"I was led to a cell that had one small window, a chair and a bed. At night after lights out it was really bare." I am 60 years old. I now live alone and for the first time in my life (apart from school) I have felt able to express myself in words.
I lead quite a busy life. I have undertaken an aromatherapy and massage course which, has taken 2-3 years and I have now completed.
Inside Lives was exciting!
It was a cold, misty, forbidding day as we approached the Victorian mansion. The lights were on, but what was inside? I couldn't believe it when I heard what was playing on the radio... 'they're coming to take you away, today, today, today'...They HAD come to take me away today. It was 1972 and I was going to a mental hospital. I was lost, frightened and cut off from the world. I was led to a cell that had one small window, a chair and a bed. At night after lights out it was really bare. After medication I woke up. The door was locked. I shouted 'can someone come in and hold my hand?' A nurse opened the door. She pushed me on the ground. More medication. But another nurse came in to hold my hand. I'd left my life behind, my husband, my friends, to come to this place. It was like crossing a threshold to enter a different world altogether. The washing facilities and toilets were Victorian: cold, white tiles. When I was certified non violent (despite having no history of violence) I went to the dormitory, where women dressed and undressed together. I ended up making friends, although I felt alienated at first. They kept us busy, cutting cottons on expensive shirts for 50p a week and doing piles and piles of washing up... When it was time to leave, I felt scared of going out into the real world because I had to start my life again. I knew that nobody could understand what I'd been through.
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