Telling Admissions 1

This new thread, to which we intend to post in alternate months throughout 2013, is devoted to first-hand accounts of what it was like to have been admitted to a psychiatric hospital (‘sectioned’) under the UK Mental Health Act in the twenty years between 1975 and 1995. Many such accounts have been written, some by people in the public eye, others not. Their willingness to have details of their contact with mental health services in the public domain forms a powerful counter-weight to the secrecy, shame and stigma with which issues of mental ill-health are usually treated. This thread will highlight in turn a poet, a pop singer, an occupational therapist, a political advisor, a psychiatrist and an actor, all of whom have ‘gone public’ with their stories. It has been inspired by the remarks published on this blog in 2011 of someone who regarded her admission to Bethlem as “harder” and “a greater achievement…than getting into university”.

The first story, which we reproduce here without further comment, is that of the poet James Bellamy, who in the mid-1990s “was…sectioned at the age of 21 after nearly two years without treatment” for psychotic symptoms.

“When the psychiatrist and social worker arrived to take me away I was terrified and refused to co-operate. The fear that this day would come had haunted me for months, so I ran out of the house and managed to evade them. Two days later, they returned with two policemen and I remember being put in handcuffs, shut in a meat wagon and taken to the Maudsley Hospital. As I was carried away I was screaming, ‘What’s going to happen to me?’ and ‘What about my poetry?’ One of the reasons I shied away from treatment for so long is because I was scared I’d be shut away forever. Far from being locked away for good, I was told early on I would only be in hospital for a matter of weeks. This helped reassure me and start to trust the Maudsley, which I still do to this day.”¹

¹ Hannah Cordle et al, Psychosis: Stories of recovery and hope (Quay Books: London, 2011), p. 106.

See Miss X’s “Art in the Dark” as part of Museums at Night this Friday, 5 – 7pm

As part of this years Museums at Night – when hundreds of museums around the country open their doors after hours – Bethlem Archives and Museum will be open until 7pm for a chance to see Miss X’s “Art in the Dark”. The exhibition of intricate red biro drawings is viewed by torchlight, turning the viewer into a voyeur: the torch illuminating the most private and intimate areas of the pictures.

The set of drawings, previously exhibited in 2000, was completed following a six month psychotic episode. “When I came round”, Miss X says, “my delusions offered a clue as to why I was suicidal and why I wanted to sleep all the time and why I felt so guilty. I wanted to draw out the problems before I forgot them. I used biro because it was cheap. I wasn’t drawing so that the pictures would one day be treasured, I just wanted to cure the here and now.”

The densely crowded images thus have a direct and visceral quality, incorporating a complex array of symbols: religious, medical or sexual. Arrows direct the flow, but are also penetrative. Question marks question the artist’s sense of selfhood, while the persistent “z” symbol represents the fatigue caused by prescribed medication and lack of motivation. Seeing and being seen are regular themes, and the voyeuristic nature of viewing the work by torchlight reminds us of the uncomfortable nature these ideas often hold within and beyond psychiatric practice.

As Miss X concludes: “In my psychotic period I had “owned” the world banks and I’d discovered Earth and fire. I was 30 different people. When I came round I wanted to be a nobody, so I chose X as a name.”

The Museum will be open from 5 – 7pm for this special event on Friday 18 May. Items from the general collection will also be on display, and staff will be on hand to give regular short talks on the history of the hospital and its art collection. The Bethlem Gallery will also open until 7pm, for a chance to see Steph Bates’ “Thursday’s Child Has Far To Go”.