allowed to venture down to the shops. Dare to touch the stairs without clearance, however, and the flags went up. I saw a lad flash past once. He was young, athletic and really motoring. I thought,
There’s no way these staff are going to catch him.

A nurse came flying out of her office but she didn’t even try to chase him. She just ran to a button on the wall and hammered it. A second later alarms pealed throughout the building. That was the lockdown signal, I realised. That was the cue for certain staff on every floor to drop what they were doing and head into the corridors – to stop whoever was making a break for freedom.

It was an incredible sight to behold. Staff in white coats appeared from every corner and literally jumped on the poor guy. We called them the ‘A-Team’. Nobody ever got past them although plenty tried.

I was accused of it once. As if! But I suddenly found myself being manhandled back up the stairs by two giant orderlies. They were hurting my arm.

‘Get off me!’

‘And let you try to run away again?’ one said.

‘You may as well let her go. She won’t get far at that speed.’

‘Yeah, you’ll have to be quicker next time, love.’

Nod and smile. Nod and smile.

Three weeks, four weeks – I don’t know – but some time later I found myself back at home. I didn’t feel healthier. I didn’t look any different.

What was the point of that?

Still, I didn’t have time to waste on worrying about my weight. I had things to do, starting with finding a new job.

Sometimes things just fall into place, don’t they? No sooner had I thought about it than I discovered I had a new job – even if I didn’t know how it had happened. Still, you can’t look a gift horse …

That smell! The bodies, the urine, the Dettol.

The familiar claustrophobia of panic was overwhelming.

No, not Warlingham!

Where else could I be? I took a second to study the room. The patients looked older. The layout was different. The TV was newer and bigger. It wasn’t George Ward. I wasn’t in the peephole cell. That made a change. So where was I? And why was one of the older ones asking me to help her up? And how did she know my name?

Weird.

I think I’d been there about ten minutes before I realised I wasn’t a patient – I was a member of the staff. It was an old people’s home – which explained the smell – and I was a carer. For once I’d be following other people, making sure they were where they had to be. This time the boot was on the other foot.

I was excited, actually. Warlingham had shown me how these institutions shouldn’t be run. I had the chance to make a difference. I really thought I’d found my vocation. That didn’t last long.

One of my jobs was getting the old dears washed and bathed. I just had to run the bath, help them with their clothing if necessary and then hang around in case they got into difficulties. The old ladies were really sweet – senile as you like, but lovely. Some of them reverted to kids in the bath water. It was really lovely to watch.

The men, on the other hand, just reverted to evil so-and-sos. The first old boy I took there, Eric, told me he was too decrepit to wash himself. His words, not mine. ‘Beverley, your predecessor, always washed me,’ he said pathetically. Like an idiot I believed him.

I got hold of a sponge and told him to stand up. While he held onto the safety rail I scrubbed his back, legs and stomach and arms as briskly as I could. When I finished I threw the sponge back into the bath and dried my hands. In the mirror I noticed Eric was still standing.

‘You’ve missed a bit,’ he said.

When I turned round I noticed something else was standing as well!

It was staggering how many randy old buggers there were in that place. They all tried it on at one time or another. The home leader just laughed in my face when I told her what I’d been doing. ‘They’re having you on,’ she said. ‘If they can’t wash themselves then they don’t get washed. That’s the rule.’

There was one exception. One bloke had some sort of infection and his testicles had swollen up like tennis balls. I was told by a nurse that I would need to wash them for him. I agreed but when the old boy took down his pants I nearly gagged.

No way!

I hated working at that home. I think the patients were treated well enough but I’d spent enough time in institutions. It wasn’t pleasant being there, especially with the familiar stench of pee and bleach. More than that, there are only so many times you can have your backside slapped by an eighty year old. So one day I just threw my blue tunic on the supervisor’s desk and walked out.

It felt good leaving. I literally just walked out the door and never returned. How many times I’d wanted to do that at so many other places. The only problem was what to tell Mum.

The next morning I was in my car. I don’t remember getting there. I don’t remember driving to the top of our road. But I do remember waiting until nine o’clock and thinking,
Mum
will have left by now.
Then I drove back home and went inside. When she returned nine hours later she assumed I’d been to work.

We carried on like that for about three weeks. I’d leave for work, wait for Mum to go past, then shoot back home. My cover was only blown when Mum asked for my housekeeping money and I had to tell her why I didn’t have any.

Not again.

I recognise some of the walls, the beds, the nurses – even some of the patients.
I was on Ward 3 at the Maudsley. Dad was next to me, talking to a doctor. They were discussing my weight. I tried to tune out but it was impossible. I needed to eat more, they said.

Yeah, yeah.

I needed to stop being sick.

Heard it before.

I needed to focus on being healthy.

Same old story, same old lies.

If I didn’t I could look forward to a lifetime of institutional care.

Now I’m listening!

I promised I’d behave. What other option did I have? The only problem was not knowing what I’d done wrong in the first place. If you don’t know that, how can you avoid doing it again? I became a bag of nerves. Making my bed, brushing my teeth, contributing to the therapy sessions – were any of these acts on the ‘mustn’t do’ list? Was I doing them right? It was like walking on eggshells and knowing one of them was really a mine primed to go off at the slightest touch.

Worst of all was the suspicion that when the mine went off I could be nowhere near and still get the blame – and that’s exactly what happened.

‘Well, that won’t fill you up,’ the nurse laughed wearily. ‘You’d better spit it out.’

Where did she come from?

‘Spit what out?’ I replied. ‘I haven’t eaten anything.’ That was the God’s truth. I hadn’t had a crumb all day, not even breakfast, I suddenly realised.

‘Come on, you know what I mean. The paper. Don’t tell me you’ve swallowed it.’

She held one hand out under my mouth and with the other picked up a magazine from the table in front of me. It was open at an article on food. There were scraps of pages screwed up all over it.

Someone’s been having fun,
I thought.

Then I looked back at the nurse, who now had both hands on her hips.

‘Look, Kim, you’ve got to stop eating paper.’

So that’s what this is about. She thinks I made this mess?

‘I haven’t eaten any paper. Don’t be stupid!’

‘Kim, love, you’ve got ink all round your mouth.’

The paper episode got me kept in another few weeks. They said it was part of my disorder. Not my depression or my dissociation or one of those other made-up diagnoses. My anorexia or bulimia – I can’t remember which. It didn’t matter to me. They were both as untrue as each other.

There was no point in fighting it. I knew how it worked. They accused me of something, I promised to behave, we had therapy for a while, then they let me out. Over the next few years this happened, on average, once or twice a year. When I wasn’t inside the hospital I was visiting Dr Murray Jackson in out-patient, listening to one wild claim after another. Trumped-up charges every time, from having breakdowns at work to claiming the television was giving me signals. When Professor Leff had told me that one I just laughed in his face. He didn’t flinch, just wrote something in his notebook.