You know it was just, I felt that being in hospital was kind of like being in prison really. It was like a punishment and that once you are in the system it is kind of like, they do treat you like you are a criminal, you know

But I don’t think that, I don’t think the psychiatric wards are there to really kind of help people fulfil themselves and get, you know, fulfil their potential and move on in their lives, I think they’re just kind of there, they’re like containment cells and, you know, they’re kind of there to really protect other people, like if you’re a nuisance to other people. I don’t really think they help anybody. I mean I did make friends with two people from the ward I was in. But like the majority were just like, you couldn’t even have a conversation with them because they were so severely psychotic. But there were two people that I was friends with and, you know, one of them is kind of like your typical revolving door patient and as far as I can see, you know, it hasn’t helped him at all. The other one, she is like, she has tried every single medication there is, and, you know, it hasn’t helped her either. And’ I think it’s what, that it is very, very difficult to get out of there once. I think I was actually very, very lucky to get out of the psychiatric system, because a lot of the people don’t manage that. They stay in the system. And I saw another health care professional. Who is not a psychiatric professional and this is after I had been discharged from there. And she said to me, I had written her letters about what had happened, and what was going on while I was in hospital, and what they were saying, and what they were doing, and she said to me that she had thought I would never, she would never see me again. She thought I would never get out of the system. And I think some people they do just get lost in it, you know, I mean I don’t really understand why they did what they did.

I mean, like for instance a lot of the staff on the psychiatric ward were from ethnic minorities and they were bloody horrible, so, you know, what can you say, people are people. [laughs] I mean they were, I think, as well that because some of them were like from different cultural background, they weren’t British, they come over here, and their, their attitude towards people with mental health problems is not the same, like, I know some like British people are like that as well, but they are very kind of brutal, some of them.

You know, and I’ve actually, working in mental health as well, I’ve heard people talk about staff on the wards that they’ve been on who have come over from another culture and are working over here and they don’t really understand British culture and that they’ve kind of been very, you know, sort of punitive and, and quite physically, you know, and not very compassionate. You know, just, just saying really horrible things to people, but, yeah, you know, so I don’t think, I suppose in a way that’s a great experience because it led me to believe that nobody is better then anybody else in terms of where they are. I don’t think really, you know, I mean I saw Asian doctors when they were in hospital and they weren’t any, you know, more understanding towards me then anybody else.

But do you think they were better able to understand your situation?

Well no, because I think the thing with me is that like my parents are Indian but from the West Indies and then we weren’t brought up in a like, you know, a traditional Asian household. Like, you know, I mean my Mum didn’t wear saris or anything like that, we were brought up as Christians. So I think in a way, they kind of, they can’t pigeon hole me, that’s it, they were not able to pigeon hole me, so they didn’t, you know, I wasn’t a typical Asian and I wasn’t like the white middle class person and. So I don’t that, you know, them being Asian was, because a lot of the Asian doctors they were like the Asians from India, that kind of, and we’re not like that, my family is not like that. But they we’re not white British either so, I don’t think that that was really anything to do with it. I think maybe, you know, it was just the individual. I mean there was a, the psychiatrist who finally said that, Actually I don’t think that you are schizophrenic I think, you know, just him as an individual and obviously at the eating disorder place they were trained in eating disorders so they said, Okay, your behaviour, you know, stealing food and everything to an untrained professional may have looked like you were psychotic, but a trained eating disorder professional who knows about the effect of starvation on the brain etc etc would have seen that behaviour and understood it in the context of your eating disorder

You know, but maybe it’s, it’s just that those people are not, they’re trained to deal with, with illnesses like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and if somebody doesn’t fit their, maybe, you know, they’re not trained in eating disorders so if somebody isn’t very obviously fitting to that, you know, maybe they just don’t. But I don’t think it was particularly to do with anybody’s background. I actually think that some of the ethnic minority staff were more cruel then some of the white ones, you know, so I can’t say that.

One of my experiences as well is that I became unable to take care of myself physically. And I’m not sure, I still don’t really know why. I think, that when you do starve yourself, your brain is kind of, it doesn’t work as, as well, and certainly before I started bingeing I was having trouble doing things like having a shower and, you know, I couldn’t read the TV guide because I had no concentration. I was finding very basic things like doing my laundry, very, very difficult, you know, I would need help because I couldn’t work out how to do things. And then when I started bingeing and gaining weight very rapidly and went on the medication I think I was just so, I put on weight so quickly, I couldn’t work out how to dress myself any more because my clothes didn’t fit me. I couldn’t work out how to put an outfit together. I couldn’t work out how to have a shower. I wasn’t, it was like I was actually wearing a fat suit, you know, that somebody had just suddenly gone and put a fat suit on me, and I was sort of lumbering about, I didn’t know how to. And I didn’t take care of myself. I didn’t wash for quite a long time I didn’t wash at all. And of course, that just made them think even more that I had schizophrenia, because apparently that’s one of the negative side, negative symptoms of schizophrenia is like lack of self-care’

One of my experiences as well is that I became unable to take care of myself physically. And I’m not sure, I still don’t really know why. I think, that when you do starve yourself, your brain is kind of, it doesn’t work as, as well, and certainly before I started bingeing I was having trouble doing things like having a shower and, you know, I couldn’t read the TV guide because I had no concentration. I was finding very basic things like doing my laundry, very, very difficult, you know, I would need help because I couldn’t work out how to do things. And then when I started bingeing and gaining weight very rapidly and went on the medication I think I was just so, I put on weight so quickly, I couldn’t work out how to dress myself any more because my clothes didn’t fit me. I couldn’t work out how to put an outfit together. I couldn’t work out how to have a shower. I wasn’t, it was like I was actually wearing a fat suit, you know, that somebody had just suddenly gone and put a fat suit on me, and I was sort of lumbering about, I didn’t know how to. And I didn’t take care of myself. I didn’t wash for quite a long time I didn’t wash at all. And of course, that just made them think even more that I had schizophrenia, because apparently that’s one of the negative side, negative symptoms of schizophrenia is like lack of self-care’

It was getting to the point where I was going to be thrown out of where I was living. I mean they had originally wanted to throw me out and then they hadn’t because I had agreed to take the medication and then people were complaining because I smelled and, you know, my appearance, and I was just, I don’t know I looked like a vagrant basically. And I didn’t care any more either. I just stopped caring. I was so utterly depressed and I couldn’t see a way out, apart from, and I thought there were three options open to me, either I go in a mental home like they want, or I kill myself, or I run away and try and live on the streets. You know, and I thought the best of those options was probably that I kill myself, because if I try and live on the streets, I’m not going to survive. And I don’t want to go into one of these residential care homes. So I was planning to kill myself.

I think that anorexia is perceived as a white middle class disease and I do know about research that says that if you are from ethnic minority you are more likely to be diagnosed with an illness such as schizophrenia and you are more likely to be given medication. I think the class thing is important as well though I don’t think it’s just about being white. You know, I think the typical picture of the anorexic is someone who you know, is a kind of beautiful white person, very clever, and you know, I think maybe also middle class parents and maybe, maybe find it easier to negotiate the system, you knowAnd, I don’t know I think I just didn’t, I didn’t look like the anorexic. I didn’t, don’t fit that, no, let me think. I wasn’t, well I wasn’t the typical anorexic like in terms of the profile of somebody whos got an eating disorder. I know nowadays eating disorders are more widespread and they can affect all kinds of people. But I think that, you know, before there’s a certain type of person that they think that is the anorexic and, and certainly with the stealing food and everything, you know, that, if it was a white middle class person doing that they might think, I’m not really explaining myself very well am I? My brain has goneI think if you look a certain way you are more likely to be taken seriously and you’re more likely to be listened to. I don’t know. I don’t really know what else to say.

And do you think, I mean comparing schizophrenia and an eating disorder, I mean they’re obviously quite different, very different. Do you think that schizophrenia is a more stigmatising label than an eating disorder?

I think it frightens people. I think there’s a lot of, I mean like articles and newspapers about paranoid schizophrenics going on the rampage and killing people. And I think a lot of people were quite, you know, scared, like people where I live and stuff. I mean I think on the one hand like if somebody has got something like schizophrenia then you’ll get two camps, you’ll get the camp that says, oh well it is not their fault, because it’s biochemical and all they need to do is take medication. And then you get the other lot who think that they are really like evil people.

And I’m not explaining myself at all, my head has goneI don’t think it is biochemical and all you need to do is take medication, or that you’re a bad person, so it’s one or the other. And I think eating disorders it’s kind of like people can maybe relate to eating disorders because a lot of people even if they don’t have them they do have concerns about their weight and food and stuff, whereas something like schizophrenia, especially when the media kind of really plays it up, that schizophrenics are like these dangerous people who go round killing people which is not even true, you know, a small minority do, but I know people that have mental health problems are more like to be attacked by other people, than actually go around attacking anyone, but people don’t know that and they hear a diagnosis like schizophrenia and maybe some of the symptoms of schizophrenia such as hearing voices and being delusional and stuff and they can’t really relate to that, whereas they might be able to relate to somebody, you know, feeling fat and overeating or under-eating or somebody feeling a bit down. They might not be able to relate to somebody thinking that there is a government conspiracy after them or whatever, you know. I think schizophrenia is quite a stigmatising label to have.

I don’t think I am capable of anything. I don’t really have ambition or motivation. I work part time and I find that quite difficult. And, you know, I’m a graduate with a first class degree and the jobs that I do are minimum wage.
You know, not what you would expect someone to be doing and, you know that, I, I like them both, and you know, they’re worthwhile jobs to be doing, but I kind of think that, you know, like, maybe if I hadn’t been depressed that I could have done a lot more with myself. And then I kind of feel sad that I have to settle for less, because I have this thing that is with me and that I can’t, I can’t seem to shake it off

I think one of the things that I have is a severe lack of confidence. I just don’t have any confidence. I feel that I’m incompetent, I’m incapable, that I’m useless, that I can’t do anything’ And it’s’ I don’t know whether it is true or not, but I feel that it is true and therefore I wouldn’t even think of now applying for, I mean when I was on the dole I applied for all kind of jobs, because you just, you have to apply for a certain number per week, you know, it’s what’s available and you apply for it. But now I wouldn’t even think of applying for it, a job that paid, I don’t know, maybe what graduates are earning, because I would just think, well I’m not capable of doing that, I can’t do it.

And I got to hospital and this is the bit that I really, you know, I can’t get my head round that. I was, they wouldn’t have me in the house, because I was obviously, I was stealing everybody’s food and I was out of control but they kept me in hospital, but they said that what I was doing, i.e. stealing other people’s food and eating when I wasn’t hungry was actually psychotic behaviour and they gave me a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia and started treating me with antipsychotic drugs. And, you know, I know a lot about antipsychotic drugs because I, [of my degree] and I read about the effects various drugs and you know, antidepressants, antipsychotics, so I knew that were really, really horrible drugs and that I didn’t want to go on them. And I refused to take them at first, but you know, ultimately they put me on injections so I couldn’t refuse and I was on section.

And nobody would listen to me. I couldn’t get anybody to listen to me. You know, they didn’t, they stopped, they didn’t believe I had an eating disorder. They thought, initially they thought I had, but then after they got information from the people where I live about my previous acting out, they decided that I didn’t have an eating disorder and I was actually psychotic. And I do still think that if I was a white middle class woman and I’d gone in there then I would probably have been treated for an eating disorder and not a mental illness. I suppose an eating disorder is a mental illness, but it is a sort of different one. And yes, I was in there for nine months on a section two and three and I was absolutely terrified
I mean there was a, the psychiatrist who finally said that, Actually I don’t think that you are schizophrenic I think, you know, just him as an individual and obviously at the eating disorder place they were trained in eating disorders so they said, Okay, your behaviour, you know, stealing food and everything to an untrained professional may have looked like you were psychotic, but a trained eating disorder professional who knows about the effect of starvation on the brain etc, etc would have seen that behaviour and understood it in the context of your eating disorder

And one of the side effects of the medication was that I started growing facial hair and they had no kind of understanding that that would be distressing for me, or that, you know, the huge weight gain was distressing for me, or that the fact that I couldn’t manage to care for myself and that I couldn’t go out do the things that I used to do. And it was kind of like, well you’re sick now, this is your life from now on.

You know, and one time the nurse did say to me, because I said to her, ‘Am I going to have to do what the psychiatrist says for the rest of my life?’ And she went, ‘Well, preferably yes.

I had beard growth from the medication. I was just wearing people’s cast offs because none of my clothes would fit me because I was so big. And one of the lesser known side effects of that antipsychotic medication is urinary incontinence and it is listed in the, in the book, the prescribing reference book, but it, I was never told that would happen and so I would, I would sometimes have accidents, which if you, because I couldn’t wash, so I would just take my clothes off and throw them away and then put something else on.

Yeah and I used to get beer cans thrown at me as I walked down the street and stuff and get shouted at, ‘You need a razor,’ and things like that which was. I think I had to get to the point where I didn’t care, you know, otherwise I would never have left the house.

But it’s not so much that even, it’s just, you know, the fact that I didn’t have it, and they kept saying I did, and that they wouldn’t listen to me, you know, even when I could put together a perfectly coherent clear rational argument as to why I didn’t have it, and they still, they’d made up their minds that was what fitted and that is what they were going to do. And I mean like they said things like, they would offer me cognitive behaviour therapy to persuade me that I was ill with schizophrenia and that I needed to take medication.

Like that was the only way that they would offer me, they wouldn’t offer me, like therapy for, it would just be so that I could learn that I really do have this illness that I keep saying I don’t have. You know.

Was it put like that?

It was yes, it was like, ‘Oh we could refer you for cognitive behaviour therapy and would give you insight and so to persuade you that you need to take your medication and give you an understanding. And it’s kind of like brain washing really’

I think trying to do it, trying to get rid of your depression by psychological work is quite hard, you have to work quite hard just to keep yourself, kind of just treading water. And all the cognitive behaviour stuff and the affirmations and, you know, doing some exercise to raise your endorphins and making sure you eat healthily and it’s just like it’s a job in itself, you know, and there are people out there who are just, like they don’t have to do any of that, they’re just normal, they can just enjoy life, and just like, they know how to talk to people and stuff, they don’t have to like learn how to do it, and I just don’t understand, and I think, oh is that possible?

I came out of hospital after nine months and I was sent back to where I was living and I was told I could only live there if I carried on taking the antipsychotic depo injection. And I found out later that that isn’t legal either because there weren’t any community treatment orders then. But I didn’t know that at the time and I was very kind of scared of being forced into some kind of mental health hostel that, you know, I agreed and I took it. I don’t know, they didn’t really do anything, they would have meetings every now and then and they would just speak to me like, like I was a child. And, you know, just really, really patronising, like speaking to me like I was stupid. And I mean that is one thing, I think throughout my years of having mental health problems, that, you know, no matter how badly I thought of myself and how crazy and how fat and how ugly and whatever, you know, I’m not stupid, you know, I may not be as intelligent as them because they’re doctors, but I’m not stupid and I don’t like being treated like I am’

And even when I was out in the community it was like I was very much aware that I wasn’t a free citizen and I couldn’t just do what I wanted. That they were going to be, you know, kind of watching over me and, and asking me intrusive questions and I didn’t really communicate with them and I think that made them think that I was more sick. And it was actually just that well, you know, I can’t talk to them about anything that’s going on, because they don’t understand and they don’t listen. You know, I would try with my CPN I would try over and over again to try and get her to understand that I had an eating disorder and I would ask her, ‘But why am I schizophrenic? And I don’t have these symptoms. And why are you saying this?’ And it would just be, that, you know, ‘Stealing food is irrational and psychotic,’ and also things like, like cutting myself.