I don’t know how efficient mental health services are now, but when I
first sought help from my GP in 1987, within a few weeks I became a
patient at Park Clinic day hospital. I was assigned a key worker,
psychiatrist, psychologist and psychotherapist. I’ve no recent
experience of mental health crisis response, but from what I’ve heard,
things are quite different today. 

The day unit operated five days a week from 9 am to 3 pm. Each patient
had a timetable which included things like art therapy, music therapy,
exercise, creative writing, various group activities and weekly
individual sessions with different therapists. The only one I really
hated was art therapy – I wasn’t exactly overflowing with
self-confidence at that time, and viewing my pathetic artistic efforts
which made children’s stick man drawings look sophisticated didn’t do my
ego any favours. I got in the habit of skipping those sessions, and no
one seemed to notice. Twice a week, we had relaxation sessions where
about thirty of us would lie on mats, covered with a thin blanket, in
what had been the main ward in the days when Park Clinic was a cottage
hospital. An occupational therapist would put some music on and read a
script whereby we would relax our muscles from feet to neck. I found out
later it was called Progressive Muscle Relaxation and I still use the
technique today. The group sessions could be difficult for someone with
communication issues, but I guess that was probably the point. One
frequent exercise was for us to sit in a circle and pass a ball round,
each patient saying something about how they were feeling when the ball
came to them. There were a number of different exercises designed to
help us express our feelings and interact.

Occasionally, a group of us would go on an outing in the clinic’s
minibus. One trip was to Hampton Court and I found myself sitting at the
back with Carla. (Not her real name.) My erstwhile lustfulness had
been replaced by a fear of getting too close to someone in case my
voices reappeared and took a dislike to them, as had happened before,
but I still craved emotional and physical proximity so, summoning all my
reserves of courage, I held her hand. She not only didn’t flinch, but
squeezed my hand back and so we sat for the rest of the journey. We
already knew each other quite well from our frequent lunchtime visits to
a pub in town – Park Clinic was situated not far from the town centre –
and we’d discovered that we shared a lot of symptoms, although I hadn’t
told her about my own voices as the meds had zapped them by then and I
didn’t want to hasten their return by talking about them. She was less
fortunate than me with meds, and her own voices were still sometimes
troubling her. I remember asking her if she’d tried talking to them and
telling them to fuck off (I had with mine, to no effect) and she said
they took no notice. I knew that feeling.

We began spending a lot of time together and I became a frequent visitor
to her house where she lived with her parents and sister. We spent
hours driving around in the ridiculously large, gas guzzling V8 Rover
that I’d bought with a small inheritance from my Aunt which also
provided me with the funds for petrol and drinks. However, the clinic
staff didn’t share our happiness and we were told separately by our key
workers that forming a relationship was “unwise”. I couldn’t understand
that – we were supposed to be preparing for a return to “normal” life,
and I thought that developing personal relationships was a pretty normal
thing to do, but they thought otherwise. Years later when I saw the Ken
Loach film “Family Life” (1971), I identified with Janice when she
became friendly with a fellow patient and the staff were similarly
disapproving. However, we found it easier to just spend less time
together at the clinic, except for our regular lunchtime pub visits.

Mental illness can do strange things to a person’s libido. In my case,
it evaporated completely, but some people experience the exact opposite
and become insatiable. I think Carla was in the latter category as,
after a few months, she became tired of my apparent lack of physical
interest and put an end to our brief relationship. I became a resident
of Singles’ City, and even our pub visits finished. I left the clinic
not long after and never saw Carla again.