On Millview

Life and times in a psychiatric hospital

By Gordon Scott

On Millview   

Once again I had rearranged everything in my bedroom at the hostel, bed, wardrobe and tables..
The staff told me if I wanted to stay there I would have to take medication like the others as they considered me unwell.  I knew I was ill, but had stopped taking medication-despite making me irritable, it was too strong.   Then one day the Doctor came and said he would section me ( I had refused to go into hospital voluntarily, 'Section' being a compulsory detention order under the Mental Health Act. ).
I knew what this would mean.  I had been over to Millview the (new)  psychiatric hospital in Hove and seen the patients sitting at tables outside as if in a café. It looked quite inviting-an improvement on Netherne the sprawling Victorian institution in downtown south London full of brown tiles and black rubber doors-like the entry to a ghost train at the fairground.
The manager of the hostel came to my door:"Can you grab a few things," she said;   "You're going to hospital."
"You're a thespian" I shouted, "A thespian!"
"Just get your things, I'll hold the room for you until you get back." she said calmly.
The police were waiting, so when I half refused to go they assisted me shall we say to an ambulance outside. In desperation I had called BBC World Service (having worked there part time)" They've come to section me to take me to the mental home."
I stated to the receptionist, who probably received these loony calls from time to time. "You'd better go then", she said.  Was there no escape?
I sat still and upright in the back of the ambulance, flanked by two policemen. It was a bright sunny day; as we drove through Brighton to the streets of Hove, I noted the Applemac Computer shop where I had recently bought a computer and  remembered how I'd helped design the original colours for the logo.  During the journey I was reminded of the first time in a  NHS hospital when I had contracted whooping cough and bronchial pneumonia at four years old.  The collapsed lung, this and a serious head injury later,  had almost write enabled my present psychological condition.
The police transferred me into Millview Hospital through a back door into what is known as a 'locked ward'.  This means basically that you can't get out, although escapes have been known from this intermediary level of mental health care.
The nurses showed me to my room.  This was a new, colour co-ordinated suite.  It was quite different from the gaunt almost yawning rooms of  Netherne in Hooley, (now largely closd), where I had been before.
These rooms had a bathroom and in the main bedroom a shelf, drawers and bed and a window one was unable to open and doors one was unable to lock.
I carefully put my computer handbook on the shelf alongside a picture of my  eldest daughter.  I'd bought some shaving things too and thanked God for twin-blade safety razors.
I can't recall if I was given an injection to sedate me as is usual on these occasions
And , I had to almost routinely, it seemed, fight for my life, or so it felt whilst in the drug-induced coma.
Certainly, the compulsory  medication ('meds') was liberally administered and I knew that I could  kiss my figure goodbye, this  was offset  against the chance of being well mentally.
A young woman appeared at the door-hovering.  She was attractive, but very heavily made up. She was as big as me. I stood looking on and she moved away.
Moving out to explore the rest of the ward area, I found there were three or four
bedrooms like mine, the interiors all in the same 'colour-coded' green and yellow or blue.
Nearby my room was a  recreation area.    There was table tennis, (godsends these in mental hospitals), a rowing machine and exercise bike; a stereo radio and CD player. A music source,  always a lifeline for me.
Outside there was a grassed area about the size of two tennis courts. With a football and bat and ball game...a post with a length of elastic to which a ball was attached. One could play alone or with someone else.
Surrounding the enclosure was a huge netting fence.  This wasn't insurmountable, in fact one female inmate did rush it and get over.  Within minutes staff had gone to the rear entrance of the ward and retrieved her.
I could see what was required.  I was to be observed socializing and engaging in a sort of  play in the gym, around the ward and on the grass. And to be rational to explain  everything.
The other thing to do on the ward is to stay away from the other patients, at least at first.  One is too concerned for one's own survival anyway to be able to discourse very much.  People can look violent even when they're not.  Violence is rare.  Medication can take care of that too.
The first good thing that happened was that I had a visitor from YMCA.  She was one of my favourite care-workers.  I think she brought me a bag of my things, stayed a  few minutes, then left.
It was around this time that my photo and computer handbook were taken.  The staff had assured me they would be safe.  I never knew if they were responsible i.e: to make me 'fight-back' as it were or as a  punishment? Maybe another patient took them. Certainly I was suspicious of two others.  There was  no investigation, no effort to retrieve them.
The ward exit was by the staff room.  From here, the psychiatric nurses lived while they were on duty, dispensing medication and general support from albeit rather crowded conditions.
The exit and entrance had double doors with an 'airlock' effect. Entrance was gained by  passwords and secret numbers on the digital lock. Outside in the corridor to the refectory, was a padded  cell.  It had wall to wall grey foam padding; a big metal door with a grill and inset with glass. In the middle of the cell was a bed, there were no legs and it flowed from the ground to the mattress as one piece. No legs or feet here. While I was in Millview, at least, no one was admitted to this room.

For breakfast there were hard-boiled eggs, toast, cornflakes and orange-juice.
A tall friendly lady delivered these on a trolley. And it made for a good start to the day, sitting in the light ( secure) and airy dining room.

The first few days were spent in this routine: breakfast was followed by medication, then some tentative rowing, on the rowing machine or table tennis, maybe sleep. There was television if you could survive the ordeal.  There was nearly always a person who wanted to watch something else;  they were invariably given priority over me.  Or so it seemed.
The long hours of boredom, were relieved by watching tv however.  A tropical fish tank looked on and I wondered how it survived without being knocked over.
After a few days I was allowed to leave the ward accompanied by a nurse. It might
be a male but usually a female and we would walk into Hangleton. I had a little
money the staff kept for me and used it to buy chocolate or avail myself  of a photo-copier in the small Post Office. The village had quite a few shops, pet shop, charity shop for example. There was a pub, where, on Sundays a crowd of local fellows gathered. I was quite jealous, envious of their camaraderie.  Three number five buses served the area.
Nearby was the Blatchington Windmill next door to a Church.  It reminded me of the only Church within a windmill on Reigate Heath in Surrey-near the cottage where  I'd once lived before the World trip and before things had gone so terribly wrong.
Much as it was a relief to get out of the ward; it was also good to get back into the warm .
I was appointed a solicitor who was required to represent my plea to get off the Section Order and I also requested a Hospital Chaplain with whom to pray and confess.
The solicitor travelled over from Kent to the mental health tribunals. I had three or four.  They comprised medical staff and legal appointees like a Judge who would
decide the patients' fate.  It was fairly routine for them I would imagine, but I would cringe when 'sentence' was passed.  Meaning I couldn't leave the ward and would still  be detained under the Mental Health Act..
I saw psychiatrists too. Two or three different ones. Their office was well furnished and comfortable, plush with a plump feel. The Doctors in turn looked every inch their salary, young , good-looking, glamorous.
Eventually my parents came to visit me.  It was a 25 mile drive for them though.
I didn't smoke cigarettes anymore, so there was no pressing urgency to be supplied with the weed freed by indulgence of the habit.
We might  go to a pub for a Sunday carvery and beer . I developed an ability to sleep for long periods between visits aided of course by sleep inducing medication.
The children didn't come to visit me nor, sadly, did my ex-wife.
"If I ever had another breakdown", I mused, "Who would be there to visit me if my parents didn't."  I could become like one of those poor lost souls who traverse the wards of mental homes, the little man who dresses like the Pied Piper of Hamelin , leading the rats from the town, or Rumpelstiltskin and his fairy princess-
the one who involuntarily sticks his tongue out.
I was nearly off the locked ward by now.  Leaving behind some of the others proved difficult in a way.  How was it they couldn't adopt a consensus of reality most people could agree with.  I thought of the black-clothes designer in this context-he got out eventually; but the girl who hovered at the door to my room was transferred to 'Freshfield' at Brighton General Hospital. after I was discharged I used to collect medication from there. Some people, of course, I never saw again.
The staff chose me as one of the people, to see the opening of the new Millview
Hospital by HRH Duchess of Gloucester (2 Oct.1998)  It was like a lifeline. Royalty were here, it must be OK.  I   stood in the glass proofed area adjoining the main refectory and Princess Michael, she was pretty in pink, there unveiling the plaque...
I was moved from the 'locked ward' onto the acute general ward .  The wards had names appropriate for Brighton Like 'Pavilion', or 'Promenade' which tied in with the overall corporate- image of  Millview.
There was a sort of secrecy attached to the move. It meant moving from one ward to the other through a series of  double doors The sister who transferred me was very friendly and I took to the place. Passing a bathroom on the way, I was given another room off the main ward area, as a sort of induction to the place.  I had a bout of paranoia here, but it soon passed and I was transferred again to a room nearby the little staff-room.
All the other crazies were here.  It seemed  even more dangerous than the locked ward-but mixed sex, so it wasn't too bad.  In fact life continued more or les as normal.  One of the main differences was that we went to meals in the main refectory where the Doctors also ate. Several bright and cheerful 'dinner ladies' served cheerful buffet food -chips of course or lasagne, sandwiches, fruit tea and coffee free to residents.  On a good sunny day could sit outside and eat alongside the happy smokers watched over by the ever  present surveillance cameras.
I met a few people on the wards and had a miniature social-life. The heavy hard to bear medication precluded a sex life.
In the end,  I was prescribed Clozapine, by all accounts a last ditch attempt to restore mental health.  I had a violent reaction when I first took this, just like the Doctor said.
The other difference on the ward were the occupational therapy groups I could attend.
There were the usual classes:  Art, Painting, Pottery, a  Reading Group.  There was a kiln and potters' wheel and some very professional pieces of work were produced.
I'd been through this at Netherne, but somehow this was different. The environment lifted the spirits and the undemanding staff contributed to the therapeutic atmosphere in a way no shadowy ward area could.
I was allowed to ship my computer onto the ward and struggled in the taxi to get it there.  This secondhand model, devoid of Instruction manual was later dumped. However, I had managed to install 'The Lion King'computer game  and the nurses were fascinated to see it, so I was pleased.  Disney feature 'The Lion King'was partially filmed (so I  understand ), at my cousin-in-laws studio 'Fountain',and as I discovered,  the very thing the doctors took 'begged to differ', of course it taking hundreds of people to produce a (pre-computer)animated motion picture.
To demonstrate how difficult things could be, I was once remonstrated for shouting my head off about one in the morning.  It was the closest I got to being transferred  back.
I have found that bathrooms,  on psychiatric wards can be rather difficult to use.  First of all there is the central positioning of the bath unit. Then there is the possibility of being overlooked by others.  Then there is the decision at having to turn on and off
the taps.  Inevitably the tepid water is too cool,  the soap too slippery and bathroom too wet from previous occupant.  Why this should be a source of mental anguish I don't know.  Thank goodness I wasn't shaved by a Mauritian nurse with a cut-throat razor as endured in Netherne.
Eventually I was discharged from the psychiatric Hospital Millview.  It had been more like living in a four star hotel than a 'mental home'.  I returned to my hostel and moved to my own self-contained studio flat.  I underwent more therapy and counselling.
Sadly the outside tables have gone and there are two new buildings at Millview. So it has acquired a red-brick look.  The staff remain friendly though and I still go there a few times a year to be monitored by psychiatrist , dietician and community mental health staff.