Why I Was Put Under the Mental Health Act

In today's post I want to talk about the circumstances surrounding when I was put under the Mental Health Act in early 2014. I have covered this period in a previous post "What Happened in 2013" but there are some details I left out. In today's post I want to try to say a little more about what happened in 2013 and 2014. This is a less well written post than some others and is possibly only of interest to the people interested in my case, but I wish to get it on the record.

I was a patient of the Mental Health Service from 2007 until early 2012, was discharged from the Service for a year and then re-entered it voluntarily just before Easter 2013. The reason I re-admitted myself was because I wanted to get it onto the record why I had become ill in the first place; I also wanted it finally on the record that I was straight. I had become 'ill' again about a month or two before. It may seem strange that I felt but driven to do this at the time, felt forced to, but I felt then and have felt since that something occurred at the beginning of the year which necessitated me getting the truth on the record. It may seem absurd that I could have been a patient of the Mental Health Service since 2007 and for the psychiatrists not to know that I was heterosexual but incredibly I believe this the case. Evidently many psychiatrists believe that all psychotics are sexually confused. I had said that I was straight in 2007 at my first engagement with the service but I believe it was thought that this was a delusion and the issue of my sexuality came directly only once, in early 2010, when I told my psychiatrist Tony Fernando that I had fallen in love. Fernando asked me, "A boy or a girl?" I said, "A girl." The girl was of course the one I call Jess.

From 2007 until early 2012 my psychiatrist was one Tony Fernando, a chap with a high profile in the media at the time; I knew at a glance, from my first appointment with him, that he was gay – although he never came out to me. When I first became 'ill' in 2007, I believed the world was ruled by a conspiracy of closet homosexuals, so having a psychiatrist who was one only exacerbated my condition. I was very ill indeed in 2007 and all of 2009. I knew also that I had been misdiagnosed from the first appointment with Tony, I intuited it, but simply never knew how to tell him he was wrong.

In 2013 when I re-entered the Service, I asked to see any psychiatrist other than Tony. I saw a locum called Dharma, an appointment that I have described in the post "Faith No More vs. Bruce Springsteen". When I saw him I said that I was straight and told him of the three women I had loved in my life. After two appointments with Dharma I saw Tony once (not at my request) and then began to see a psychiatrist called Jen Murphy. I was still trying to get it on the record unequivocally that I was straight and just before my first appointment with her I heard a voice saying, "Don't talk about love, talk about sex". So at that appointment I told her truthfully that the first time I had sex was New Years Eve 1997 and that the last time was a one night stand in Wellington in 2011. In fact, I've had two long term relationships in my life. From the age of 17 until the age of 21 I was in a relationship with a girl called Danielle Lander. From around the age of 23 until I was 28 I was sort of in a relationship with a girl called Maya Gilmour. I didn't completely break with Maya until 2008 – a year after I had become a patient of the Mental Health Service. Evidently neither relationship was in my record. (I should say that although the girl I call Jess is very dear to me, we were never in a relationship.)

When I told Jen this, I think she thought I was lying. It contradicted the diagnosis Tony had made of me, what was in my record, what she had been told about me. I think moreover that it was because she thought I was lying that she decided to diagnose me schizophrenic – up until then I had been diagnosed 'psychosis not otherwise specified'.  I remember at one appointment her asking me sarcastically if I had a problem with 'phonies' – I thought of the The Catcher in the Rye and told her 'yes'. I knew at the time though that she was referring to me. I think in the intervening years they have been forced to realise that I wasn't lying and have confabulated other reasons for diagnosing me schizophrenic, I don't know what.

When it became apparent to me that, even though I had said I was straight, the shrinks didn't believe it, I decided that Tony must have lied about me. In fact, I thought this lie might have been made public. I tried to deal with this in the only way I could think of, by sending something like a short article to the journalist Steve Braunias effectively accusing Tony of being a homosexual sociopath who serially misdiagnoses his patients.

After this, having told Jen of the letter, I was coerced, under threat of being put under the Mental Health Act, into increasing my dosage of Olanzapine from 5mgs to 12.5 daily. I had never been on such a high dosage before. At this time, I was working as a Reader-Writer for AUT and, after my dosage was increased, I lost this job. I felt that I was the victim of a cover-up to protect Tony Fernando from charges of gross incompetence and the stress this caused me was the reason I lost this job. I no longer believed in the efficacy of medication and, although my mother in good faith ensured I took my dosage every night, I began to start vommiting it up. At an appointment with Jen I told her I was doing this; my mother said she couldn't be "a nurse and a mother at the same time" and Jen permitted me to go off the medication. I went from 12.5 to nothing – I would guess around November of 2013.

I admit I was ill in 2013. The psychosis started around January or February of that year, as I have recorded in earlier posts. As I have also said in earlier posts, my psychosis of that year entirely revolved around my concern for my friend Jess. After I was allowed to go completely off the drugs, as I said I think around November, I was almost well for several months. On January 17 2014, I attended the Big Day Out with my brother, sister-in-law, niece and some friends of hers. This was the last time for a number of years that I was happy – as I would say to my brother some time later, I liked seeing attractive young women in all directions. (At the time he replied, bizarrely and defensively, "Well, we all feel that way".) My mother was visiting Wanganui and so I slept that night at my brother's house. When I woke the next morning, lying in bed, I felt an incredibly unpleasant sensation – I felt as though there was a patina of gayness completely covering my skin. I got up and had a strange conversation with my brother in the kitchen – he had emerged from his bedroom wearing only boxers. I feel that he hadn't really enjoyed the festival the previous day, that it was a scene he didn't really understand. Later that day I travelled by bus to Wanganui, and felt some re-emergence of psychotic symptoms. I had written a story called "Misery" which I have not included in this blog but which I showed my god-mother. In the next week or two, my 'illness'' returned – I think the reason for this was that I sensed what was going to happen, that there was no escape, that whether I liked it or not I was going to be dragged back into the system. I had moments of discomfort around my mother and would go for walks into town to get away. Somehow I ended up back at the Taylor Centre, taken there by my mother – I can't remember precisely what immediately preceded this. I was dragooned into signing something, I don't know what, by Jen and about nine other people – it was either sign this form or run away, and the latter wasn't an option. This 'intervention' happened when my Key Worker was away on holiday. I was taken to a truly horrible respite facility at which I was forced to take Olanzapine, Lorazapam and Zopiclone. During this period women who I'd never seen before and would never see again would show up during the day to observe me and take note of my condition. I thought I was in hell – I only stayed at the respite facility for two nights. After this, after I had come home, for a period nurses would show up every night to force me to take my drugs and a week or two later I had a cursory judicial hearing and was officially put under the Mental Health Act.

I had committed no crime other sending a potentially libellous letter about Tony Fernando to a journalist and not wanting to take my medication, something permitted by my psychiatrist.

The unpleasant sensation I experienced the morning after the Big Day Out would continue to last for some time. Every morning, for years, I would awake with almost unbearable thoughts of homosexuality in my head, a 'symptom' that didn't stop entirely until the beginning of last year. These unpleasant hypnopompic thoughts and images began at my brother's house. I suspect, and this is the first time I've felt able to say this, that it is my brother who is ultimately responsible for the misdiagnosis I have lived with for the last ten years. My brother is fucked in the head.

I should say something more general about what it means to be a patient of the Mental Health Service. A patient has two main contacts with the service – his psychiatrist and his Key Worker. The Key Worker can be an Occupational Therapist, a nurse or a social worker. From 2007 until 2012 my Key Worker was an OT called Kate Whelan, a nice enough woman in some ways but I think with some serious psychological issues related to sexuality, a tendency to view all her patients as sexually muddled. When I re-entered the service in Easter 2013, I was given a new Key Worker, a social worker called Josh Brazil. My relationship with Josh began a little roughly but improved after some months. Josh, as I said, was away on holiday when I was put under the Act. I remember when I was seeing my insane psychologist Simon Judkins in 2014 Judkins saying to me, "Whether a person is gay or not is between him and God!" – I reported this exchange to Josh and Josh said, "Simon said that – to you, did he?". In mid 2015, I think, Josh left the Taylor Centre to go work at another DHB. My new key worker was a nurse called Terry. Once again my relationship with her began somewhat badly and improved when she got to know me. Terry performed the best service by me that any Key Worker I've had has ever performed. At an Independent Review in 2015 that I'd requested she told the Tribunal, "He hates people thinking he's gay because he's not." In 2016 Terry retired. It feels like since 2013 my Key Workers keep finding reasons to disappear. Since then I've had a new Key Worker, one like all the others I see infrequently, another social worker, this one called Daniel Moodley. Once again, the relationship started off tensely and has improved. At my last appointment with Jen he had to leave the room, as though he didn't want to be involved, didn't want to know what was said because that would make him complicit or culpable. My own feeling is that the ground level staff in the Mental Health System today are generally good, well-meaning people and that it is the psychiatrists (and psychologists) who are corrupt, who are more interested in protecting each other than treating their patients.

I'll make note of something else, something that may seem trivial but seems important. At the various reviews I've had, a supposed indication of my illness and my need to take medication is the fact that I would go for walks at night. Supposedly this was a sign that I was sick. Even though I am receiving monthly injections of Olanzapine, I still, even today, go for walks, sometimes at night. I live in Eden Terrace – often I'll walk along K Road, down Ponsonby Road and then back up Queen Street. I have been walking around town, sometimes at night, all my life. Jen Murphy has argued that these walks expose me to danger – but in all my years going for walks I have never been involved in a fight or even ever witnessed one. I have never been in danger. I know many of the homeless well enough to exchange greetings with them even though I don't know them by name. I fail to understand why walking is considered evidence of schizophrenia. Perhaps Jen wants to insinuate I am cruising for male prostitutes. I have never encountered a male prostitute once and of course wouldn't do anything even if I met one.

I'll conclude the post by saying something more general, something about the double bind all mental patients are in. When a diagnosis of schizophrenia is made, the patient must take drugs for the rest of his life; if he dares suggest that antipsychotics don't actually do anything he is considered to be showing lack of 'insight' and this is considered evidence that he should be forced to take them. It's a Catch-22. The fucked up thing is that antipsychotic medication doesn't work. The whole of psychiatry is based on a lie; this is the reason the psychiatric profession attracts stupid and dishonest people. My psychiatrist Jen Murphy, for instance, is an utter bigot and a liar. Psychiatrists and the pharmaceutical companies together have for decades been committing a crime against their patients, perhaps the greatest crime of the twenty-first century. I know from my own experience and from my observations of other patients that antipsychotics don't work; I suspect that they may even make people worse. John Nash believed that antipsychotics impede the process of recovery and I think he may be right. What better way to make someone ill and keep them ill then force that person to live a lie – to tell him repeatedly that the drugs he is taking help him when they don't at all and may even be making him sicker? As I have said before, I didn't start hearing voices until January 2009 after I had been on Rispiridone for a year and half; I was well in 2012 when I was only taking 5mgs; I was very ill just before I was put under the Act I admit but this was because I knew I was to be put under the Act; I was very ill again at the beginning of 2015, even a little suicidal, after I had been under the Act for a year. It's only in the last month or two that I've felt as well as I did in 2012. Jess would sometimes quote the Verve to me: "The drugs don't work, they just make things worse" and I know from my observations of her this to be true, that the drugs never worked for her. I think, incidentally, that just as I had been misdiagnosed homosexual, she had been misdiagnosed 'promiscuous' – the opposite of the truth. Yes, I admit I have been 'ill' sometimes but the my 'illness' has always been a result of others telling untruths about me, and of being trapped in a situation I can't escape.

Psychiatrists and psychologists didn't just invent homosexuality. They invented schizophrenia. If we go back over a hundred years, back to the time of Kraepelin, schizophrenics didn't hear voices. Instead they were more likely to hold delusions that they were people like Napoleon. In my ten years as a patient I have never met anyone who believes he was someone famous, someone he isn't. Schizophrenia has changed as the description has changed – psychiatrists create the condition they purport to describe. It's no science at all. The whole of psychiatry is just quackery.

Although my first psychotic episode wasn't caused by the Mental Health System, every subsequent episode was. And a big part of that was being stuck with a pervert psychiatrist who gets sexually excited whenever he has a male patient in his consultation room.