The Dark Threads (2 page)

At home, later that evening, Mum asked what the psychiatrist had said but, before giving me a chance to reply, added, ‘I bet he said you've to go back to work, didn't he?'

‘No, he never even mentioned going back to work. He said I'm heading for a nervous breakdown.' I paused for effect. ‘I've to see him again next Tuesday. I don't know what'll happen if I have this breakdown thing before then.'

‘Don't talk silly,' Mum said. ‘There's nowt up with you.'

My last weekend before I ‘put my head on the chopping block' (as I later came to see it) was a very ‘normal' weekend. No pills taken from Friday night to Monday so that I would feel more like doing things. Saturday morning chatting over coffee with Jackie. Saturday afternoon shopping with Mandy. Saturday night dancing at the Mecca with Danny. Sunday afternoon at the bowling alley with Danny, Mandy and her latest boyfriend Pete. Sunday night dancing at the Mecca again. It only stands out in my memory now because this was to be my last ‘ordinary' weekend for a long time.

Although Dad didn't seem to understand why I had decided to see a psychiatrist he was less against the idea than my mother was. On my second visit he said he'd go to the hospital with me and then we could have tea afterwards in our favourite fish and chip café.

Dr Sugden asked me if I still felt the same as I had last week. Of course I still felt the same. I'd been disillusioned and confused about life for the past few years and, not surprisingly, nothing had happened to change that between last Tuesday and this Tuesday. I nodded.

‘Right. I think it would be best for you to come into hospital as a voluntary patient,' he said, shuffling some papers on his desk.

‘Which hospital?'

‘High Royds.'

What? Me? A mental hospital? High Royds was a large, Victorian-built mental hospital on the edge of Ilkley Moor.

‘How long for?'

‘About a week.'

‘What for?'

‘A rest and observation.'

I was more surprised than worried by his suggestion. In fact I was hardly worried at all. I welcomed the idea of a break from my family, and thought it might be an interesting experience, if nothing else. Anyway, it was only for about a week, only for a rest and observation. What was there to lose? I was to report to Thornville Ward the next day.

Dr Sugden asked to see my father, who he had noticed was with me this time, while I returned to the waiting area.

Dad took the news badly; there were tears in his eyes when he came out of the consulting room. ‘Jean, you won't believe this,' he said in hushed tones, with furtive glances at the other waiting patients. ‘He says you're not well. He wants you to go into High Royds.'

‘Yeah, I know,' I said. ‘I've agreed to it.'

And so I had agreed to put my head on the chopping block. No, I had agreed to spend ‘about a week' in a psychiatric hospital for a ‘rest and observation'. That was all. No fuss, no drama, no warning bell that I could hear.

Years later I got hold of my case notes and there I could see that Dr Sugden had already decided I was schizophrenic. Written me up with that label when he first met me.

But I could never have guessed, on that chilly, autumn day, that the system would come down on me like a steamroller; my career as a mental patient was about to take off.

Jackie, who was now off work with her anxiety, called round later that afternoon.

‘High Royds? You're joking!' she said.

Even after I managed to convince her it was true, she still seemed to think it was all something of a joke. With an expression of mock seriousness she said, ‘Well, yes, Jean, I can just see you basket-making with the loonies.'

We both giggled; it really did seem quite hilarious.

I met Danny that evening and, in the coffee bar at the bowling alley as we waited for a lane, I said, ‘Danny, I've got summat to tell you.' I took a deep breath; this wasn't easy. ‘I'm going into High Royds tomorrow.'

His mouth dropped open. ‘High Royds? Why?'

‘The doctor thinks a rest will do me good.'

‘A rest? In that place? Why?'

I shrugged my shoulders.

‘I … I don't know what to say,' he said, fiddling with the crucifix on a silver chain he always wore round his neck. ‘High Royds? Jesus, that's awful.'

‘It's no big deal,' I said. ‘It'll only be for about a week.'

‘You know what's caused this, don't you?' Mum said tearfully as I packed later that evening. ‘It's because of what you did last Thursday night.'

I tried to remember what reckless deed or dreadful sin I'd committed last Thursday night.

‘I've told you before. My Great-aunt Annie died when she did that.'

All became clear. I didn't need to ask, ‘Did what?' because I remembered the tale of her poor Great-aunt Annie.

‘Well, maybe the ceiling fell on her head while she was doing it,' I joked.

‘It's nowt to laugh about,' Mum said gravely, but I couldn't stop myself. ‘You should never have washed your hair when you was having a period.'

How strange it felt to be packing my clothes into the same suitcase I'd used to go on holiday to Butlins in Skegness with Mandy four months before, when I'd made the decision to visit my GP. The sight of the half-packed case kept playing tricks on my mind, giving me a holiday feeling.

The next day, Wednesday 4 December 1968, I wrote in my diary four little words: ‘I'm going in today.'

‘I'm warning you,' Mum said, when I was about to set off with Dad, who'd offered to accompany me. ‘Once somebody sets foot inside one of those places, they can never get out of their clutches.'

‘Oh, Mum, mental hospitals aren't like they were in the olden days,' I said, laughing. ‘Some of your ideas come out of the ark.'

‘Take no notice of me if you like, but one day you'll remember what I've just said. And you won't be laughing then.'

CASE NO. 10826

Salient Psychiatric Symptoms and Signs on Admission
:

Admitted from my clinic at St Luke's Hospital as an informal patient, where her history clearly indicated that she was suffering from a schizophrenic type of illness and had been for some months before. She had been abnormally preoccupied with questions of a religious character and was morbidly concerned about questions of right and wrong, to such an extent that she could not think in a normal way or live a normal existence. She was markedly introverted with gross flatenning[sic] of affect. She had obvious difficulty in concentrating and there was great lack of spontaneity.

Family History
:

It seems likely that both the father and the mother are unstable persons.

Dr Sugden *

* Names of all medical professionals have been changed

CHAPTER TWO

H
IGH
R
OYDS
P
SYCHIATRIC
H
OSPITAL
, formerly Menston Lunatic Asylum, was situated about seven miles to the north of Bradford, on the edge of Ilkley Moor. Set in spacious grounds, surrounded by sprawling fields, there was once a self-contained community here where inmates could be kept out of sight and mind of the public. I didn't know what to expect as I walked up the long, winding driveway in the fading evening light, my father beside me carrying my case. A sense of foreboding ousted my curiosity as we rounded a bend, for there it stood: large, dark and drear. A Victorian madhouse. I clutched Dad's arm.

On entering, we found ourselves standing on a tiled floor in a stark corridor with high ceiling arches. The air was thick with the smell of cleaning fluid and in the distance I could hear someone crying. A nurse directed us to Thornville Ward.

Thornville was brightly lit, and had potted plants, a radiogram, a TV, tropical fish and a noisy budgie. It was, I understood later, a ‘showpiece' ward. I tried not to stare at the occupants of the armchairs seated around the TV, but I was curious to know what these mental patients I had come to stay with were like. They looked like ordinary women, but I thought there must be some strange and terrible sickness lurking behind the façade of normality.

A dumpy nurse with straight black hair introduced herself as Sister Grayston.

‘Follow me,' she said, waddling off down the corridor from the day room to the dormitories.

‘She looks like a penguin,' my father observed.

‘Shh, Dad,' I whispered back, grinning.

She took us to an oblong room, which contained several beds down each side.

‘If you've got any valuables you must give them to me for safe keeping,' she explained. Her manner, like her white starched apron, was stiff and practical.

Sister Grayston left my dad and me alone. We sat on the hard bed with its crisp, white sheets and pale-green bedspread. I put the Lucozade my mother had given me on top of the small bedside cabinet next to the Gideon Bible and placed my old, familiar pyjamas, neatly folded, on to my pillow. What was I doing here? My it's-no-big-deal attitude was fast deserting me and I wondered what would happen. But at least it was only for a week, I reminded myself. Only for a week.

‘Don't worry, Dad,' I said, squeezing his hand because he looked upset. Focusing on him distracted me briefly from those stabs of anxiety inside me.

After Dad left, Sister Grayston took me to a room at the end of the corridor where I was weighed. I then had to give a urine sample, which wouldn't have been a problem if she hadn't stayed with me. I sat there, bare-arsed, on a commode-like contraption. My body tensed up in embarrassment, adamantly refusing to perform this natural function.

‘You said you could do a sample now,' she complained.

‘I … I thought I could,' I said, feeling myself blush.

We both waited in silence, expectantly. Nothing happened.

‘Are you going to do anything or not? Hurry up!' she snapped.

I was thankful when she left the room but the sound of her uniform rustling told me she was near and I still couldn't relax sufficiently, even though my bladder felt full to bursting. At last nature took its course, hitting the container noisily and heralding the speedy reappearance of Sister Grayston.

‘That's a good girl,' she beamed.

I was sent to join the other patients in the day room, and a small, pasty-faced girl with thick brown hair tied back in a ponytail came and sat next to me. She looked very young.

‘It seems strange in here at first,' she said sympathetically. ‘I've been in here a few months so I know what's what now. My name's Debbie. I'm thirteen.'

Debbie had the same dull, heavy-lidded eyes as most of the patients, but if she was supposed to be mentally ill I could see no trace of it.

‘Have you seen the Quiet Room yet?' she asked.

‘The what?'

‘The Quiet Room. Come on, I'll show you.'

I followed Debbie down the corridor to a small, carpeted, windowless room containing four brown upholstered chairs with mustard cushions and a low coffee table. The walls were painted that same pale hospital green as the dormitories. On the floor in the corner were a record player and a few pop records.

A tall young woman with blonde curly hair came in. ‘Hi, I'm Sheila. Welcome to the nuthouse,' she said, greeting me with a smile. ‘I'm glad we've got another young 'un here 'cos most of the others are old fogeys. But perhaps I'm an old fogey to you? I'm twenty-one. I'll guess you're about sixteen.'

‘Eighteen,' I said, smiling shyly.

‘Pills time again,' Debbie said, standing up at the sound of a rattling, squeaky trolley being wheeled past the door.

Sheila giggled merrily and sang, ‘Shake, rattle and roll …' as she danced down the corridor behind the drugs-laden trolley, but her sad, pale blue eyes belied her show of gaiety.

Before going to bed I was given two large Mogadon sleeping tablets. Despite them, I lay awake for a long time staring up at the dim green ceiling light which stayed on all night. I remembered how way back in childhood we'd talked about men in white coats taking people away in green vans to Menston Loony Bin. So this was Menston. I really was here.

The ward was stirring when I awoke at seven. I followed other sleepy-eyed, dressing-gown-clad patients, clutching plastic toilet bags, down the corridor to a white-tiled room with a row of washbasins. After washing and dressing, I again took my cue from other patients. First there were our beds to make. I pulled the sheets back and, as if I needed a sharp reminder of where I was, there emblazoned in large, black letters across the grey blanket underneath were the words: ‘MENSTON HOSPITAL'.

Sister Oldroyd was on duty: a tall, thin woman with heavy black eyeliner drawn around tired eyes. Sitting in the day room before breakfast, a pale, gaunt, elderly patient with sunken grey eyes pointed at my slippers.

‘You'll be in trouble if Sister Oldroyd sees you wearing those.'

‘Why?'

‘You're supposed to wear shoes during the day, luv. That's the rule, and in here you'll keep to the rules without asking questions if you know what's good for you.'

After breakfast Sheila asked me to go to the shop with her. We walked through a maze of long, bleak corridors, which branched off here and there leading to the recesses of the hospital. I was in another world. A world that reeked of cleaning fluid and urine and sadness and pain. A world inhabited by strange men and women who wandered these corridors like the living dead, muttering to themselves, arguing and fighting with their own personal demons, or just staring blankly into space as they shuffled past us with heads down, shoulders drooping: the dejected demeanour of the institutionalised. My heart filled with sadness. How did people end up like that? What had happened to them? Were they once just ordinary babies, children, teenagers? Who were they?

After what must have been the longest indoor walk I'd ever taken, we arrived at the small shop where patients were queuing to buy items such as cigarettes, sweets and tissues. The man behind me in the shop queue stroked my hair, drooling, ‘You've got to stroke women, women like to be stroked. Just like this, gently and easily. They like it. You've got to stroke women, women like to be stroked …'

‘Give over,' I said, turning round.

‘I'm sorry, young woman, no offence meant,' he mumbled. ‘I'm going.'

I watched him shuffling away.

We returned to the ward where patients had formed a queue at the trolley to be given drugs. I hung back because Dr Sugden had said I was being admitted for ‘a rest and observation'. Nothing had been said about drugs.

‘Come on, we haven't got all day,' Sister Oldroyd barked at me. ‘What's your name?'

‘Jean Davison.'

She fished out an indexed card from a box on the trolley.

‘Ah yes, you're on Largactil, seventy-five milligrams three times a day.'

She poured some golden-brown liquid from a large bottle into a small, plastic container. Obediently, I swallowed the medication.

‘Where's everybody going?' I asked Debbie who, like the others, was putting on her coat.

‘To the therapy block across the grounds,' she replied.

‘What's therapy?'

‘Don't you know that?' She sounded amazed at such ignorance. ‘It's making things. You can learn how to make lampshades, baskets, ashtrays or soft toys.'

The ward emptied of patients except for three old women and me. A nurse sent me to my dormitory where I had to strip to my waist in front of a Dr Prior who placed a stethoscope on my chest and gave me a blood test. Later, I was called to the Quiet Room where he was sitting, feet spread out, smoking a cigarette, and looking at some papers on his knee.

‘Sit down,' he said, motioning to the chair facing him. I sat stiffly, perched on the edge of my chair, shyness making me feel ill at ease.

‘Relax, I don't bite,' he said, smiling, showing a neat row of gleaming white teeth. He looked to be in his late twenties and wore a grey tweed jacket, crisp white shirt and dark-grey trousers.

‘I work under Dr Sugden and I'll be seeing you from time to time. Can you tell me why you're here?'

‘Well, for quite some time I've been thinking life seems meaningless and empty.' I stopped. What else was there to say? Besides, I wasn't in the mood now for talking. I was feeling very sleepy.

He leaned forward in his chair. ‘Go on,' he said, nodding encouragingly.

‘And I'm confused about religion.'

‘Is it very important for you to believe in God?' he asked, looking at the papers on his knee.

‘I wish I had summat to believe in.'

‘Do you think about religion a lot?'

‘Yes.'

‘All the time?'

‘A lot. Not just about religion. About beliefs generally. I can't sort out what to believe in. I'm confused with so many different ideas.'

‘Can you be more specific?'

‘I started thinking about lots of things and questioning all me beliefs until I ended up not knowing what to believe in, and it's made me feel kinda lost. I feel as if I don't know what I am.'

He wrote something down, then looked at me. ‘When you say you don't know what you are, what exactly do you mean?'

I searched my mind in vain for the words that might get him to understand. ‘Oh, I can't explain it any further than that,' I said, feeling weary. ‘I don't know how to put these feelings into words.'

‘I see,' he said, writing something down. ‘So it's as if you've got a thought-block?'

‘Is it?' I didn't know if he was asking me or telling me. It was especially difficult for me to find the right words to explain what I meant when trying to talk about personal things to a man I didn't know who was making notes about me. So that was a thought-block? ‘Yeah, well I guess I've got plenty of those, then,' I said, managing a smile though I felt embarrassed and nervous.

‘You say you don't know what you are. What sort of person do you want to be?'

‘I want to be a good Christian,' I said. ‘Or at least I thought I did. But, like I say, I can't believe in the Christian doctrines any more.'

‘Is there a particular religious belief that's causing you most problems?'

‘Well, it's all of them really, but I can give you an example of one of the teachings which confuses me very much. It's the belief about heaven and hell.'

‘Heaven and hell?'

‘Yes. It's a belief of the Pentecostal church I used to go to that Christians go to heaven after death and non-Christians go to hell. I can't believe a God of love could send anyone to endless torment.'

He scribbled on his notepad again, then, glancing at his watch, said, ‘I must go.' He stood up, flashing a smile. ‘I'll see you again soon and we'll have a good talk.'

The other patients came back from therapy at midday. After dinner, the drugs trolley reappeared and we were each given further medication. Visiting time in the afternoon was from two till four. Danny arrived at two. We sat holding hands at a table in the dining area where I struggled to stop my eyelids from slowly closing. I kept glancing at my watch longing for four because I was too drowsy to enjoy a conversation.

‘God, they've really doped you, haven't they?'

‘Yes, I am very tired. I suppose it must be the drugs.'

A frown crossed his face. He sighed. ‘Oh well, they must know what's best for you,' he said.

‘Yes, I suppose they do,' I murmured sleepily.

After tea, it was drugs time again, so I swallowed more Largactil syrup, then everyone settled down either to watch TV or to put their heads back in the armchairs and sleep. Evening visiting time was seven till eight. My parents and Danny arrived promptly, but I longed to go to bed and sleep.

When bedtime finally came at nine, I didn't join the queue for sleeping pills until a nurse called me to the trolley.

‘Am I supposed to take sleeping pills every night even if I
can
sleep without them?' I ventured to ask her. I could barely manage to keep awake so it seemed absurd.

‘Oh yes, it's written on your card,' was her curt reply.

A dark interlude of oblivion. And then morning again. Or something like that. After a drugged sleep, wrenching my head from the pillow was much harder than it had ever been. Groggy and dazed, I pulled on my dressing-gown and stumbled along the corridor to the washroom. There, I let the water from the cold tap run icy cold before splashing it on my face in an attempt to make myself feel somewhere near alive.

After breakfast I joined the queue at the trolley and dutifully swallowed my medication. I stood by the fish tank and watched the fish darting back and forth, round and round, in their glass prison. Utter futility. Then I sank into an armchair and closed my eyes while listening to the budgie beating its wings against the bars and making a lot of noise. It's cruel to put birds in cages, I realised with a jolt. Funny how I'd never thought of that before.