Robert - Interview 19

Age at interview: 45

Age at diagnosis: 43

Brief Outline:

Robert had a 'normal' childhood, but his father died when he was 15. Later, he started using methamphetamine, which damaged his mental health, and he started hearing voices and sleeping on the streets. He now lives in the South West with his partner who supports him.

Background:

Robert used to be a labourer, is living with his partner and had one child Ethnic background' White English

More about me...

Robert describes his childhood as ‘quite normal really’. He went to a Catholic school. Robert’s father died ‘pretty much in [his] arms’; then, after that, he ‘didn’t bother much with school’. His Dad had had a ‘nervous breakdown’ and had a lot of mental health issues himself; he had spoken to Robert about receiving ECT. He got into drugs and started drinking. When he was living in another town he did a lot of methamphetamine, and was walking around the streets and hearing voices. However his partner was there to look after him, and he moved away. He says he has been lucky because he has been a strong person, but the doctor was the ‘last person he wanted to see’ as the risk of getting sectioned was too much. He just ‘bared with it’.

 

Robert doesn’t do methamphetamine now but he is still feeling the effects. Robert thinks the deaths of people close to him made it easier to fall into drugs. His father and daughter died in very distressing circumstances. He drank heavily and did drugs to ‘try and get his head around it’. He used to drink, get in fights and end up in jail. He thinks that sometimes ‘jail works’ by getting you drink-free and drug-free. He couldn’t be bothered to cope with ‘everyday things’, and lost a couple of jobs because he just couldn’t do them.

 

It was when he went to a mental health unit in the South West that he put ‘two and two together’ and ‘worked things out’ and realised ‘what was happening in [his] head’. He could see his mental health ‘getting worse and worse’. When he first heard voices they ‘didn’t really mean a lot’ but now, looking back, they were ‘scary’. At the time he didn’t care. He spent days sleeping on the street, as he felt trapped by the voices when he was inside. In the end he moved and ‘started again’. He is also scared of people’s reactions, and has found that a lot of people won’t talk to him because of the mental health issues. He has also found that a GP was intimidated by talking about mental health issues, and ‘called him a liar’ when he discussed hearing voices. After this incident he didn’t see a doctor for nearly two and a half years, and doesn’t talk to doctors he doesn’t know about hearing voices. He is now with an older doctor, whom he expected to be more prejudiced, but he is better. He considered putting in a complaint against the first doctor, but felt that, because of the drugs and mental health history he had, he wouldn’t be taken seriously. Later he went to a unit that specialised in mental health and found them ‘easier to get on with’. There he spoke with a psychiatrist who was really helpful, but they didn’t ‘have the time’ and just ‘prescribed you drugs’. He hasn’t seen a doctor for two to three years. The tablets [Risperidone] helped a lot, although it seems that the longer he has been taking the tablets the less effective they are. They cut a lot of the voices out, and he isn’t as ‘jumpy’ or ‘paranoid’ as he used to be. However the voices are ‘still there’ and ‘some days are worse than others’.

 

Robert finds that because of the reaction of other people to mental health issues he prefers to stay with his partner, and doesn’t go out much. He says that without his partner he ‘probably wouldn’t have survived’ mental health problems. He could check with her what was real, and was with her 24 hours a day. It is especially difficult when he goes out, as he thinks people are saying things about him, and she has to reassure him that they aren’t. He finds that there aren’t many people with whom you can sit down and talk about mental health.

 

He describes drugs as the ‘biggest mistake [he] ever made’. Cannabis he describes as ‘his biggest weakness’, although he says that it is amphetamine that was worse as it ‘gets in your head’. ‘You don’t have much control over things’. He would go without sleeping or eating for 6-7 days. At worst he was 6’3” and 9 ½ stone. He likes the housing worker, with whom he gets on ‘really well’; this person has helped him sort out his debts. He has really struggled with money. He can’t afford to go to the dentist yet has very bad oral health. He finds it difficult to stick with the methadone, and wants to pick a drugs worker who has some personal experience of drugs. He also finds that drugs workers struggle with mental health issues. When he does heroin it ‘stops a lot of [his] problems with the mental health’, as although it doesn’t stop the voices it makes him ‘not care’. The only issue he has with heroin is the ‘expense’.

 

Now he has his own place, with support from a drugs project, and life is a lot better. He can go out a lot more than he used to; he can go up to the chemist most days, and things are ‘quite rosey’. With mental health some days are ‘a little bit worse than others’.  

Robert's mental health deteriorated dramatically when he started talking methamphetamine.

Robert - It’s the amphetamine that done me.  Most definitely. I mean methamphetamine, a terrible bloody time. I mean years ago it used to be called speed. I mean to say there might have been a few mental health issues with speed, but nothing like there is with this methamphetamine. It, I don’t know, it just gets into, it gets in your head in a way that I’ve never experienced. Literally running around scared of your own shadow but …

 

Are you able to tell me what it feels like?

 

Robert -  Exhales. Well it’s like, it’s all right at first, you know, the first few times you use it, but when you start getting used to it…. I don’t know, how do I put this? You’re literally scared of your own shadow half the time, most of the time you’re using the stuff. You don’t have much control over things, do you? Don’t have no control over the thoughts in your head or …

 

Partner - I don’t help because it don’t give you much sleep neither, because it keeps you awake don’t it? It keeps you awake 24 hours and puts you off food and everything.

Robert -  Of course, so when you don’t eat or sleep for about six or seven days, you imagine state of me at the end of it like, after sort of six or seven days, and, that, that’s what really started my mental health issues. I’m 99% positive. No medical, I’ve got medical proof of it, but I know in myself that’s where it come from. 

Robert was shocked by the reaction of a younger GP, and changed to another GP who had much more understanding about his mental health problems and drug use.

Robert - Because I mean to say people’s views of mental health as well isn’t it. You know what I say. It’s not like talking to [name of partner] in itself, like because you’re both used to it, but you know, you talk to say a neighbour or somebody else and I sort of ahhh like you know, they get so scared of it don’t they? And truthfully that doesn’t help.

 

No. I imagine.

 

Robert - I mean to say a lot, a lot of people they just sort of like they don’t want to know you. They just like walk away. Don’t want to know. But if that’s the way they want to be. All fair… all’s fair isn’t it. You know, but I don’t think it helps the people with the mental health issues much like. It’s a lot easier to sit down and talk to someone, but a lot of people won’t talk to you because of the mental health. I mean my doctor, like you know, I know for a fact when you start talking mental health like, he goes white. And that’s a doctor [lights a cigarette]. But that doctor of mine he’s the most... the most scariest doctor I’ve ever come across. Just because he’s so unhelpful and so biased. He’s only young as well. Which, you know, he’s only in his 30s. He looks quite young doesn’t he?

 

Partner - Yes.

 

Robert - Sort of 30s and that like. And I’ve changed doctors since in the same practice, I just go and see a different doctor. Now I’m with an older doctor who I’d expect to be worse. He’s fantastic. You know, “Oh don’t worry like, we’ll help you out.” Like, you know, nothing too much trouble, and yet to go to one of the younger doctors like and he’s scared of his own shadow when you start talking about mental health. And you can see it in him. Like, you know, you walk into the room like and you walk in right, and he sits in his little chair and he gets up and he’s like this and it’s really strange I tell you. It’s the strangest thing I’ve ever come across. And of course mental health, me with mental health issues and I’ve got a doctor doing this and I’m thinking well whose the mental… whose the person with the mental health issues? He got that bad that honest I had to take [name of partner] in with me all the time, because I didn’t trust him. It’s like, almost imagining him trying to section me to be truthful and I’m not sure if that was for... I suppose they section people for the public’s safety. Right. Well this would be nothing to do with public safety. This would be to do with how the doctor felt about me, his personal views on me. And that’s not right. It shouldn’t have to be like that. They say put in a complaint. Well what’s the point. What is the point of putting a complaint against someone like that. I wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.

 

Partner - They wouldn’t do nothing about it anyway.

 

Robert - No. No. Because of mental health issues like and the drugs I’ve done in the past no one’s going to listen to me. Hm. I generally feel like I don’t have a leg to stand on with it. And I don’t know how to go about it. I don’t know how to deal with it. I don’t know what to do about him. There’s got to be something I can do, but what it is or how to go about it or how to cope with it, I haven’t got a clue. People like that, doctors like that shouldn’t even be allowed to practice. I don’t think so anyway. Wouldn’t you say. Alright, I know that, all doctors and nurses like, with some things I’ve had in the past they’re not my favourite of people but in the same respect like I quite, I respectful, I’m polite, you know, and I’ll always be polite and respectful to doctors like you know, they do a lot of good for a lot of people. They just don’t do a lot of good for me. But people like [name of doctor] there’s no way, there’s no way that bloke should be practising medicine. I’ve never felt so abused… He actually… I can’t rememb… my old man died in my arms and I didn’t cry, my daughter died and I didn’t cry. But I tell you what he had me in tears down that bloody surgery. And I just through sheer frustration of not knowing how to deal with him. And that’s a doctor. And because it’s mental health issues I happen to know he’s got all the power in the world over me. I mean he can be rude as he wants, he can be as unpolite as I want, but the minute I’m impolite or rude to him like. Oh. I just hope like there isn’t too many doctors around here like him.

Robert thinks that his dad's death, his own drug taking and his daughter's death in distressing circumstances all contributed to his mental health problems.

My childhood was, I suppose you’d call quite normal really. I went to Catholic schools, and you know. I suppose everything went downhill from about my last year at school because my old man died pretty much in my arms when I was about 15 years old like. Ah of course that didn’t give me a very good start.

 

I didn’t bother with school after that. I did …never bothered turning up like [laughs]. Got into drugs, as you do, and starting drinking and hm. I suppose from there, that’s all I’ve done for years is drugs. You know, and it…and as I say it relates to my mental health. If I knew then what I knew now, I’d have chose a different path. But hindsight is a funny old thing isn’t it?

 

Yes.

 

I suppose the mental health side of it, didn’t really appear until sort of... about sort of four or five years ago. I’ve always been one... years ago the drug used to be called Speed. But now they’ve changed and it’s called methamphetamine. And the psychosis involved in it alone is frightening. 

 

I suppose the death of my daughter didn’t help much. Because when my daughter died like, I was married at the time, right. And I spent I don’t know fourteen years with my wife like. And we were pretty close like. But we just went that way. Like just couldn’t live with each other. Couldn’t you know. I mean to say even now she’s like. I suppose I go and see her like. Still be a good friend like. But it destroyed us. Absolutely destroyed us. 

 

And I suppose some of the mental health things come from round about then. Because I just started drinking and you know, you just go… drinking and drugs like that’s all I done for months and months and months to try and get my head around it like. And of course after that as I said about the police knocking on me door. That didn’t help much. I remember being sat in me front room with my mate, [name], and this bloke walked down my steps in a suit, and before he put his foot on the second step I knew he was a copper. Child Protection Team. And that’s didn’t help. That didn’t help at all. That took me years and years and years to get over. It’s, I used to drink and get in fights and end up in jail and, you know, but its just one of those things. Its just one of those things that. I don’t know I just couldn’t get me head round I suppose. How someone could be so... I don’t know. Nasty? That doesn’t even go, describe the way I feel about it. 

 

I suppose that didn’t help. Because you get into drinking and you get into drugs and things just start slipping.

 

Looking back Robert can see that the start of his mental health problems was when he was getting into conflicts at work and lacking motivation.

Robert - But I suppose looking back at it now. I mean to say, I don’t know, I suppose I’m, when did that happen, 95, ten it must be going back fifteen twenty years now. But I can look back and it now like, that’s probably where my problems started. Like with the confusion of everything like, you know, and it all got messed up in my mind as well, a lot of it.

 

What type of things got messed up?

 

Robert - Oh God everything. Some of the simplest things, man. You know, I’d get up in the morning like, you know and have your day planned out and truth of it I just couldn’t be arsed. I couldn’t be bothered, just to cope with everyday things. You know, you can go, I don’t know, getting a job or signing on and that. It’s just too much trouble. Just too much aggravation. I just couldn’t cope with it. And of course, I mean to say, you get a job and you get these niggly little things at work, you know, that people are meant to care about or worry about, you know, oh this isn’t done right, or that isn’t done right. And I just don’t, didn’t have the patience or the effort or the will to even bother to try. I lost a couple, I must admit I lost a couple of jobs because I just couldn’t, I just couldn’t do it. Like, you know. I had some bloke stood there, shouting at me, sort of so far away from me, like, you know, because I’m meant to be worried about what he’s doing at work like. You know, I just decked to be truthful. Petty garbage. Hmm.  Got me into a lot of trouble. But now I look back on it and that’s probably the start of my mental health issues. Hindsight is a wonderful thing isn’t it?

 

It wasn’t until I talked to [name of psychiatrist] from the, what was she [name of partner] can you remember? What she was. What [name] Unit?

 

Partner - Yes.

 

Robert - That’s it isn’t it? Which is a mental health thing in [city]. But I only got to see her a couple of times. And it wasn’t until I sat down and talked to her that I looked back on it and realised what had been going on. And I sort of put two and two together and worked things out. And now, I suppose once I, once I realised what was happening in my head. Once I accepted it, it made it a bit easier to deal with. Does that make sense? 

Robert's voices were so bad indoors that he felt he had to live on the streets, although he was still scared of them.

Robert - But now I look back on it and I think bloody hell like. You know, it does, it scares me, worries me like… I mean some of the time just walking around like you know, because I wouldn’t go home. I spent days and days sleeping on, just sleeping out, sleeping in the streets because I didn’t like being in doors. It was like being trapped. Sat in doors hearing people, hearing voices that I knew weren’t there. So it was easier for me to be outside the house, than what it was inside like. And this went on for about a couple of years back?

 

Partner - Yes.

 

Robert - It must have been close mustn’t it. This went on for a couple of years. But as I say the only way I got round it, was I just upped and moved. Like sort of thanks to [name of partner] like, you know. Just upped and moved, got away from all the drugs, started again and now, now I’m relatively happy like. You know. But as I say at the time it was scary. I wouldn’t, I mean I’m not sort of person to turn and say oh I’m scared of this or I’m scared of that because that’s really not me, but with mental health you know, you think aw…. [laughs] And it is very scary situation. 

 

 

Robert and his partner talk about how important support from her has been when he hears voices.

 Robert - What more can I say. I’m the luckiest person in the world. Oh yes. Without [name of partner] I don’t know, I probably wouldn’t have survived it. I probably wouldn’t, I probably wouldn’t have been able to like, to [name of partner] I could turn round and say, “Well look. Did you hear that? Did you hear this like?” You know, and [name of partner] being of sound mind about me [laughs]. You know, so helpful. You know, I mean to say we were with each other 24 hours a day weren’t we. Have been for years like. So she’s always been there for me, like you know. Especially in [name of city], like I was having such a tough time, and yes. I don’t know. Yes. I don’t think I’d be around now if it was for [name of partner], to be truthful like because I can’t imagine going through that on my own. Oh that wouldn’t have been easy would it? I can’t imagine with all the voices I was hearing. It’s not like, how do I put it, it’s not like you hear it on the TV, there was someone the other day, about someone killing someone, saying, “Oh yes, I heard voices. I heard voices.” It’s nothing like that. With me it’s just I suppose its people persecuting me, if you see what I mean, calling me names, slagging me off, stuff like that. And that makes it difficult in itself. I’m lucky that I’ve always had [name of partner] to turn round and say look is that right, is it happening.

 

Partner - It’s difficult when we go out as well.

 

Robert - Yes, yes.

 

Partner - Sometimes when we go out, he thinks he hears something and he’s like, well if he said that, I’m going to him and it’s like no don’t, because he might not have even said it, he might have been talking to someone else. So truthfully it’s like in a way he’s lucky because when we go shopping I’m there to stop him, in case he does do something stupid, because I just know where it’s going to get him.