Tim - Interview 30

Age at interview: 61

Age at diagnosis: 19

Brief Outline: Tim was first unwell when he was 19 and has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He has been on Depixol injections for many years, and believes acceptance of his diagnosis, the love of his mother, and religion have all helped him lead a happier life.

Background: Tim is unemployed, single and has no children. Ethnic background' White British.

More about me...

Tim was born in 1949 and grew up living with his twin brother and older sister. He says that his parents had a very unhappy marriage. He was sent away to boarding school when he was 13. He says he was always ‘top of the class’ and got a scholarship to a major public school. The school was apparently famous for its brutality. He describes sexual abuse taking place in the dormitories, and because of this he used to stay in the changing rooms until late and only got four hours of sleep. He went to Cambridge but then ‘started screaming and crying and banging [his] head and wanting to die’. After his second year, a tutor suggested he had a year off. He was taken to see doctors, but never a psychiatrist. He hitchhiked to India ‘to die’ and left England with little money. After taking six weeks to get to India, he ended up living with a poor community in a sewer in Madras. He phoned his mother and she realised that he had gone ‘mad’. He came home and arrived in Heathrow and was taken to a ‘mental hospital’ where his mother came to visit him. He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and was told ‘they had to wait until it gets worse’. He says that he didn’t accept his diagnosis and it took him ‘13 years to accept it completely’. He went into a locked ward for four months when he was 20, and when he came out he had a ‘black cloud of paranoia for the next 29 years’. He went to a hospital voluntarily, and stayed there for a year. He was put on Depixol and met a great doctor. After that, he went to the south coast and heard the voices of God and the Devil competing with each other. He would throw himself into thorn bushes as a ‘penance’, and was eventually admitted to a ‘criminal ward’, despite committing no crime. The hospital was in a terrible condition, with mattresses on the floor, locked doors, filthy urinals and no beds or bath. He once tried to ‘made a bid for the locked door’ and was ‘forcibly injected’ and ‘left […] for a few days without food or water’. He was transferred to a hospital near his parents, and his doctor told his parents he was a ‘chronic long-term schizophrenic with poor prognosis’ who would ‘never work again’, so that they should ‘expect the worst’. After this he had various suicide attempts, but then he stopped because of his Mum. Many of his friends and acquaintances had successful suicide attempts. The voices he hears say ‘Hang yourself, cut your throat, you’re evil, you’re damned’. The injection has ‘curbed them down’ but ‘doesn’t take them away completely’. He has some ‘residual pain’ from one of his ‘many overdoses’ and suicide attempts.

 

He says that he has been on Depixol injections since 1978, and has had some good nursing care. He tried Modecate but it ‘didn’t work’ and Depixol ‘suits [him] fine’. He now goes to a Catholic church five days a week, and says that he has had a happy life. He thinks ‘you need God’s help’ and doesn’t regard religion as ‘therapy’ but as the truth. He doesn’t believe in alternative therapies and thinks talking therapy is a ‘waste of time’ as acceptance is the way to be happy. He thinks that people ‘seem to accept it’ if they are told he is ‘schizophrenic’, whereas ‘it wasn’t so a couple of years ago’. He felt that he didn’t want children as ‘schizophrenia is partially genetic’, so he stayed with his Mum, despite people in the services trying to ‘force [him] away from her’. He felt that ‘stupid 70s theories, like R D Laing’ said that ‘schizophrenia [was] caused by bad families’. He said that he hasn’t seen a psychiatrist for a long while, as he doesn’t need to see one. His last psychiatrist ‘never saw you for more than two minutes, never looked you in the eye’, but knew ‘exactly how to treat schizophrenia’. Tim went to a support group, ‘The National Schizophrenia Fellowship’, but he found it ‘a bit grim’. He doesn’t believe in recovery from schizophrenia, but he thinks some people have one episode and can work again to a reduced level, or can work again with an injection; some have symptoms all the time and can’t work and have to take injections. Tim believes he is in the last category. 

Tim found it difficult to accept his diagnosis and hadn't heard of the term 'schizophrenia' before.

And can you remember receiving your diagnosis?

 

Oh yes, in 1970, they said it was paranoid schizophrenia. I came back from India. I didn’t accept it then. It took me 13 years to accept it completely. But they said it was always paranoid schizophrenia with a poor prognosis. I can remember it yes.

 

And heard you heard the term of paranoid schizophrenia?

 

No. It was a new one to me. I never thought I’d become a mental patient. In my teens I supposed I looked down on mental patients. Not any more. Since I’m one of them. Now I’ve never, I’ve always had the same problem. I stick to what Dr [Name] said forty or thirty five years ago. He made a life time’s study of paranoid schizophrenia and he knew exactly what to do. I stick to his treatment. I don’t go shopping around doctors or going for alternative, I don’t believe in alternative medicine. It doesn’t work. I’ve never tried that. I just stick to what Dr [Name] said.

 

And has your diagnosis ever changed?

No. It’s always been paranoid schizophrenia with a very poor prognosis.  

Tim has heard many different voices over the years; the voices he hears at the moment tell him that he must hang himself and that he is damned.

Nowadays as I say the voices say, ‘hang yourself, cut your throat, you’re evil, you’re damned’. And I say do it tomorrow and not today. Cut your throat, hang yourself, tomorrow. That’s the way it works for me. I still, I still hear the voices all the time, very dimu …

 

Dr [Name] said the drugs will prevent the worst and he was right after '76. Nowadays hang yourself, cut you… I think I’m damned because I said, “There’s no God. It’s all your fault,” to Mum in October '69 when I hitchhiked to India. I can’t help that. I’ve never touched anyone and always been very gentle and that’s it.

 

And have the voices changed over the years?

 

Well in [place name] as I said I was hearing the voice of God, Beethoven, Jesus, the Devil, the Virgin Mary, Samson, Mao Tse Tung, Capablanca, Brahms, Bruckner. Nowadays - 'just hang yourself, cut your throat, you’re evil, really damned’ because I’m on the injection and the injection has curbed them down, but it doesn’t take them away completely that’s why I have a poor prognosis.

Tim thinks that schizophrenia isn't caused by 'bad families' and that he had a good relationship with his mother

And you were saying that they tried to take you away from your Mum?

 

Yes.

 

Who had tried to do that?

 

Doctors they thought it was bad for me. You see this is the stupid 70s theories, like R D Lang and all that nonsense about schizophrenia being caused by bad families or upbringing. Well if schizophrenia is caused by bad families, so their all relative bad families and it’s crazy it doesn’t happen like that. And also if schizophrenia was caused by family, what about my brother and sister. They haven’t got it and they had the same upbringing. And now they tried to force me away from Mum, the doctors. They thought it was bad for me. But I loved my Mum and for 23 years we went to the same bed and breakfast down in Cornwall near place called [place name]. you know, [place name]. I adored Mum and she sacrificed her life for me. She could have got married again. She was an incredibly beautiful woman, but she decided to take care of me. She was a family woman. 

 

Tim has had problems with high cholesterol and doesn't do any exercise.

And how has your physical health been over the years?

Well I have high cholesterol, that’s why I take a pill for that. The last time I took any exercise was 1965. So I’m not exactly physic…. I don’t go to the gym or anything like that. But I’m fine. I, I chain smoke and take my heart pill every night and depixol every week. I’ve got some residual pain from one of my many overdoses and attempts to commit suicide in the past, but that’s not important.

Tim decided to go to church 13 years ago, doesn't think of religion as therapy but as the truth and thinks that anybody with a chronic condition needs God's help.

And have you had any thoughts of the therapeutic role of religion at all?

 

I don’t think it’s therapy. I think it’s true. I don’t believe in religion as a therapy. I think it’s true. That’s why I became a Catholic. Also I think if you are mentally ill or have a chronic condition. Whatever you’ve got diabetes you need the service, you need God’s help and you need the help of his son and the Holy Spirit. So yes, I am. I don’t think it’s therapy. I think it’s true. That’s why I became… I could have gone on being a schizophrenic without going to church. I decided to go to church thirteen years ago. And now I became a Catholic eleven years ago. And no one… it’s a wonderful family for me. I’m [name] my friend to whom a toad started speaking in 1968, he said to me, “The Holy Family’s my family.” I like that.

 

And can you remember why you first went to church thirteen years ago?

 

Why I realised it was true. I never denied it, but I realised it was true. So I thought if you’ve got one of these conditions. I read the Gospels and I thought this is all true, no one could have made this up. Jesus is the Son of God, while he will come again. He will come again into this world. That’s why I became a Catholic.