claybury.June.1975

Sensational New to Medical Science Brain Damage Psychogenically Dismissed. Copyright © Stephen Cattier 1998 - 2009. All rights reserved. 

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Last edited 18/07/2013 20:41

Author's corrections to the letter of Dr. K. R. Lowe, Registrar to Dr. Shoenberg.

Claybury Hospital, Woodford Bridge, Ward 01, 1975.                    

My parents were dead right; it was a physical ailment. There is no mention of the dothiepin (antidepressant, basically half of Limbitrol) I had for one week which nearly killed me in Wanstead Hospital, February 1975. He got it back to front about my faith and my girlfriend. I was in a wheelchair all day the first day of admission and could not walk, terrified having realised I was in the wrong type of hospital. I do not recall speaking at all on the first day. Stelazine's severe  akathesia (restlessness) made me walk earlier than I should have done. I felt as if I were split in half - actually sawn in half - after over a week on Limbitrol way before that time he refers to. I never had florid hallucinations except dothiepin once made my mum's arm appear horribly disfigured momentarily. The "voices" telling me to do bad things were actually uncontrolled thoughts owing to the brain injury instead which the staff nurse I reported them to misidentified as voices (I have blocked the relevant sentences out where the doctor describes them). I was not experiencing visual hallucinations either, so I do not know where he got the visions from of people doing the washing up. Perhaps I could see them faintly but I do not remember it now. I never felt that R.D. Laing's Book on Schizophrenia was written specifically for me if that is what the doctor meant. I do not identify with saying I was experiencing the glass bit when on the ward, and had to be with people otherwise I would have disintegrated. I actually felt like a piece of glass once during the exhaustion breakdown of December 1974, and perhaps he misconstrued getting mixed up with the times as I had a job to speak and was not thinking correctly owing to the Stelazine's effect upon the damaged mind's nerves, mental illness still to a degree, and brain damage. My mother was one of Jehovah's Witnesses and not my father. I think he must have misunderstood me when he says I was very interested in sex from age eleven. I had a very small sex drive but which peaked in 1968 before I repressed it for six years in October of that year and not for three years. Why he thought it was strong I do not know. I left the group studies owing to my ears hurting from listening to speak for too long. It was not the noise because I only became sensitive to loud sound later on in the illness. I had no difficulties with mum and dad. They were good parents although one criticism is that it seems letting me live like a Lord had a detrimental effect. All I did was go to school, play, and then attend work and do a lot of voluntary work. I hardly did any chores around the home growing up. Mum did them all with dad's help. Stelazine immediately made me forget I should not be in a mental hospital when suffering from an organic illness. It only looked as if I could walk and talk normally as there was hardly any fuel in my mind remaining to do those two things for long. My weekends at home were not detrimental to my mental state. I liked home. It had a peaceful, loving atmosphere. I do not recall  getting any benefit from the groups. 

Dr. Shoenberg walked backwards out of the office silently when I told her in the Summer of 1975 that I had been injured by Limbitrol. She happened to come into the room when I was there to see another doctor in outpatients. If she had instead asked me to explain she would have got the whole story. Most doctors have psychologically dismissed the cause of my condition when I have explained it to them. I should think if I became diagnosed they would become most upset with themselves. Sad, but such is life.