Dolly - Interview 14

Age at interview: 36

Age at diagnosis: 21

Brief Outline: Dolly, a 36 year old writer and author, is of mixed ethnicity (White/Asian), and first experienced psychosis aged 14. She finds Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Buddhism and meditation very useful.

Background: Writer, single. Ethnic background/nationality: Mixed race (White/Asian) (UK born).

More about me...

Dolly is a 36 year old writer who describes her ethnic origin as mixed White and Asian. Dolly's books include' The World is Full of Laughter and Am I Still Laughing? (see www.dollysen.com). 

Dolly began hearing voices aged 14 and attempted suicide 3 weeks later. Social Services referred her to a child psychiatrist who recommended she withdrew from school - Dolly says she did nothing between the ages of 14 and 20 and her GP was of little help, telling her to pull her socks up. At the age of 21, Dolly got a new GP who referred her to the local mental health team. She was prescribed anti-psychotic and anti-depressant medication and attended 6 weeks of counselling. Around this time, Dolly started writing and this is what gave her a purpose in life and way of coping. Without her writing Dolly believes she would have committed suicide. 

Dolly has not been given a clear diagnosis' her psychiatrist says she has schizophrenia, while her GP says she has psychotic depression. She hears voices, sees shadowy characters, and experiences depression. Dolly believes that schizophrenia runs in her family and that this, coupled with an abusive upbringing, bullying at school, and a severe bout of glandular fever made her vulnerable to schizophrenia.

Dolly sees a psychiatrist and a CPN regularly and is now on a waiting list for psychotherapy after 22 years of waiting. Dolly has been hospitalised 4 times, and sectioned once' she describes hospital as harrowing. Dolly believes the system is racist. She has witnessed Black people being treated differently in hospital and says that hospital staff made incorrect assumptions about what language she speaks and what food she eats because of her ethnic background. Dolly thinks that it would close the gap between professionals and service users if mental health professionals had personal experience of mental health problems and came from a minority ethnic background.

Dolly thinks there is a lot of misunderstanding about schizophrenia and avoids using the term to describe herself, although she says she is open about having mental health problems and gives talks to police, schools etc. Dolly has experienced discrimination because of her mental health - for example, she was told at the job centre that she couldn't be a writer and was harassed by a neighbour. 

Dolly has tried 22 different types of medication and now takes an atypical antipsychotic - Quetiapine (Seroquel) - and an antidepressant - Citalopram. She thinks medication has helped but not cured her. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) has been the most useful thing, along with her writing, music, film making and art. Being a Buddhist helps Dolly to control her negative thinking. Meditation helps her to be more self-aware and she finds it physically and mentally calming. Although she cannot meditate when she is psychotic, it helps her to avoid reaching that point. Dolly also finds acupuncture and massage help her feel less stressed. She has been to support groups but found them depressing. Dolly says the love and support of her friends help her to stay well and out of hospital - they have been through the same thing and understand how she feels.

Dolly feels that although she has been through bad times, she has come out with strength, dignity and a passion about life and she is about to start a university course.

Dolly says doctors do not understand side effects, but is pleased her current doctor supports her...

And you mentioned that you tried before this medication that you have now, 22 others'

Yes

What was it that wasn't right? How come you got through so many do you think?

Well either they didn't work at all or they were extremely sedating, you know, I think, I can't remember which medication it was, but I would sleep like twenty hours a day. Well the doctor said to me, 'Well at least your symptoms have gone.' 'Yes,' I said, 'But I'm not alive really. I'm just sleeping twenty hours a day.' And he said, 'At least your symptoms are gone.' I said, 'You don't get it, don't get it that every person should have a life, you know.' Or it, it gave me kind of really bad physical side effects. So that's why I have gone through so many. And some of that have worked but only for like a year or two, and they have stopped working, so, that's how I've gone through so many. Also I have been, like, you know, been in the system quite a long time as well.

And this one that you're taking now, do you know the name?

It's quetiapine. It's an atypical antipsychotic. It also has the name Seroquel. I mean that has been the most helpful. I am also on an antidepressant called citalopram and I take other medication but that is for physical ailments. That has been the kind of right balance and that has kind of helped me I would say, this last year or so. 

So that controls the symptoms that you normally experience or?

It really helps with paranoia. I'm not as paranoid as I was. The voices are there, but they feel like they're in the other room, rather than right next to me. I mean it just feels like the distance between me and voices has been widened. So that's how the anti psychotic drugs have helped, in that way. The antidepressant, well I don't know if it, it works. I do suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, so during the summer I'm OK, but you know, in the winter I do get very low and I don't feel like the antidepressants are working then. So I think, you know, on the whole, it's a good balance.

And do you get, I mean do you get any side effects or anything from those? 

I sometimes get a dry mouth' that's it. I mean they are quite good for side effects as well, you know.

And you've got the dose right?

Well I've been kind of told by my doctor if I feel like I need a bit more, I can give myself a bit more. Not many doctors will say that to their patients [Laughing]. So I have, when I feel like I have gone slightly a bit more paranoid, I will increase it myself. Well just only, you know, not that much, just one more tablet. So for the most part, yes, I am on, you know, the right dose, but I do increase it slightly when needed.

Dolly describes her reasons for wanting to stop taking her medication and the importance of...

I mean, there are kind of a couple of times I have wanted to stop taking medication, because even though it helped with the kind of negative symptoms, you know, I was just going to bed at a silly time, like 8 pm and waking up like 8 or 9 and it just felt I didn't have the energy to do stuff I wanted. And also kind of, the kind of political aspects, you know, of how the pharmaceutical companies have some much power within the mental health system. And that I didn't want to be part of it and also knowing that a lot of the pharmaceutical companies test on animals which I'm not comfortable with. So for those reasons I have tried to stop taking it before, but it usually just ends up me becoming very ill very quickly. 

Hopefully in the future I would like to be off my medication but I realise what my mistake was before. It wasn't having a kind of strong supportive structure that was there if I did become unwell, and how I would kind of deal with stressful, stressful situations. But that's, I think something for the future, not right now. Because I'm kind of starting university as a mature student in September. You know, I don't want to get ill, so I'm going to stay with it, at least through my kind of university time, and maybe after that, kind of try and find a way of coming off it.

So just to make sure that I understand because earlier you were talking about medication not being like a cure as such.

Yes

And so when you are talking about may be in the future being able to come off your medication is that because you see yourself recovering or is that because you see yourself finding a way to manage without medication?

Yes, just to manage without medication, you know. I have come to the point I don't think I am every going to be rid of these symptoms, because I've just had them so long. So it's finding like other ways to manage the symptoms, that's, you know, what I'm kind of investigating and kind of slowly building up a supportive structure around me really. So, you know, when I do hopefully come off them, I've got something that will, you know, will keep me standing really.

Dolly says your life is precious and you have the right to live a fulfilling life - don't say you...

The message I would give is I know when you are at your worst it's a horrible thing and you don't know what to do' It's very to give a message to somebody because if they're in that horrible place, it's really hard to get them out. But, you know, your life is equally as precious as anybody else's, you know. You have the right to be listened to, and you have the right to, you know, to live your life in a fulfilling way. And that, you know, you can do it. Don't say to yourself I can't do it. Say to yourself I can do it. I mean if you say I can't do it, you're letting a sentence that isn't worth six or seven seconds rule, dictate your whole life. You know, rather say you can do it. You know, I am the proof and so many other people are the proof that you can change your life to be something that is precious and beautiful to you, you know. And you can't say I don't know what it's like to be in that horrible place, because, you know, I have my war wounds to prove it, but, you know, you can have an amazing life and you deserve it really.

She'd like health professionals training to involve people with mental health problems and...

And what about messages for health and other professionals?

'I think you need to hear, when you're studying your subject, you need to have equal time, listening to service users as well as just, you know, your teachers and your books. You, like your, your experience and your work, be'  truthful really, you know, you're relating to other human beings, you know, don't use your kind of use your, your professional role to step up a few steps away from your, your, your client. You know, look them on the level, they're your equal, you know, even if, you are taught otherwise, they are your equal' You know, speak to them as a human being, you know, as if you are speaking to someone you love, like you are speaking to your daughter or your son or your, your Mother. You know, it's to, you know, relate to them' you know, let, you know, let them understand that they are not alone.
 

Her white, male psychiatrist is supportive, but she says it's important that the rest of her...

And do you see a psychiatrist or…?

I see one every two months… Yes, he's quite good actually. He is I didn't like him at first because I thought he looked like a banker [Laughs]. But he proved to be really kind of good, you know, supportive. I mean he's really helpful, with, you know, me preparing to go to university. He's making sure I get all the support I need from the university. So, you know, he has been good. Yes. 

Are they white, your Mental Health Team?

My psychiatrist is white. My nurse, she's a Black woman… It's the Mental Health Team is reflective of the kind of ethnic, the ethnicity of the area I am in, which is really good actually. So there is a mix of white, Black and Asian professionals, you know.

Do you think it matters?

It does matter. Hugely it matters, you know.

In what way?

…It's just you just feel more at home really, if I mean, for example, when I was growing up, we lived on a kind of really hugely racist street. So… and that made me at times too scared to go to school, and, you know, and I'd be surrounded by teachers asking me why was I scared. They were all white, they had no, any kind of understanding of where we were coming from saying, you know, we were too scared to go to school, because there were certain people in the street who would swear at us, or spit at us. They just, they hadn't been through the experience. They would try to argue… You know, their argument that it's not so bad. You know, people aren't that bad and stuff like that, yes. It's just… I think every Black person in this country has experienced some racism unfortunately… 

It's a very huge, sort of tricky subject actually. But to me it just feels nice that there is a nice of, not only ethnic backgrounds, but ages and kind of sexualities and it, all, you know, all that really is helpful, you know. Because I mean, how could I relate my life to what, for example, a white middle class, professional male, when my, my, my experience has been the total opposite, you know. That he's in a very empowered position, not really understanding what it is to be disempowered. You know. So it, it just closes the gap between service user and professionals if there is, you know, you know, other kind of other ethnicities and kind of other ways of life, you know, in. So it just closes a gap and the gap needs closing you know?

Dolly finds CBT helps her avoid psychosis, but isn't so helpful when she's unwell.

I mean do use kind of stuff like CBT which is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to kind of stop it getting any bigger. Sometimes it helps. Actually most of the time it helps but there are some certain occasions where I'm always having a kind of rough time anyway, and I'm not sleeping, or I've just been physically ill, so CBT is hard to kind of use. Then it does happen, it happens less frequently but it still happens.

So when it does work, how does that help?

Well for example' the last time I used CBT effectively is that sometimes I think that people are clones, that they're not really the people they say they are. And my kind of CBT therapist said, 'Why do you think that is?' I say, 'Because the other people are acting strangely.' And so we kind of broke it down and what she found, what we found is that' I was already slightly becoming unwell, so people's response to me, their kind of attitude would shift, because they will say, you know, 'There's something amiss with Dolly.' So their, their attitude would change, but I was misinterpreting that change. I was thinking that that was proof that they were clones, because they were acting different. But she said, 'No. It could be that because you're acting slightly different way, they are acting slightly different.' So I mean that kind of really stopped that. That kind of psychotic episode from being bigger than it was. So' it was just breaking the things down, and just seeing, you know, psychosis isn't, isn't random it does follow a certain path and your thinking and your behaviour helps feed that, you know, directs that path, so to speak. 

What is that path then, can you explain?

Well we've all got a set way of thinking and, you know, for example this, this clone thing. I would always assume that the other person's kind of difference in attitude was there was like only one reason for that. So that was the usual path that I went down. So the CBT provided me kind of another path that, that was kind of more truthful and more showing what was, you know, really, happening. So, I think that's what, you know, CBT has kind of shown me your thinking can change the psychotic experience so that's what I mean really.

Dolly says she thinks the mental health system "stinks" and suggests that people with mental...

I think the system stinks actually [Laughs]. I have to say. I think it needs a lot of changing.

In what way. What kind of changes?

Well, most people who have gone through the system will tell you. What helps them. I mean, you know, I'm finally on the waiting list to have psychotherapy but this is after 22 years, since I first became unwell' I mean I've had to wait 22 years to get psychotherapy. And that's ridiculous. And, you know, I know from my kind of, my friends who are Black, they have to wait even longer, so the system is quite racist as well. So it's, I think the kind of policy has to change as well and it shouldn't be, the policy shouldn't be kind of dictated by the kind of doctors and managers, and policymakers, you know, service users should have input as well. In some hospitals they do, but, you know, it's still not enough. So I think, you know, where fundamental change can happen, it needs the service user kind of input, otherwise what's the point? You're just not listening to people who use the services, so.

Dolly says medication is not a cure.

I have been on 22 different medications. The one I'm on now does kind of keep me, you know, on the even keel and does help. But then, you know medication isn't the be all, you know, and end all of it, because if it could cure me, I would take my medication and then just have a normal life like everybody else, but it doesn't work like that. I still have my kind of residual symptoms and my, I am a totally changed person from who I was before, you know. 

Because of the medication?

No, I mean the medication is not the cure, is what I'm basically saying, because if it was a cure, I would be back to what I was before I was when I became ill.

Dolly says it's difficult to distinguish paranoia from reality because sometimes "paranoias are...

Like I said my Dad had schizophrenia and was very paranoid. But to me his paranoia was sometimes justified because the response of these, these neighbours. So if he thought somebody was going to throw a petrol bomb through his door, it wasn't really that far fetched to me, because we, you know, we were already getting spat at and stuff like that. So I mean it's' I didn't have to travel very far from being, being where I was to being paranoid. It was a very short journey. And partly, you know, partly justified. I mean, you know, all paranoias, sometimes paranoias actually are really happening to you. For example, two years ago, the same neighbour actually, reported me to the DSS saying that I was working. So I had DSS investigators watch me. So I was, I was telling my nurse that. 'There are people watching me in a car outside.' She said, 'That is just your paranoia.' But it was actually I was proven to be right and I had to be interviewed under caution, which was actually really scary. But I was totally cleared after the investigation of what this woman was accusing me of. 

So sometimes paranoia's, it actually can be, you know, happening to you. So that is why a lot of kind of white people, you know, when you say, oh if you're a, say a black man, and you go into an all white workplace, there is, there is something underlying happening, maybe only he senses. So you can't really dismiss it as paranoia, it might have some truth. I mean it is tricky, you know, what is, you know, what is paranoid and what is really happening, you know. It gives me a headache trying to work things out really, yes [Laughs].

Dolly was told she couldn't become a writer because of her mental health problems but has since...

'Well the kind of I have discrimination from really, unlikely quarters you would think. Because I remember when I was on Benefits, the Benefits Agency went me to a Disability, Disability work kind of project. And the woman there was just so totally patronizing, and I said to her, 'I want to be a writer.' She said, 'Don't be silly. You can't be a writer. You've got mental illness. You can work in Marks & Spencer's or do photocopying in an office and I just, I just walked out actually. Because I thought, you know, how dare you, just. And there are some people who equate having mental illness with being stupid, for some reason, you know, being a bit thick, you know. And that is so not the case'

 My writing I mean, has been the reason I've, you know, stayed alive so long, and it's also now, proving to be a, a, it is not just a means of survival or expression, it's now a career actually, which is really good. And the hardest book to write was my memoir about my life, but it also changed my perception of myself in that once I read, I wrote my story of my life between 0 and 30 and I hated myself, you know, as I wrote it. Because it was, you know, so horrible. But after re-reading it I had empathy for myself. You know, I could understand that, you know, I wasn't a bad person, but I am a person who can love and be loved, you know. So it, it does, it empowers you in that really kind of, you know, strange way, that you have empathy for yourself. You know, because it is easier to have empathy for others than it is for yourself, especially if you have got something like depression. So it's been a, it's been, it has been really amazing to be a writer. It has helped me so much, you know. I have met so many great people and nice people through it. I mean I get letters or emails once a week saying how their reading of my life has changed their life. You know, I get letters from prisons even, you know, saying that they're going to change their life once they have left, you know, and that reading my life has helped them to do that, because I have done it, you know. So no, I am, you know, very happy to, you know, embarrass that woman who works at that disability project and say that I have become a writer and I don't work at Marks & Spencer's. So, you know.

I mean that is the other thing, when I had a new doctor and I told him I've written books and I was an extra in 'Star Wars' when I was little. You know, they think that I have seen them like grand delusions of grandeur until I have proven them wrong [laughs]. So it's not expected, you know, that you have a full life if you have a mental illness. But you can. Yes. Yes.

Have you always been able to work or'?

No. I mean this has only been, really, a viable thing, I think in the last three or four years. Before that I just wasn't together enough to work, you know. I mean I have done a lot of voluntary work in the few years. I have done that full week's, a week of kind of really stressful work but I have been able to do it, you know. So it's, you know, I do hope after I have done university, I will be a working person. I hope so. Yes.

Dolly started to hear voices aged 14 and thought it would go away; she was referred to a child...

Okay. I guess my mental health difficulties started when I was 14. Before they, they kind of arrived on the scene, I was at the top of my class I ran for my school. I was quite, you know, the person voted most likely to succeed, but that kind of changed over night. And it was literally overnight.

 I was 14 years old and I was listening to the radio on the Sunday. There's a chart show that comes on every Sunday and... I was just listening to the music, you know, ready to record the songs I liked and then suddenly I heard a different voice come out the radio. It wasn't the radio it was kind of a deep demonic voice and it was just saying, 'Dolly, Dolly, I know you Dolly. I, what do you want Dolly?' And oh it just totally freaked me out. I switched off my radio, but the voice was still there. So I didn't know what to do. I thought it would go away, but like a few days later it came back. And so... I didn't know who to go to, because it didn't have a good relationship with my Mum or my Dad. And I was also being bullied at school, so I was already in a vulnerable state.

So... when I went to school a couple of weeks after I first heard the voices, the voices started to speak to me while I was at school. And I became quite unmanageable at school, in that I started to truant school because of what was happening. Not only that, but I was starting also to become paranoid. I was beginning to think people could read my thoughts. And there were kind of messages on TV that were just directly speaking to me, and they were saying stuff like people wanted to kill you. So not knowing what to do and being just so totally frightened I attempted suicide, like three weeks after I had my kind of first psychotic thing on that Sunday, whilst I was listening to the radio. 

... It just made me sick. The overdose just made me sick, but after that, that incident I refused to go back to school. Social Services became involved, and they sent, they referred me to see a child psychiatrist. I am not sure what diagnosis was then, and what she thought was wrong with me, but she did say I shouldn't go back to school. So I didn't. I stopped going to school. But unfortunately nothing was done to help me really, I just thought maybe, you know, trying to put me into a special school would help. But when they tested me academically they found out I was far too advanced to go to special school. So like literally my kind of school career ended when I was 14.

I mean it was just totally frightening alien experience. So, you know. I think maybe if it had come to me in a different way. Maybe if it was just some neutral voices talking about what was happening, but these just sounded so demonic. I couldn't relate to it in any kind of human way, or, you know, it just did seem such a frightening and totally alien experience, you know, that was happening to me. It wasn't just reoccurring, you know, naturally. I mean it took a while for me to understand that these voices weren't real. I mean it was, it was part psychosis. It took me about a year or two after that first experience to realise that it could be a mental illness, you know. It took a while. It took a while. Yes.

Dolly knows she is becoming unwell when she starts to see shadows shaped like humans; she also...

I think the worst part is the kind of paranoia and hearing kind of negative voices. I also hear positive voices and neutral voices. Positive voices I mean as I am a writer, I do hear poetry at times and music. So those are my kind of symptoms that I have.

Can you tell me a bit more about what kind of things the voices say? 

When they are negative, they are very kind of abusive. Like they are saying, 'Oh your family don't love you. They want to kill you in fact.' 'You know you're evil, you're ugly, you know, you know, you're better off dead.' You know, 'Who cares about you?' This kind of, you know, making you feel very, very bad, you know. And the neutral ones, well the neutral just say, oh' 'You have forgotten to do this.' Or, 'The sun is really bright.' I mean it, when that happens it seems to me it is like my own kind of thinking. But it sounds like it's outside of my head. And the positive ones like I say, it can be poetry or music, or music, you know. So that's, yes the positive ones will say like, you know, 'You can anything, Dolly, do it.' You know. So that's cool. That is a nice balance to have like. But I'd prefer to be without the negative ones.

And can you describe a bit more about the things that you see?

Well that's when I am know I am beginning to come unwell. I can start to see shadows. They're not very tall, they are about three foot high and they are kind of grey, black. They have got the shape of a human being, but it's, it's totally colourless. It is just it seems like a shadow. And sometimes a shadow's like, if they are that small, they, they will start to rise and grow. And it's very hard, for example, if I am seeing that to go to sleep, because you feel like you are being watched. So when that happens it affects my sleep, which is, you know, you need your sleep. So that kind of thing just makes things worse. But when I have been very ill, I do see, what seems to be a really dark shadow, but with kind of piercing eyes as well. So that's, that's what I see.

And how does it feel to hear and see things?

I've had them such a long time, I'm used to most of them. There is still the really frightening stuff, I will never, ever be used to. It just, it's just so, so frightening, and you just want it to stop, you know. I don't know' I think I am, I am a survivor, but having said that I still prefer to go without these awful experiences. 

Dolly's friends with experience of mental health problems help her to challenge feelings of...

Well I have to say it is the support of a couple of, you know, really good friends, who have also been through the system. So they understand what you are going through actually. You know, your brothers and sisters love, I know they love me, but they, you know, to say, 'Oh try and drop your paranoia, Dolly,' you know, is impossible, you know. If you have friends who have also been through the same experience, they know what you mean, and they can kind of challenge you, that you know, and you know that because they've been there, that they are not talking without knowing what they are talking about really. So, so I've when I've been quite psychotic I have had to have some friends be with me, just kind of saying, 'I really love you. Do you trust me, do you trust me Dolly?' And then, 'If you trust me, what I am saying is that this is not really happening. It is you just being unwell.' And that's how it's kind of, you know, that's why I haven't been in hospital that often, is because I have had really good support from a few friends.

So does that mean that it doesn't escalate or it means that you, do you see what I mean?

Yes. No, because they can see that what is happening, and they know what could happen. They know, they kind of understand how to put the kind of road blocks before the kind of psychosis, you know. And, you know, just being hugged for like an hour's really powerful, you know, by your friend. And you feel that love and it's hard to be paranoid with them, you know. So it makes you question your paranoia, you know. You know, maybe I'm mistaken in what I'm thinking, you know.

Writing gave her a "reason to wake up in the morning"; she says art gives you your voice back.

So that, kind, that the only thing that changed between I would say 21 and age 30 was that' 21 being the time I first saw this Mental Health Team, was that' I kind of fell into writing, like, I'm a writer at the moment, and that gave me a reason to wake up in the morning, and, you know, gave a purpose in my life. So that's why I think if I hadn't have had that I think I would have killed myself. So it became a very important thing to me. I didn't expect to be published or anything like that, it was just the way I kind of coped with the world. 

 But when I hit 30, I think, you know, people re-assess their lives when they hit, you know, the 3 0 or, you know, age 40 and at age 30 I thought I have to change my life, you know. I can't continue, you know, this living day-to-day, because this is just what the psychiatrist was saying, you know, take one day at a time, you know. Taking one day at a time is not really living a life.

So at age 30 I made a lot of huge changes. I'm a Buddhist and that, that, you know, meditation and the kind of challenging negative thinking really helped. And I kind of forced myself to be, to go out more and to do more social gatherings. And just slowly develop my confidence. So I would say since the age of 30 and 36 which is what I am now, my life has been so much better, due to that kind of self-confidence and having, you know, having just the kind of, you know, confidence, helps open so many, so many doors. And just having that belief in yourself and also, you know, having a sense of humour about your situation, it's really hugely beneficial'

Well kind of art gives you your voice back really. You're very' very voiceless. You know, you're demonised in society and you're kind of are looked down upon within the system. And kind of art gives you, you know, the power to be yourself again really. In a really hugely powerful way, you know, you can recreate, you know, who you are basically. You know, you're not just a patient you can also be an artist. You can also be a writer and you can, you know, recreate and create such, you know, things like people that other people can connect to as well, so you're, you're also, it helps you to communicate with other people. I mean, you know, you could read in the paper, say what the symptoms of say, schizophrenia are, but if you like read it as somebody's story, you know, where they can kind of feel empathy for you, that's much more powerful. So that is why art has been, you know, really helpful for me. It's given me a voice. It has helped to communicate. It has also helped me to be something other than just a patient really.

Dolly felt vulnerable on a mixed ward when the male patients made sexually explicit comments.

Well my times in hospital have been very kind of, like I said, traumatic, you know. I remember the, one of the first times I was on a mixed ward, and there were kind of guys that would just pester you, you know, they wanted, you know, you to go out with the them, or they even asked me really abusive stuff, like, 'Can you give me blow job?' and stuff like that, and the nurses did nothing to kind of stop it. Even if you told them this was happening, they'd say, you know, they would just shrug their shoulders. So' I mean, it's just, I think there is a kind of, my Mental Health Team is really good, but once you go into hospital it's kind of different ball game, and I don't think the staff are that motivated or they're badly paid as well, so they don't really care about the people, you know, the people, they have to look after. 

And you have to understand these people are the most vulnerable people, at their most vulnerable. And But, I mean I did say to one nurse. 'I used to work in a supermarket and if I had spoken to a customer the way you've spoken to me, I would have lost my job. But you won't lose your job, you know, you won't lose your job even though you're, you're dealing with really vulnerable people.'

Dolly says she saw staff use more force and more medication for Black patients; she also says...

You mentioned the system being racist. Have you seen examples of that?

I have seen plenty of examples of that. I mean when I've been in hospital, and say somebody has been acting up. I have noticed that if a white person acts up, that nurses will just talk to them. But if it's a Black person, they would have physical force used on them. And you, and yet, like there was one time I remember, but that, the person who was causing the most trouble was the white person. So there's a kind of inherent racism that is, is there. And I've noticed that, that they get the stronger medication. It's just, you know, if you tell people they don't believe you, but if you have gone through the system it is just so obvious, that, you know, Black people have a terrible time if they are in hospital, you know. I mean that's one thing I hope to change by highlighting it in the way I speak to people and in my writing. I mean' you know, how many black people have come out of the hospital in a coffin, you know? There's your answer really.

How about you? Have you experienced racism do you think at the hands of the system?

Kind of, not in a vicious, vicious way, people are making assumptions that because I am partly Asian that they will just automatically assume I eat curry and speak Urdu or Hindi and I can't even, I can only speak English. I can some sign language, but I can only. They kind of assume that, you know, they are helping, but you know you should ask first. You know, don't speak to me in Urdu and assume I understand you know [laughs]. It's very silly really it is.

Dolly was admitted as a voluntary patient but was threatened with a section when she tried to leave.

I have been sectioned once. And three other times I have been voluntary. But it's a weird kind of voluntary. Because they say, 'You're in voluntary, but if you try to leave you're sectioned.' So and I have tested that theory, and said, 'I am leaving now.' 'Oh well we are just going to section you then.' So it's a weird, weird kind of thing, they say voluntary but you know, really no.

And what was it like when you were sectioned, what happened?

Well I think the first time I was hospitalised, I don't really remember too much about it. I just remember going to see my community nurse, and then I just remember being driven to the hospital. It just seems quite vague. Whether I have just blocked it out or whether I just don't remember I don't know, but it was scary I mean, because that was the first time I was in hospital, you know. And I wanted to go home, you know.
 

Dolly doesn't go to support groups anymore because she found them too depressing.

Do you get any support from support groups and things like that?

No. I used to, but no… I think that's, you know, I think I've just moved on really from, from kind of just being more self sufficient really and just having the support of family and friends. I think that's enough at the moment.

Was that something that you used to find helpful then?

No, no, no. I mean I didn't, you know, for example the nurse would say to me, “What don't you go to Depression Alliance,” I think they're called, I'm not sure. And I said, “No, no. I don't want to go.” And my friend, “Oh I want got to go.” And it was actually very depressing [Laughs]. I, you know, you wanted your depression to be lifted, not kind of, you know, compounded really. So I'm not going to use them again [Laughing]. So…

What was it that was depressing about it?

Just people just saying, “Oh my life is so sad,” and, “It will never get better.” And, well I understand that because that's what I was going through, but I want something to help me, not, not just kind of, you know, add to the depression [Laughing].