Report transcript in: Oral Histories of Mental Health in South West Yorkshire

Please Report the Errrors?

Well,

it's great to come full circle because I'm back here at the Mental Health Museum,

which is in Field Head Hospital

and where I have actually been a patient.

And to come here

and do something positive and the sun shining, it just feels really good

and that, you know,

the corridor does still look clinical inside.

But then the Mental Health Museum and this kind of

sanctuary in the middle is full of greenery and space,

and so that feels really positive.

Actually, when you're going down and becoming a bit more

a bit more lazy and lethargic, then,

it's It's those times that I need to step in with my own interventions.

And those interventions are really quite simple. It's nothing to do with

possessions or buying things or anything like that. It's to do with

one of the things is walking, hiking, and I can

do some great hikes over

lockdown. And what have you. I've been

regularly doing 20 and 30 miles in a

day through the mountains and feeling fantastic.

Mental health can be good.

It can be positive, Um, but also, when you go through tricky times,

it can also not be so good.

So, um you know, I mean, when I was a teenager, I had quite a lot of anxiety.

Um,

just with I think hormones and pressures of things and things that now

seem quite insignificant but at the time seemed a really big thing.

Um, but I My dad was very influential on on helping me through that.

And, um,

just being able to get a positive outlook on

life and being able to put things into perspective

and a big thing that I would say about mental

health is concentrate on the things that you personally can't control

and the things that you can't control.

Don't worry too much about it, because in the end it tends to work out.

OK, so I think recovery is an ongoing healing journey.

Um,

but it is optimistic. It's not.

I never say I'll be recovered. I just say

that I'm now hopeful for the future and that everyone has hope.

I enjoyed my

job and it's good

my granddaughter works up

at field

now.

I, um, for a time worked at Store

Hall Hospital. Well was based at

hospital working for

Health. Huddersfield Health Authority.

It was 19th, the summer of the lovely summer of 1988

when I was there, um,

and I was employed as a gardener in terms of, um, my job

there. We would have a rota of these places to go to and do

some gardening work for so we we'd go out to different

satellite, um,

sites across

patch,

um,

to do some some gardening. So that would usually take

a day or a half day

of of that. Um, but we did do some work on site, As I said, Um,

so I remember, uh, mowing the bowling green,

Um,

mowing,

um, football pitches and cricket pitches.

Um, all sorts. Really

enough stuff,

you mean?

No, enough staff there, enough stuff.

And then you can get out

the products you wanted

whatever.

Where did you work?

I worked

Hospital

Hospital.

There were no women there at first. But then they said to

ST Mary up, and then I went after

one

woman.

There were

all men,

the male staff. We started doing that

About 90.

I can't remember

anyway.

And then, uh,

I work at

and that were all men and Children.

And there were no staff.

What was that, like

one of them

were a

bit

frightening.

You know, I was

on Beach

Beach. I I

didn't like working on that on

own,

was still waiting

for them coming

down

on the

beach

view.

He set it off. I mean, you

probably believe this, but

and all of a sudden you were down

and put steps when you got up

there,

they were down

there.

Yeah. I've just seen in the museum that the

there was an artisan yard in the old, um, Stanley Royd.

And apparently it goes back

to the 18 hundreds. At least that there was an artist and yard, which is

in the display. It says that

there was That's where the workshops were

for the woodwork. Um, mechanics,

um,

boot makers,

um,

within the hospital. And they're always down one yard.

Well, the hospital I worked in,

um, which was designed in the 1935 and opened in 37

had exactly the same.

And then

what had been the boot maker shop?

Which is where my bench was, because when I went there in 74 the boot maker had moved.

He was no longer there,

but we still had his equipment

in the

in my workshop. So you had, um

if you ever went to Timpson.

So you have that big row of, uh, machines that grind and polish.

That machine was still in the workshop, um,

as well as things for cutting out heels and the soles and all that heavy duty work.

Those bits of machinery was still about,

um,

So my bench

was, um, had been part of the that shop.

Um,

and then

there had been the upholster,

but he had then moved to a bigger workshop. Um and so he was working there until,

um,

the mid

eighties

and they would repair and recover all the hospital

soft furnishings.

So do all that kind of stuff. Did that include padded cells?

We never had a padded cell.

That's one of the things that Runwell kind of prided itself on

was that it had never had a padded cell

do things. There's there's a hands on

the displays.

There's a bad hotel.

I mean, I went into that

hotel

and even though the door wasn't shut,

I to come straight back out because I well,

I really got claustrophobic, and I thought How can anybody be put in there

for the length of time and not feel

claustrophobic?

I mean, some of the instruments that's on display are around about.

I'm thinking, I'm glad I went to

when? When they have to be used like water boots and

and stuff like that. The straight jackets,

you know, you look

at,

but yeah, it's been it I like I like

it's been

It's been

a It's been an inspiring

journey and one that I'm glad

I've made and I have had the opportunity

to make. And I would advise anybody

to come and just have a look at the mental Health Museum.

What was it like

doing

this? Collision

beams?

Um,

doing the seclusion rooms?

Um, well, I mean, the doors are like we we to For the start,

you have to have lifters for the doors and a couple of

people to lift them out with you and wheel them out.

And, um,

these used to break these used to break on

on the weak points where the bolts went into the

into the door frames and everything.

Um,

but apart from that, that's about what we did like, you know,

um, and and and And most of this in general, like every every door's got a lock on it.

So we used to look after all the locks, suites.

They had lots of different lock suites,

which you have to get the head your head round because you've got Yeah.

I mean, from one door,

you'll have a you'll have a master key that will open every door in a ward.

But each door is individual, so they have a what you call a servant key.

So the the, um, the

the user can just have their own key to get into that door.

But it's then you've got a subs suite on top of that.

So you you might partition that that unit off into, like,

three different subs suites.

But a master key will override everything you know.

So you can have a patient with a key to open his own bedroom door.

And in that area it'll have a substrate that

that the member is tapped to override that key.

But

in all the system, if you have a master, a master suite,

then you a master key that will override all the subs, suites and the servant suites

so that one key would fit everything in that in that unit, you know,

So you've got to have all this in mind when you when you be pressing locks.

So we have to have stocks of different types of locks,

different barrels, different sweet sweets, different subs, suites

because they all came with a servant key.

But you have a sub master key on top of that and a master key that

that

So it's quite complicated really, to get your head around.

But once you've got it, you know, it's it's there for life.

We sometimes would have, um, lunch on the site

in the in the

cafeteria come restaurant.

And we would we would meet,

um,

service users there.

Uh,

it wasn't a bustling place like I imagined it

would have been when it was fully occupied.

Um, because it had thousands of

people,

which it would explain why it had lots of sports facilities. It had something like

four football pitches, two tennis courts,

um, at least one cricket pitch, a bowling green.

It had loads of different,

um, sports facilities,

um, and and walks and stuff you could do around the grounds,

But then it's also good, like looking in the museum,

reflecting back on the asylum systems locally because

once you're kind of into mental health, you really get into it, um,

as a kind of patient,

even though I don't like that word and someone who now works in it,

Um, and seeing how the treatment has changed over the years,

but also the similarities that we still face today.

Like there's some beautiful stitching from people at the asylum in the museum.

Um,

and I've spoken to people who were saying how much better it was

in the asylum than it was out in society at the time.

Um, so I think

again, we might be shocked at, like the padded cell inside.

But at the same time,

I'm still on loads of medication and there's a certain part of that, but

I feel like a bit like a padded cell today.

You know, if I think of my my mental health as being like a spiral,

there are times when I can do things

that help that spiral go up and up and up, and so I'm getting happier and

but equally there are things that I can do that the spiral will

go the opposite way around and go down and down and down.

I first started noticing I had problems with mental health when I

was really quite young when I was about 10 or 11.

I was certainly suicidal by the age of 12.

Um,

but I didn't start telling anybody about my problems until my late thirties,

when they they really felt

for me, is I I buried things for a very, very long time.

Um,

and there was a lot of stigma

about mental health issues, and I was sort of working,

you know, professional job. And,

you know, like, normal life. Um,

but everything just disintegrate the relationship break up, and I stuff that

professional help at that point.

But

when I told people I at work and things

are still working that was suffering from depression,

nobody believed me

cos you get so good at covering it up.

So I've really started coming into services in my late thirties.

I'm now in my mid fifties.

I suffer from a mental health care from

a 10 to 11 year old,

and I didn't feel that I have any support until, uh, are we 18 going into a hospital,

and they

asked that

a off with, uh, mental health help. But I didn't get any support

or any help due to, uh

through me being deaf. And it would be nice if if they did have any

deaf community with people with deaf people have mental health problems as well.

I feel that I didn't have any

help of anything

after the park

and there were no sign sign language there available.

I was struggling to hear what they were saying,

and I just felt a bit

intimidated.

I ended up

going and see a private psychiatrist in,

and they put me on, uh,

Stelazine. Or it was a tablet something.

And my mom, my mom gave me a packet of cigarettes and said, Do you wanna have a fag?

I said, Yeah, I take this tablet. So I took the tablet

and then

took them for about three or four days and then,

came off the tablets,

started getting poorly again

and decided in my wisdom to attack my mother.

So I went upstairs and

got a knife and tried to attack her.

I couldn't get into the door cause she locked up inside the door.

So I went back downstairs,

managed to get a hammer

and said, Right, I'll take out on the car. So I smashed the car a bit.

So the next thing I remember was being on the ward sectioned,

and that's where it all sort of. And then I started again. And then I started again

and very confusing time where it's I blacked out a lot,

but I I remember coming round on the wall, basically feeling better on the wall.

You know what I mean?

Um,

I've had two or three episodes since,

um,

I about paranoia.

A bout of anxiety.

Um,

but this has all been going on for 20 odd years.

I've been in the system 20 odd years now, so it's been going on quite a long time,

and I've been with

mental health services for 20 odd years. You know, I've

been working in the mental health thing for about 20 odd years.

Um,

but luckily, touch wood. I'm quite stable. Um, I'm doing OK, so

and my partner is very helpful. She helps

out

lot

well.

Have the mental health services been of benefit or detriment in your experience.

I believe that there's been,

um,

a mixture of benefits and detriments within our mental health

professional services that have helped me through my experience.

Um,

I do feel that

those that had more experience in

the settings that they were working in and

probably lived experience as well were able to,

um, people bringing artists on

different elements of who I am in order to come to the best diagnosis and therefore

able to aid me with the best, um, support.

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Posted By

Author

SarahH

Post date

25/05/2023