Simon - Interview 15

Age at interview: 61

Age at diagnosis: 20

Brief Outline:

Simon heard voices when he was at university, and didn't know he was ill. Eventually he went to see a psychiatrist and went to hospital. He got a grant and did architecture. Now he is involved with the service user movement and does sculpture.

Background:

Simon studied architecture, took medical retirement, lives by himself and has no children. Ethnic background' White British.

More about me...

Simon grew up in London in a working-class family and had an ‘idyllic’ first six years; then his mother got very acute postnatal depression and ended up in hospital. He did very well at school and got into drugs at the age of 16 which he thinks was ‘the beginning of [his] problems’. He did LSD as it was ‘all the rage’ and had some bad trips. Later he went to university and studied the ‘wrong subject’ and couldn’t really get into the work. He took another LSD trip and he thinks his schizophrenia began then. He felt ‘totally isolated’ and started hearing voices from the other students. He knew ‘nothing about schizophrenia or hearing voices’ and just took them as part of reality. After this time he left university and his friend told him to stay in the country for a while with other people, which he did, although they also took drugs.

 

Simon went back to London and started reading Chinese philosophy which made him worse as he ‘didn’t really understand what [he] was reading’. He was seeing visions of Jesus Christ saying in front of him ‘You’re just like me’. Eventually he was taken to see a psychiatrist and he ‘knew nothing about sections and things’. He consented to have ECT, which improved his depression, but he felt that a course of 12 which was ‘too many’, so he stopped. There was a ‘whole chunk’ of his memory that was missing. He didn’t like hospital as they kept him in pyjamas and it was ‘pretty awful’. He remembers seeing another man having the same ECT getting ‘dozier and dozier’. He found hospital boring and asked to leave. Looking back he wished he’d stayed a bit longer, as he came home and got a job and couldn’t do it. He wandered around the streets as there weren’t any day centres to go to. He kept getting the sack because of his illness.

 

Simon was on Stelazine, Modecate, and Depixol in the ‘early days’ and describes it as ‘awful’. He used to drink as well and kept falling asleep in the pub with friends. After a holiday in Scotland he came off his tablets and it was ‘pretty strange’. He ran out of money and went home and ended up in hospital again. He was there for four months, didn’t have ECT and got really into art work. He then went to a Richmond fellowship hostel which really ‘helped […] a lot’. He was introduced to therapy and counselling and ‘didn’t see its benefit at the time’ but says it did help.

 

Now he is resigned to ‘taking the tablets’, as he read a book which said ‘draw your life as a graph with highs and lows’, and he realised he threw away his tablets when he reached a high and then went ‘down’ and stayed there for a couple of years. He stopped smoking cannabis at the age of 35 after being paranoid and gave up drinking at the age of 40. He did a degree and threw away his medication at the end of his first year (during which he had done very well) and just ‘scraped through’ the next two years. After his degree he got a job, threw away his tablets and got involved with some ‘mad therapists’ who encouraged him to come off medication, and he got ‘ill again’. He had a job and kept getting the sack, and in the recession he spent 5 years looking for work. In the end his illness came back and has been out of work ever since, from the age of 45. He now doesn’t think ‘anyone would employ him’. Five years ago he was in hospital after getting ‘very isolated’ and got ‘very strange indeed’. In hospital he was suicidal. He joined group therapy and was part of a gardening group.

 

Simon got involved with the mental health service users’ movement, does art, writing, and sculpture, and engages in voluntary work. He has been involved with the Hearing Voices Network. 

Simon started seeing things such as the face of Jesus Christ saying 'You're just like me' but 'didn't think anything of it' and considered it was all part of reality.

I started seeing things, I ended up thinking I was Jesus Christ. Yeah.

 

What types of things were you seeing?

 

Well... well Jesus Christ, only a face really looking like Jesus Christ appeared in front of me and said, “You’re just like me.” And so I, in the end, I ended up believing I was Jesus Christ. Yeah.

 

And what was your experience of seeing things? What did it feel like?

 

I thought it was natural, you know, it was, I thought it was all part of reality. Yes.

So were you surprised when somebody said that you needed to see a psychiatrist? 

Yes, I mean my first thought was oh good, someone wise to talk to, and yes, I didn’t think anything of it, you know, I thought I was, I think I thought I was Jesus Christ and yes. 

Simon had some bad trips and thinks that LSD was the 'beginning of [his] schizophrenia'.

At the age of 16 I got into drugs. You know, sort of cannabis, and that graduated to LSD, and I think that was the beginning of me problems, I think, you know. I had some bad LSD trips. Yeah, and that, yeah, yeah.

 

What were the bad trips like?

 

Oh... Well they were really weird, yes. It was all the rage, and I thought you know, you thought you could see God by taking LSD or something in those days [laughs]. And and yes.

 

So what happened next after at the age of 16 you were getting into drugs and so on?

 

Well... I had a bad acid trip, I think at the age of 18. And that was, yes, I was sort of, I was 18 in the summer of '67 so that was quite good, you know. And then I went to university, at university and I was studying the wrong subject.

 

A so-called friend of mine advised me to do this. And, it was all the rage, and I did it, and I couldn’t really get into the work. So I got into the sort of social scene there.

And that was disastrous and I took another LSD trip and that was the beginning of my schizophrenia I think. Yes.  

Simon gave up alcohol, LSD and cannabis but still smokes cigarettes.

I think I took my last LSD trip when I was about 22 I think. I even took some LSD trips after I came out of hospital. Which was a bit silly. And I stopped smoking cannabis, I think at the age of 35. [2 sec pause] I was smoking with a friend, and I just thought, I thought my friend might be going to kill me and I thought oh my God. So I stopped taking it. I gave up drinking at the age of 40. I still smoke cigarettes a lot though. 

 

Yes, when I was in hospital I thought people kept giving me drugs [laughs]. It was funny and I was so desperate I was just taking them, you know, it was a crazy situation. Yes.

 

As an in-patient?

 

Yes. Yes.

 

What were they giving you?

 

Cannabis. God knows what. They just gave me stuff and I took it. And it was terrible [laughs]. It’s against my religious vows not to take any street drugs. I wouldn’t go back on that anyway. Yes.