LISTENING TO THE SILENCES

My own Consultant, MC, appears, from my notes, to be very glib at allocating classifications. For example, he categorised my then wife as 'dominant'. How sterile! You might as well try to classify a will-o-the-wisp! Born in India to a doting father and a mother who should never have had children; partly raised by an ayah and 'bearer', and then dispatched to the vastly different world of England at five years old into the care of a kind but very firm and vigorously disciplining aunt, whose prescription of senna and Mass on Sundays purified both body and soul. Rebel? Yes. Individual? Yes. An intelligent and sensitive horse-woman; an artist manqué as her later exquisite and innovative pottery demonstrated, she should have gone to art-school or university not to a teacher training college run by nuns. Different? Yes. Dominant? Just what the hell does that mean apart from being a meaningless bit of shrink-speak? The same classification was applied by him to another lady who subsequently, and for a short time in the 'seventies, graced my nuptial couch. Now it would be most difficult, if not impossible, to find two such different women. Apart from each having the usual complement of female accoutrements, furniture and fittings, they just could not have been more different! The second lady defined herself as 'bloody minded'. Who could disagree with her?

You may sense as you read that there is a developing, growing anger. It is not an all-consuming anger that is gnawing away at my inner man and possibly harming me. No; but it is an anger that has grown steadily since I first took a tentative look into my medical notes some eleven or so years ago. As I write elsewhere, I could not at first read the notes in their entirety because of what was stirred up by my reading, but what I did read began a change in my perception of the people who had had virtual control of a period in my life, a period in which my then life was shattered - but from the shards of which, fortunately, I have been able to create an entirely new one, one which in itself is immensely satisfying. Until I started to read the notes I looked back and acknowledged what had been attempted on my behalf and the time that had been allocated to me, and, at least twice, I had written to MC to thank him for his concern and the hours that he had spent with me. With the reading has come the revelation, the realisation that there were at least two sides to the man that were now becoming apparent. There had been the urbane friendly chap who sat tying salmon flies as we chatted and he gave me my fortnightly psychotherapeutic 'fix', that contrasted totally with the man who had written these letters and notes. With each reading I experience a deeper sense of betrayal. From our very first encounter I had, as I recall, tried to convey openly all that was passing through my life at that time and before. But where were my achievements, the successes, the things that I was proud of? They figured not at all. On the contrary, anything, any event that had a negative component, any past goal not achieved, these were all listed and psychiatric 'conclusions' drawn. These 'insights', together with an unnecessary amount of personal and family detail, were then relayed in correspondence to my G.P. and, as I note elsewhere, into my Practice records, where they remain, colouring the perception of me by any subsequent doctor who has read them.

Why, then, am I continuing to read and write about these times, these people? Why not just put them back where they had been for all those years? I ask myself these and other relevant questions frequently at the time when anything likely to disturb my peace of mind surfaces; I ask them mostly during the 3 a.m. stint. Yes, often I wake still at about that time. I am much more aware now than I was in times past of the reasons for waking, and I have devised several strategies aimed at countering them or the consequences of being awake. In spite of these insights, I still meet the occasions when it is virtually impossible to still my mind and its content of the tragic memories that the reading and writing are bringing back to the surface. How they flood in and keep recycling - perceptions of losses, real and virtual, the 'what if?' and 'if only' - and pictures of faces harrowed by misery, despair and tears. And I curse myself profoundly for having been so stupid as to begin the process of remembering, analysing and writing, and of wasting time during the day pounding this keyboard, when I would far rather have a chisel or gouge in my hands, carving or wood-turning, or be doing something out-of-doors. By which time I have usually abandoned any thoughts that I may have had of an immediate return to sleep, and am downstairs making a cup of tea. Reality and healthy recollection soon return, and with them somehow a remembrance of when, a few years ago, I had a profound and focused prayer life. I used, in fact, to welcome my frequent waking at six bells in the middle watch, because in reality it did become a 'watch'.

As I take up my narrative in a little while I shall relate how I entered into a more determined way of living spiritually. I had learned the strategy of 'offering' a particular period of time, a specific activity or a difficult or unpleasant task, for the benefit of some group or individual. Thus, and for example, if I had a particular prisoner of conscience in mind I would 'offer', say, the cleaning of the kitchen floor tiles on his behalf. This meant that I held him in focus and performed the work for his benefit; which in turn meant that I could not let him down and tried to produce an immaculate result from my work, and the work in its turn became a form of prayer.

In my own middle-watches, memories were wont to return of my past nights of desperate despair and anguish, and I started to 'offer' the time of wakefulness. I used to think of and pray for people currently in psychiatric wards, and for the staff attending them, and also for the physical prisoners, locked and isolated in the meanest of accommodation in our jails. In particular I prayed for the innocent people in prison, of whom, we are more and more beginning to realise, there must be many. In time, I found that I had no problem with being awake at these times and in fact came to value and look forward to this very private and personal time.

By the grace You grant me of silence without loneliness, grant me the
right to plead, to clamour for my brothers imprisoned in a loneliness
without silence!

The emphasis of my spiritual life has changed over more recent years, and in many ways I regret my move away from that particular form of prayer. On the other hand, what has happened may be the result of the activities of that time. The practical, pragmatic 'me' has always taken the view that it is not sufficient to project prayers heaven-ward in the pious hope that 'something will be done'. In the reality of life I reckon that you have to be prepared to add action to supplication, and rather than asking "please will you do so-and-so?" asking instead "please help me to do so-and-so." And so it might be that in this remembering, analysing and writing I am creating my own answer to my original prayer and doing something practical for the benefit of the ones for whom I had originally prayed.

I found a parallel to my line of thinking recently when listening to a man on television describing his own experiences. I had switched on briefly mid-morning while having my tea break to find this man recounting the horror of his twenty-five innocent years in prison. When, in his late teens and describing himself as "withdrawn and inadequate", a young woman was murdered in his neighbourhood, the man had a very vivid dream in which he clearly saw the face of a woman and the circumstances of a murder. What he saw in the dream was of such clarity that he himself believed that he could only have known such things if he had actually been involved. On going to the police, more to get clarification than anything else, the young man found himself taken in as the only suspect, all other investigation was dropped, and his feet never touched the ground until he was locked up for life. After three years in prison, he realised that he was innocent and just could not have committed the crime, and has spent the remaining time trying to get his case re-heard and securing his ultimate release.

During the interview the man was asked why, having lived through such traumatic times, he was still continuing to be involved with the processes of law and the prisons. His reply was that if he could prevent anything similar from happening to only one other person, he would willingly keep exposing himself to the publicity and the agony. It is in this respect that I see some parallels to my own circumstances. I had been in a form of prison of someone else's making for nearly seventeen years, although I didn't in fact know that I had been 'innocent' until some time after my release. My sole motivation in writing and opening up my past to scrutiny is just the same, namely to try to 'release' even one other person, or to prevent someone from being entrapped in the first place. If I can do this, I shall consider the time to have been well spent.

Sitting on the same sofa was the psychologist who frequently appeared on the particular programme, and he just seemed unable to contain himself as he waited to get in with the psycho-gobble about dreams, causes and interpretations thereof. There seems to be nothing that cannot be explained courtesy of Messrs Freud and Jung! But he found himself totally out of his depth, and fortunately shut up when the man described the overwhelming and disabling emotion which swept over himself, and which, often with only the slightest trigger, caused him to curl into himself so tightly and weep uncontrollably. I have never been so drastically affected, but I recognise the times past when, metaphorically and internally, I have 'curled up and wept' at the memory and actuality of the pain and loss and humiliation experienced by myself and those whom I formerly held so close and dear. The psychologist started to develop an instant explanation of 'panic attacks' but was promptly and completely silenced by the man himself.

Why do these psychologists and psychiatrists who appear so widely and frequently on television and radio, have to believe that they have an instant and complete answer to every human situation and problem that crosses their orbit? Can they never be persuaded to say " I don't know" or "That is outside my experience"? Yes - out side my experience. It should be patently obvious that, except in a rare few instances, very few of the practitioners of these 'arts' have experienced the mental conditions that they are trying to define and correct in the people before them. It is purely hypothesis and theory that is being put into practice, often at the expense of people's minds and lives. A surgeon has a particular task before him, and if he gets it wrong and cuts off the wrong bit, or has an unacceptable number of fatalities to his credit, then eventually someone notices and steps are taken. Likewise, if a drug therapy results in numbers of babies being born with vestigial development, that, too, becomes obvious. But who is there to blow the whistle on a psychiatrist? If patients deteriorate, well it's just a continued manifestation of the original 'syndrome' (how they love that word!) and a more advanced drug regime is called for. Is there not a crying need for a less interventionist approach to people's distressful inability to cope? Less a need for invasive action, but rather a system of support, of 'cocooning' people until their crisis is past, and they and their partners, friends, develop a greater understanding of causes and practical remedies. Often understanding, communication and support are all that many people need. From many sources, it is obvious that the first and often only response is the latest in-vogue and well-marketed tranquilliser or anti-depressant.

During another morning tea break switch-on, I happened upon the same sofa psychologist presiding over a phone-in on 'control freaks'. Women, some of whom were obviously in great distress, were describing their situations in which husband or partner was exercising such a degree of control over most aspects of their lives and activities as to make their lives intolerable. I understand and sympathise greatly with the callers and their desperate need for help, but what disturbed me about the programme response was that, without having met or heard from the partners in the marriage or relationship, the men were, without exception, labelled 'control freaks' by the psychologist and presenter, who was just as bad with his glib, 'know-all' categorisations, and then of course, having stuck on a label, 'they' all come into a common category - 'they' all behave like this; 'they' all do that and the other. This facile and often stupid labelling (bearing in mind that the current Prime Minister is also designated a 'control freak!), creates great dangers in its wake, bringing back to mind my own sad decline, which began with the application without consultation or justification of the 'chronic anxiety neurosis' label.

I make no apology for revisiting this part of my story. I am not doing so in order to extract the maximum of hand-wringing sympathy from you, nor to take up my cudgel, metaphorically to beat the heads of the psychiatrists and doctors who were sequentially participants in the original drama. No, I want to analyse in more detail what was written and, equally importantly, what was not written in the hope of exposing the vulnerability of the individual caught in the toils of 'the system'.

Just suppose that I had been suspected of having committed some major crime, and that BW had been retained by the prosecution as an expert witness in order to provide a psychiatric assessment of me. So great is his status in his field, that his name on an adverse report would mean that it would be accepted without question by judge and jury alike. If my crime had been murder, the chances are that, virtually on his assessment alone, I could have been found guilty and be on a one-way ticket to Broadmoor or some similar establishment.

I regard myself as intelligent and articulate, yet what happened to me did happen in spite of that, largely because, in effect, I had yielded control to those whom society places in authority, and whose competence we are not in a position to question. Just imagine the situation of someone who is less articulate, possibly with the difficulties of communication experienced between people of different ethnic or social backgrounds, or someone who may be withdrawn or, for whatever reason, disturbed, being arrested for some crime or misdemeanour and held in custody, possibly allocated the duty solicitor and, if necessary, the duty psychiatrist, each of whom may simply be doing a job and not have the true well-being of the prisoner at heart. Such people are easily misunderstood, and easily influenced and vulnerable, and, as we are aware, dire things can happen to them. I recall the case of a young man from New Zealand who had been arrested for shoplifting in London. He was held for psychiatric assessment and then ordered by the court to be deported. However, the psychiatrist who had examined him wanted to study him further for her own purposes and arranged for him to be held and not immediately released. In his despair and isolation, the young man took his shirt, tied one end to a bed leg, rolled the rest tightly around his neck - and strangled himself.

Nothing as dire happened to me, although I came perilously close to suicide - and all because of a label and inadequate communication between people with preformed minds, people with limited experience of the way of life of many of those who come before them as patients. Try as they will, it is nigh on impossible for them to identify, or even understand the problems and stresses. I have mentioned already the artificial community, Seascale, in which I lived. When I was in hospital, I was struck by the fact that, in proportion to its population against that of the rest of the hospital catchment area, Seascale was over-represented, particularly by its womenfolk.

It was an artificial and peculiar community in many ways. The original Seascale had been created in the latter half of the nineteenth century to give some purpose to the newly laid Furness Railway. Conceived as a select watering place, it had a core of basic shops, two hotels and several boarding houses, two private schools and a golf course. It was run by long-standing residents, and there seemed to be a general resentment against this hoard of 'off-comers', many very well paid by the standards then prevailing locally. The purpose of the addition to the village was to house staff brought in to create and run the new nuclear complex of Windscale and the later Calder Hall power station. Virtually every house had its graduate, possibly two, for wives were often as well qualified as their husbands. That was part of the problem - the educated mind with very little outlet. Cars had not yet become readily available or affordable in the years following the war. Children poured out of the woodwork, for, for many, it was the first home of the young after demobilisation and graduation.