The Dark Threads

by Jean Davison

  Instead of going to OT we’d been staying at the day hospital recently to do some unpaid work called industrial therapy, which this week was packing greetings tags for a local firm.

  ‘We’ve got enough packers at the moment,’ Clive told me, ‘so you can sit at that other table and do something else.’

  I sat at the table where Maud and Ethel, two elderly patients, were sitting staring blankly while rocking back and forth, their mouths working in that constant chewing motion I’d seen in many patients. I thought these were symptoms of mental illness but learnt later they were indicative of a drug-induced disease called tardive dyskinesia – caused by the same drugs I’d been prescribed for the past few years. Last week Maud had shown me a photograph of the attractive young woman she used to be. I wondered, with a shudder, what the future held for me.

  Clive placed a child’s colouring book in front of me, opened at a picture of a duck, then went away to return a few minutes later with a jamjar of water and a paint box. I picked up the brush but resentment, unsuppressed by drugs, rose inside me. I was a woman who was being treated like a child. Why?

  Clive was looking over my shoulder. ‘Don’t forget to paint its beak,’ he said. ‘There’s some yellow paint here, look.’

  Obediently I dipped my brush into the water-filled jamjar, and then into the yellow paint in the box labelled ‘Children’s Rainbow Paint Box’. But then something I’d once read somewhere jumped into my mind, jolting me out of my pathetic compliance: ‘If they give you ruled paper, write the other way.’ Clive was pointing to the beak telling me to paint that. I daubed the paint on the duck’s webbed feet instead.

  ‘There, that’s the beak done,’ I said when I finished painting the feet. ‘I’ll paint its feet now. Ducks have bright blue feet, don’t they?’ I began painting the beak blue while persisting in calling it the feet. Clive looked puzzled.

  ‘But those are the feet and that is the beak,’ he said, pointing them out to me.

  ‘Oh, really?’ I said in mock surprise. ‘Are you certain of that? Things aren’t always what they appear to be, you know.’

  I continued to purposely mix up the various parts of the duck’s anatomy, and the perplexed look on Clive’s face made me want to laugh in spite of myself.

  ‘You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you, Jean? You do know the difference, don’t you? You’re playing games with me.’

  But he didn’t seem sure whether I was or not. I knew my behaviour was dangerously foolish, but I think my reasoning was along the lines that if I was about to go mad anyway, then I might as well squeeze my last bit of fun out of life first, instead of continuing to stifle myself by conforming to the wishes of the staff.

  Clive took the paint brush from my hand, filled it with yellow paint and gave it back to me, telling me to finish painting the duck with that, then he went away to watch other patients. I tried to resign myself to the idea that it must somehow be my own fault; perhaps I deserved to be treated like a child to punish me for acting like one or something; perhaps I didn’t understand because of my sickness that this hospital really was giving help. But as I tried to understand, anger swelled up into a big black pain inside obliterating all else. I loaded the brush with paint as black as my feelings and, in a few swift strokes, the duck disappeared in blackness.

  Clive returned and looked over my shoulder at the page.

  ‘Why have you done that?’ he asked.

  ‘Go and look in your psychiatric textbooks and see if they will help you to understand why I’ve done that. Then you can come back and tell me.’

  Dr Shaw arrived and I was called into his office. In a rush of words before my courage failed me, I told him my case notes were wrong, my treatment was wrong, and being asked to paint pictures in a nursery child’s colouring book was an insult to my intelligence.

  ‘Of course, painting a duck is no worse than many other forms of so-called therapy,’ I added. ‘Like being asked to stand in the grounds shouting “Hot Peas” or jumping around saying “I am silly”.’

  ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, and I am fed up of your silly talking which has gone on for too long,’ Dr Shaw told me, banging his pen on the desk, a tap to emphasise each word of ‘which-has-gone-on-for-too-long’.

  ‘You’ve just said you’ve no idea what I’m talking about. So how do you know it’s silly? Why do you form opinions on things you’ve no idea about?’

  Brave words but I was quaking inside. We faced each other across the desk like gladiators in an arena. For some reason, we always seemed to annoy each other.

  ‘I’m not here to play games with you,’ he said sternly. ‘Where did you get to yesterday when you ran away?’

  ‘I didn’t run away. I’m here, aren’t I?’

  ‘Are you going back to the hostel? Or shall we admit you to Prieston Ward?’

  Prieston? I’d heard that was worse than Thornville. I thought of the hostel dining room full of bright, chattering students, and felt too weak and ill to face going back there that night. I felt trapped, unsure of myself.

  ‘Come along now. Let’s have your decision,’ he said, looking at his watch. ‘Shall we arrange for your admission?’

  Memories of my experiences in Thornville flooded my mind with pain. Never again, I resolved. Summoning up my last ounce of rebellious strength, I told Dr Shaw I would never go back into hospital unless I was unconscious, that I would sooner die than be admitted, that I should have learnt my lesson long ago, and, yes, of course I would go back to the hostel. I wish I could say that after this brave speech I held my head high and went back to the hostel where all ended well. Instead, I sat there close to tears, afraid of how bad I was feeling.

  ‘Are you ill?’ Dr Shaw asked. I hung my head. He could see I was unhappy, could see that he’d won. What more did he want?

  ‘Come on, Jean, answer me,’ he said, in a way that reminded me of my brother trying to rope me into some nonsensical argument. Dear God, I must be ill so why not admit it? I thought.

  ‘Yes, I’m ill,’ I replied, skulking lower in my chair and feeling painfully exhausted and defeated. ‘I’m mentally ill.’

  ‘Right then. I’ll arrange for you to be admitted.’

  No, no, no, a part of me was screaming. But if I’m not well enough to get back to the hostel, where will I sleep tonight? I tried to compromise.

  ‘If I agree to being hospitalised, could it be without having any drugs or ECT?’ I asked. I believed my prospects of healthy growth depended on establishing this, but it seemed a tall order if I was admitted. Dr Shaw apparently deemed this question, which was so important to me, as no more deserving of an answer than when I’d asked him if I could have a glass of water during the Case Review Meeting. He frowned and looked at his watch again.

  ‘It’s getting late,’ he said, ‘so stop this game-playing and make your mind up. It’s back to the hostel. Or Prieston. Which is it to be?’

  ‘I’ll go back to the hostel,’ I said, standing up.

  Tony came over while I was putting my coat on. His lips were moving but I couldn’t hear him properly; the sound kept blanking out so I was only catching snatches of a sentence, odd words here and there. I went outside feeling panicky and walked quickly down the drive. I had to get away or I might be lost for ever. When first admitted to Thornville, I’d been stronger and more stable than now, but still they broke me. I’d never survive experiences like that a second time, especially not in my present vulnerable state.

  Although hungry, I was not sure I could face the crowded hostel dining room, so I went to the little café near the hospital where I used to go occasionally with Vera and Georgina. Aware that my money had to go far, I bought an egg sandwich, the least appetising but cheapest meal on the menu, and a cup of tea. Parts of the conversation I’d just had with Dr Shaw kept running through my mind. I’m ill, I’m mentally ill, I said to myself, feeling utterly weary and demoralised. From my table near the window I could see it had started to rain again. Didn
’t it do anything but rain these days?

  A couple approached me at the bus stop and the man asked for directions. ‘How to get to where?’ I asked, trying to be helpful, but when he started repeating his question the woman tugged his sleeve and said in a voice which I did manage to hear only too well: ‘Don’t talk to her, David, let’s go. She’s one of those patients.’ The mixture of fear and contempt on her face as she said this and pulled him away both angered and saddened me.

  The bus was late, which gave me time to worry about not being able to find my way back. I felt too fragile to wander the streets looking for the hostel that night. Courage drained out of me, whatever bit was still left. I plodded towards the hospital.

  On rounding the bend in the long, winding driveway and catching a glimpse of the hospital looming up large and dark ahead of me in the pale light of evening, I stopped dead in my tracks. No. No. I won’t allow this to happen to me. If I lose this battle now, everything will be lost. I must get back to the hostel.

  I turned and walked a few paces back down the drive, then stopped again, feeling dreadfully ill. Despite the pouring rain, I briefly, though seriously in my desperation, considered spending the night sleeping under a hedge in a field. But what about tomorrow? Where could I go? Where did I belong? I didn’t feel I belonged anywhere and wished I could melt away into the ground. Pushing my fringe out of my face I tilted my head upwards to catch the cool, soothing raindrops on my hot, aching forehead. Then, feeling as if I was walking to the gallows, I trudged towards the main entrance.

  I rang the ‘Enquiries’ bell in the foyer and said to the tall, thin-faced man, presumably a night porter, who peered through a glass partition at me: ‘I’d like to be admitted to this hospital.’ The look on his face almost made me smile despite my misery and fears. With widened eyes and a gaping mouth he looked completely gormless. Cautiously, he slid the window open a little further and stared through the gap at me.

  ‘What is it you want? Who are you?’

  ‘I’m a day patient,’ I explained. ‘My doctor is Dr Shaw. When I saw him earlier today he said I could be admitted and I said … I said I didn’t want to be, but … but now I’ve changed my mind.’

  ‘Dr Shaw’s gone home. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.’

  I hadn’t anticipated any difficulty in getting myself admitted for surely anyone who walked into a mental hospital like that asking to be taken in must be nuts enough to require it immediately.

  ‘But I’m ill. I’m mentally ill,’ I informed him indignantly. Surely this was the Open Sesame password. He scratched his head and stared at me.

  ‘Oh, can’t I be admitted now?’ I begged him.

  It was unbelievable. This can’t be happening to me, it can’t. It’s all just a strange dream. How many times had I thought that during the past few years? How many times? Now here was I, after all my hard-won insights and firm convictions about the harmfulness of psychiatry, after my previous experiences as an in-patient, after all that optimism and certainty that I was right when I stopped taking the tablets and after, only a few hours earlier, telling Dr Shaw I’d sooner die than ever become an in-patient again – here was I pleading to be let in.

  After asking my name the man at the reception window disappeared, saying he was going to try ringing Dr Shaw at home. He returned about fifteen minutes later and asked, ‘Do you know where Prieston Ward is?’ I nodded.

  ‘Well, go and report to the sister on Prieston. She’s been told to expect you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, looking up at him and sharing his obvious relief at solving his little problem.

  Thank you? The final irony! Where would it end? Perhaps next I’d be crawling on my knees before my keepers saying: Thank you for teaching me I’m sick, thank you for screwing me up, and thank you, oh thank you, for turning me into a mental patient unable to function in the outside world.

  I endured the humiliation of admission procedures quietly and co-operatively. The sister, who looked not much older than me, and another young nurse, giggled at their own private jokes as they frisked me over.

  ‘I’ll have to take that from you but you’ll get it back later,’ Sister said, pointing to my pendant. I handed it to her and she opened it to look at the photographs inside of myself aged seventeen and Mark, one of my former boyfriends who had bought me that pendant and put our photos inside.

  ‘Is that really you?’ Sister asked.

  I felt embarrassed. She might well ask if the long-haired, smiling teenager in the photograph who looked wide awake and full of life was really me. Was it? Oh to be seventeen again, even with all the confusion about life and religion and everything just the same as it was then, I thought wistfully.

  ‘He’s nice. Is he your boyfriend?’

  ‘No, not now. I haven’t seen him for a long time. I … I don’t know what made me wear this pendant again,’ I stuttered, feeling myself blush.

  ‘Hey, come and look at this,’ she said, calling the other young nurse over.

  A tired-looking doctor with an enormous stomach hanging over his trousers arrived to give me a cursory medical examination. For some reason, which no doubt made sense to him, he kept prodding and tapping the soles of my feet as I sat with my legs stretched out on a bed.

  ‘I thought my head, not my feet, was the problem,’ I said in a weak attempt at a joke, which he met with a surly look.

  I was given a hospital nightgown to wear, a large, shapeless utility garment with a neckline that hung almost down to my waist. Curling up between the crisp, white sheets of the hospital bed, I fell asleep at once. But somewhere between night and day, I found myself lying in the shadows staring up at a green light, like the one I’d seen a few years ago in hospital. Hospital? Oh, please not the hospital again, I whispered. Please let it be just a bad dream that I’ll wake up from soon. I closed my eyes tightly to shut it out but when I opened them again the green light was still there. I blinked, rubbed my eyes and made sure I was awake. But that green light was still there. It really was there.

  Perhaps I’ll never be able to get away from this place, I thought, as an icy breeze wafted over me, chilling my bones.

  CASE NO. 10826

  The few days she spent at the Y.W.C.A. proved to be an intolerable strain because she felt isolated and alone and could not mix with the large number of girls and young women. She finally ran away in desperation and could not face a return to the situation at the hostel.

  Dr Shaw

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  THERE WAS ONE FAMILIAR face in Prieston Ward: Elsie, whom I’d played draughts with on my first day at the day hospital. She was in a confused, restless state: rocking, mumbling to herself and seemed afraid, agitated.

  ‘Hello, Elsie,’ I said, sitting beside her in the day room after breakfast and gently stroking her hand. She calmed down but stared at me blankly. Then her face lit up in recognition.

  ‘Oh, hello, Jean. Have you come to see me?’

  ‘I’ve come to join you,’ I replied.

  A nurse pushed the drugs trolley into the room. I was given vitamin and iron pills. And Melleril. I didn’t feel strong enough to attempt to refuse the Melleril and, anyway, I was unsure now that I should. Although still keen to be free from drugs, it had occurred to me that ceasing abruptly was not a wise method.

  The patients in Prieston were all elderly women, except for Katie, Anita and myself. Katie, a long-haired, jeans-clad teenager, carried a denim shoulder bag covered in brightly coloured little round stickers depicting a funny smiling face and the words: ‘Smile, God Loves You!’ Anita, a wife and mother, perhaps in her late thirties, sat silently staring into space most of the time, but occasionally she would turn to me and say: ‘I don’t want any treatment. I’ve never been right since I had ECT.’

  Lisa sat smiling to herself, while Hilda, a small, plump woman, kept pulling up her wrinkled stockings and saying to anyone and everyone: ‘Do you want a mint?’ Louise sometimes exploded with, ‘Oh shut up about mints, Hilda
,’ but most of the time nobody took any notice of Hilda’s litany. Edith kept saying, ‘I shouldn’t be in here.’ She, too, was ignored except by Louise who responded every now and then with, ‘For God’s sake, Edith, stop moaning. You’ve as much reason as any of us to be in here.’

  ‘No, I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t,’ Edith retorted indignantly. She paused. ‘I’m scared of the outside world.’ If she wasn’t telling us that she shouldn’t be in here, she was telling us that she was scared of the outside world.

  Agnes kept acting like one possessed. It was a belief of my old Pentecostal church that evil spirits can possess people and speak through them. Although on the one hand this seemed like superstitious nonsense to me, sometimes I had to wonder. Agnes was a small, shrunken, hunch-backed woman. She would sit for hours slapping her head with her hand, saying ‘Damn you, God! Damn you, God! Damn you!’ in a deep voice that sounded different from the pathetic voice which sometimes pleaded, ‘Leave me alone, go away,’ in between the curses against God and the string of obscenities that poured forth. Once, after the ‘Damn you, God!’ had been going on loud and long, Agnes stared across at me and ‘the voice’ that had just been cursing God cried out: ‘It’s all right for that young girl over there.’ Agnes was pointing across directly at me but her eyes looked unseeing; I’d heard she was almost blind. ‘It’s all right for her,’ the deep voice continued. ‘Hers is only for a time, but ours is for eternity.’

  Could it be possible that demons, jealous demons, were speaking about me, saying that my suffering was only for a time but they would be banished to hell for all eternity? Or was that a very sick way to think? I decided I’d better try to push these thoughts from my mind, along with the thoughts about psychiatry doing me harm, until I felt stronger. I would think about it all later, but I knew that now, while walking a tightrope across a dark chasm, was not the right time. All I had to do at present while Agnes was ranting and raving at me, while all around me was darkness and confusion, was to look straight ahead and concentrate on keeping my balance, retaining my sanity.