Chapter Thirteen
ASHBURN HALL
Have you seen the lovely film Patch Adams? Robin Williams portrayed in
that film exactly the way I felt on my bus ride to take up residence in a
mental institution. On the outside I had taken the time to shave, but inside my head I was just as scruffy as he
was. My only company on that lonely trip was my two airline carry-on bags, and
they shared the front seat with me like two lap-dogs. These were going to be my
only physical reminder of my family and home on my uncharted - and at this point
timeless - journey into
the world of the mentally ill at Ashburn Hall.
On
the breathtaking scenic drive from our motel in Queenstown to Dunedin, each
time the driver opened the rattly door in front of me the words 'Get out! Get out!' raced through my head, but the realistic part of my brain would say, 'If you
do, you'll make a prat of yourself and be stranded on the side of a lonely
road.' I had lived in Dunedin for two years as a teenager and as the sights and
landmarks became familiar to me, apprehension of this visit was now making me
frightened.
The
last time I had been in this Scottish city my life was full of fun. I had a
host of great friends and ballroom dancing on Friday and Saturday nights,
though my main highlight was being a member of the Vintage Car Club. In this
club I think I had the closest friends I have ever had, with my stable being a
classic French 1924 Delage
car, and two British
1928 AJS motorcycles. What would the club magazine Beaded Wheels gossip
about me now, I wondered. Nothing like in 1958 when, with true fondness, they
had printed:
Bryan Griffin in his
garret
Is starving more each
day
As mightily he's
struggling
The Delage's bill to
pay
Travelling
down the streets today was nothing like those days of old, with mud-smudged
goggles, my scarf fluttering with freedom, and the crumpled rally notes blowing
in turmoil in the open car. Apart from the normal problems of a pimply and
broke teenager, I had not a care in the world, and in those days I was out to
win - but today I was finding it just an effort to stay alive.
At
the familiar bus depot where in the good old days I had farewelled dance
partners with a self-conscious attempt at a teenage kiss, I was now totally embarrassed as I asked the cab driver to take
me to Ashburn
Hall. It was like
openly saying, 'I'm a nut case. Take me away and put me in a strait-jacket.'
However,
this driver had a sense of compassion and politely replied, 'To the Hall, sir,' and we were on our way to
Ashburn Hall, although it could have been Toad Hall for all I cared.
I
had never seen a psychiatric hospital in New Zealand before, but to my relief
Ashburn Hall was just like any other old wooden heritage building, and not a
purpose- built asylum like I had seen in England. As it was late on Sunday
afternoon when I arrived the building was devoid of general staff, so after a
few unsuccessful Australian cooees I looked for a bell.
After
several rings that sounded like a fire alarm in this empty section of the
building, a woman came into the waiting room and greeted me. Initially I wasn't
sure if she was a cleaner, nurse, or psychiatrist, as she was not wearing any
uniform or identification. I was led down a long empty hallway to a surgery,
where I soon realised after her questions and measurements that she was a
nurse.
Preliminaries
finished, she shuffled her papers together and said, 'We'll put you in Pinel Ward.'
I
could not believe what I was hearing. Pinel Ward! Pinel was one name I didn't want to hear, for
when I was twelve years old my friend and I were coerced into being sexually molested
by a one-armed paedophile of that name. From that encounter on I had carried
the memories in shame, as there was no one close enough to confide in to help
me clear the air.
No,
I didn't want to be in Pinel Ward, let alone in a hospital with such a ward, but how could I say
anything about my forty-year-old secret. It was only me that felt that way.
Carrying my two lap-dogs under my arms, I was taken up a set of squeaky stairs
leading to a similar hallway - just like my visions of a boarding school. My
room was sparse and the single bed looked completely unsleepable the way it was; however, the
carpenter soon had some bedboards installed and it was then a matter of like it or lump it.
There
was a pecking order for the rooms and once again I was at the bottom and had
the smallest. The nurse left me to unpack while she went to find my 'buddy',
returning with a very jovial rehabilitated alcoholic. She was being released
in a few days, so I imagine they thought she would be the happiest person to
show me around and get me settled. I had never been to boarding school or lived
in any other dormitory-type accommodation, and it certainly wasn't anything
like the luxury hotels that I had been accustomed to while flying for Qantas.
One bathroom for about fifteen mixed patients was what I was going to have to
get used to, and once again find my pecking order for my unwritten time.
That
evening the patients from two wards lined up at the canteen on a first-in,
best- fed basis for when the food arrived on the dot of six. Although patients
had ordered their selection from the menu the day before, if it looked good
then the people at the front of the queue might be tempted to take that little bit
extra, resulting in those that were a fraction late being put on an involuntary
diet. The situation was also just as bad when someone changed their mind and
didn't want what they had originally ordered.
I
became very self-conscious as my buddy introduced me to some of her friends, as
I could see other diners sneaking a peek at me. I was sure they all knew about
me - but how was I going to learn about them? There were alcoholics,
schizophrenics, sexually abused young ladies, and some simply depressed older people. No one had nametags
or their illness stamped on them, so for me it was a slow process over the next
few days putting the jigsaw of people and their problems into place while
trying at the same time not to embarrass them or myself.
In
this community people were very sensitive, and something said with the purest
of thoughts could be taken the wrong way. The weekday routine started with
group sessions of five patients and a nurse, but they seemed to do nothing for
me. I wondered how a teenage girl or a fifty-year-old housewife with depression
could imagine how it felt to want to crash a 747. I'm sure that most patients
in Ashburn Hall had never seen a 747, let alone flown in one. I felt that the
sessions should have been productive, but I'm sure at the time that I thought I
was above the other participants.
I
enjoyed my 'one to one' talks with my psychiatrist each week and these were the
only times that I felt progress was being made. After the routine settling in
time my medication was changed to Prozac, and very soon I felt that it was a retrograde step. Another patient with O.C.D.
had found a classified document on the side-effects of this wonder drug and passed it
on to me.
I
should never have read it, as I talked myself into thinking I had most of the side-effects, and because some of them were of
violence and murder by some patients I became very uneasy when my two-year-old
daughter came to stay for a few days. I wasn't completely sure that I wouldn't
suddenly have some compulsion to do something completely out of character. It
was a feeling I found difficult to explain exactly, and one evening after she
and my partner had left to sleep in another section of the hospital I broached
the subject of my feelings with the male nurse on duty.
Without
really being aware at the time of his thoughts of me, I took his advice not to
discuss these feelings with other patients, as many girls were in there for
sexual abuse. Back in my tiny room while contemplating what he had said, it
dawned on me that he imagined my feelings toward my daughter and other patients
were sexual. How wrong he was.
Furious
with his assumption, I bounded down the stairs to confront him, only to be
refused a consultation as he had just finished his shift. I remember following
him down the hall begging him to listen to me, but to no avail.
Feeling
let down by the people who were meant to be there to help me, I decided that I
couldn't spend another day in this entrapment. I rang my cousin who also lived
in Dunedin, and made, as I thought, arrangements to stay with him while I got
over my anger. I didn't know how I would cope without my medication, but I just
had to get away from the stigma of being thought of as a molester.
However,
the next morning before I could get organised for my escape my psychiatrist
cornered me and said firmly, 'You are not to go anywhere until we have had a
chat.'
My
cousin had ratted on me, and now I was left with no one to turn to in
confidence.
Fronting
up to the meeting with my psychiatrist must have been one of the most important
meetings of my life. When asked why I had become so upset, I told him of the
male nurse's assumptions, and that I had been so hurt to think he thought I was
capable of such atrocities. Gradually and professionally, he extracted my story
of abuse and my contempt for any paedophile. At the end of my story he did
admit that the nurse had 'got it wrong', and after my storm of tears had abated
the psychiatrist explained to me why the ward was called Pinel.
In
1793, Philippe
Pinel, while chief
physician of a ward for incurable mental patients at La Bicêtre Hospital in Paris, released
patients from shackles, forbade staff to beat them, and began to keep case
histories while developing the concept of 'moral treatment'. This involved
treating patients with kindness and sensitivity, and without cruelty or
violence.
After
this major session, the Pinel obsession was now less important to me, and I
felt at peace with myself after all these years, having got this shame out into
the open and, I hoped, out of my system. Unfortunately for me, as soon as one
obsession disappeared from my head, another - just as devastating - was waiting in the wings.
While
lying on a bed one day subconsciously looking at the high wooden ceiling, my
eyes focused on the red glass sensor of the fire sprinkler system. It became a
fixation and I unwillingly had an uncontrollable desire to break it and
activate the system. However, this new compulsion soon went away as the ceiling
was too high for me to get anywhere near it.
Not
for long though, for five minutes later I was walking through one of the old
hallways with low ceilings that you could reach up and touch. My eyes nearly
popped out of their sockets as suddenly before them was the exposed red
sprinkler pipe. My eyes were led from sensor to sensor and my instant thought
was what was I waiting for? They were like ducks on a pond. I shuddered with
fear and, with my head down, raced for the sanctuary of the high-ceilinged
lounge room and the support of the other patients.
From
that time on I had to have a buddy with me whenever I needed to walk down these
halls of temptation, even though a technician had showed me the control
cupboard and let me handle one of the small glass capsules.
As
fate would have it, one frosty night, while snuggled up in the safety of my bed
the eerie scream of the fire alarm sounded, and the tranquil hallway suddenly
became alive with startled and petrified patients. Was this a drill? It wasn't
midday on a Thursday. The tinder-dry building would have turned into an enormous firecracker if the touch
paper had been lit, but what concerned me, as well as all the patients, was
the fact that all the outside doors were locked and had to be opened by a nurse
with a key.
Eventually,
when all the patients and staff were assembled and accounted for outside in the
frosty air, I imagined, because there was no evidence of fire, that everyone
must be thinking that the false alarm had been my doing. I was so pleased when
my psychiatrist arrived as I could assure him that it hadn't been me who had
caused this mid-night drama. I felt at ease later in the morning when told that
the cause of the alarm was a frost-cracked pipe.
I
was now off the hook as far as the patients were concerned, but unfortunately
I continued having these compulsions even after leaving the Hall. In my three
months stay in Ashburn Hall I don't think my mental state improved very much,
as my new phobia of the side-effects
of Prozac, fear of being alone with my daughter, and the ever-present sprinkler sensors calling me made
my life unbearable. I now had more problems than I had arrived with, and felt
the only thing I had gained from my short stay was the pink scarf I knitted for
my daughter with the help of the ladies in the craft class.
We
had sold the lease on the motel in Queenstown, and as once again we were
homeless my partner and I decided to return to live in England. I would have
gone anywhere to get away from what I considered entrapment and mental torture.
After I left Ashburn Hall we made a short visit to Queenstown to tie up loose
ends before leaving for England. I felt too embarrassed to say goodbye to the
many acquaintances we had made there, as how could I say where I had been for
the last three months?
'I
have been having a rest in a mental asylum?'
I
was not cured, but under the circumstances I was allowed to leave Ashburn Hall
and was to obtain psychiatric treatment in England.