Poems And More Information

Our Hopes And Dreams For The Future

A Meagre Cost

If you’re wise you’ll take care of your carers
Because carers really care
Miraculously 24/7 carers are always there
Carers prevent a relapse time and time again
Carers provide such solid support
They cope with the pain and the strain
But carers need to stay healthy
We just can’t afford to be ill
Even though our lives are affected
Carers keep caring still
Carers are cost effective
Reassuring by night and by day
Costing £53-10 pence a week
Such a paltry price to pay
Compare that to the price of inpatient care
Or a fully qualified CPN
Years of training - diplomas - degrees
Now do your sums once again
If you’re wise you’ll take care of your carers
We provide the missing key
Carers provide something vital
Essential to recovery
If you’re wondering what that something is
Be assured it cannot be bought
And no matter how many books you read
That something cannot be taught
Love is the magic ingredient
Without it we’d all be lost
So if you’re wise you’ll take care of your carers
Then you’ll measure the meagre cost


“Imagination”

Imagine a new understanding
We’ve waited patiently now for years
The pain we’ve suffered through STIGMA
Has created a river of tears
Imagine holding our heads up high
No more whisperings-secrets or lies
Lets bare the soul of Mental Distress
No more need for it’s meagre disguise
Imagine that Carer’s talk openly
We don’t hide behind assumed names
We talk about loved ones with pride and respect
Long gone are the feelings of shame
Imagine a new understanding
Equal amounts of compassion
Get well cards-flowers-comforting words
Will never again be on ration
Imagine that reporters change the way that they write
Words like Schitzo and Psycho are finally kept out of sight
Imagine a new understanding
No more alienation from the norm
Imagine that new generations
Are educated from the day they are born
Imagine our neighbours welcoming us
No more protests as to where we reside
Social inclusion won’t be an illusion
Imagine the lift to our pride
It’s time 4 change it’s time for the truth
To relieve decades of painful frustration
Imagine we make this a reality
Not a figment of IMAGINATION

“ Mini Institutions”

Sat up in their ivory towers
They designed this brilliant scheme
None of them knew what was needed
None of them heard us scream
Let’s knock down the institutions they said
We’ve got a far better plan
Life will improve for all of you
Every woman - every man
Folk will be kind they’ll welcome you
Just you wait and see
Incarcerations a thing of the past
Like caged birds you’ll all be set free
You’ll all be well supported they said
There’s loads of support out there
But reality was different
Nobody seemed to care
Social exclusion prevailed
Social inclusion didn’t exist
Our neighbours purely added us on
To a long and stigmatised list
Responsibility was placed at the carer’s door
But carers had very few choices
We knew instinctively what would happen
But nobody heard our voices
New homes became institutions
Just smaller ones than before
Isolation and loneliness
Then back through the revolving door
A total lack of understanding
Reared it’s ugly head
Filling our souls with foreboding
Anxiety sadness and dread
They hadn’t thought it through you see
They thought they had all the solutions
We searched for care in the community
We found mini institutions

Our Sincere Respect For Sufferers

There But For The Grace Of God Go I

Can there be a harder journey than for those who lose their minds?
Can we grasp the slightest inkling of their pain?
Hallucinations angry voices invade their precious time
Forcing fragile minds to go insane
Is there a less demeaning label than Paranoid Schizophrenic?
Would you spare the time to listen to their stories?
Schitzos psychos nutters described so often by the media
To make them sound more dangerous more gory
Can there be anything that strips us of our precious self esteem
Than the ignorance that surrounds mental distress
Surviving every day by the sheer skin of their teeth
Yet their made to feel that they are even less
Less than human beings their weirdos screwballs loony
Their a waste of space their crazy their insane
Can there be a harder journey than for those who lose their minds?
Can we grasp the slightest inkling of their pain?
They lack all motivation but somehow they survive
They accept that people just can’t understand
Get well cards and flowers are thin upon the ground
And the support and comfort of a caring hand
Can there be a bleaker outlook than for those who lose their minds
We should marvel at their strength to face each day
Their the bravest human beings they deserve our deep respect
Fate has dealt them all such painful cards to play
The side affects of medication is the lesser of 2 evils
Sheer resilience is mixed with fear and dread
They don’t have any choices and they’re all very much aware
At least it dulls the voices in my head
Can there be a harder journey than for those who lose their minds?
We should listen to their desperate silent screams
We should put ourselves in their shoes if only for one day
Reflect on all those shattered hopes and dreams
Can there be a harder journey than that for those who lose their minds?
Compassion and respect is overdue 1 in 4 develop mental illness
No one is immune remember one day this could easily be you
They didn’t choose this journey or this tragic life event
Lives changed forever in the blinking of an eye
Support them and respect them and remember these few words
There but for the grace of God go I


A chapter from "Caring For Someone With Serious Mental Health Problems" published by PCCS Books

"Loving Christian "

Georgina Wakefield

PROUD

My youngest son, Christian John,
Suffers from schizophrenia
He suffers each day in silence
With a kind and gentle demeanour
But look deeply beyond his label
To the baby I held in my arms
To the cheeky mischievous 4 year old
who captured the world with his charms
to the bright intelligent 10 year old
Who excelled at school in his study
To the 12 year old football fanatic
Who’d come home exhausted and muddy
To the handsome carefree teenager
Who’d greet me each day with a kiss
To the son I’d lay down my life for
But the man I was destined to miss
He waded through the torment
Hallucinations and angry voices
Robbed of the sweet years of youth
And denied so many choices
He coped with public ignorance
and the pain inflicted by stigma
Accepting that mental illness
Is viewed as a kind of enigma
Because my son was sent on a journey

There were demons he had to face
Along with painful memories
He struggles each day to erase
Now he’s quiet and unassuming
But to me he stands out in the crowd
He’s the son he was always destined to be
And the one word describes my feelings and that’s
‘proud’

How can you cram 20 years into one book chapter? Even the
most powerful, well-chosen words seem to be inadequate, so I
can only do my best. This chapter is in two halves, the first
half concentrating on the bleak, early years, and how hard
they were. The second is about recovery or as I see it,
‘discovery’, because that’s what it is all about – discovering
what works well and what doesn’t. All carers go on this
journey of discovery because we discover things about
ourselves and carers also have to recover from this tragic life
event themselves. First and foremost, carers have to learn
acceptance, and it has taken me many years.

Another carer explained to me how she coped. She said:

‘I was forever thinking/grieving about what life should have
held in store for my son but if all of your life you’ve wanted to
go to Italy only to find that you’re going to Holland, thinking
constantly about Italy serves no purpose simply because you
miss the sights of Holland [windmills, scenery, tulips etc]. It’s
accepting that you’re not going to Italy that proves to be the
hardest part of all. It’s also accepting that we are totally
powerless over what happens to us, or indeed to people we
love. All we can do is provide support, compassion and love.’

My youngest son Christian developed paranoid schizophrenia
around the age of 15. He is now 36. Life in 2010, has finally 
reached a far more manageable and peaceful stage; the early
years [thank god] are now behind us. When I think about the early years I
still shudder – the nights without sleep, the endless reassuring,
the overwhelming sadness and grief. There are no words to
adequately explain what it feels like to watch someone you love
so dearly losing their mind right before your eyes. Only
those who have walked this walk can share this.

The wilderness years

Initially, the confusion in itself was overwhelming. I was
plagued by thoughts and questions. Is he just being a difficult
teenager? I’m sure he’s smoking cannabis. Is his behaviour down
to the drugs? Or is this something far more sinister, for
example, the beginnings of a severe mental health problem?
Following 15 months of sheer hell and three visits to his GP, I
was told twice that I’d have to bring him to the surgery in
person. How was I expected to do that when my son had totally
lost sight of reality and would tell me: ‘It’s you who’s mad, not
me’?

On the third visit a friend came with me – I was in bits by
then – and she asked the GP if he thought Christian was
mentally breaking down? ‘I’ve no doubt that he is’, was the
reply. To which my friend then said: ‘How do you expect him
to make a rational decision to come to the surgery if he’s
mentally breaking down? Those two things don’t go together.’

With that, he finally sent two social workers to our home.
After 20 minutes with Chris they said that within a fortnight he
would have been sectioned anyway – as if I didn’t know that.
One of them said, ‘He’s very thin Mrs Wakefield, surely you
must have noticed.’ He was, of course, very thin – he weighed
about 8 stones 2 pounds and at 6 feet 2 inches, but I was in far
too much of a state to tell the social workers how difficult it
was getting things through to his GP.

Then came the visit to the consultant psychiatrist who told
us our son had a thought pattern disorder and that they were
putting him on four weekly intramuscular injections of Piportil.
That was it, nothing more was said. We weren’t warned about
the effects that the drugs would have; for example, he started to
sleep for 16 hours a day and walked around like a zombie with
lead boots on.

We felt as if we were out in the wilderness for the next seven
years. Life went on but Christian had no life, no friends, no
fun, no holidays, no relationships. His friends abandoned him,
one of them actually said to me: ‘It’s really sad but don’t ask me
to visit him.’

We took him on holiday and it was a disaster, he became
more and more unwell by the day. When we got home his GP
prescribed some tablets in addition to the Piportil, but they
caused a dystonic1 reaction, a side effect of the medication
change. His whole body and face twisted up and we had no
idea at all that this was even a possible ‘side effect’. I rang his
GP at 11pm. I was crying and extremely scared. I asked the
doctor to come out because I thought my son was having a fit.
He refused point blank and said to give him two Procylidine
tablets to counter the side effect of the other medication. I did,
and it made no difference. Half an hour later I phoned him
back and this time I begged him to come. When he entered our
home Chris was in a ball on the floor still twisted up. He said
we should pull ourselves together get him over to Accident and
Emergency (A&E) where they would ‘zap’ him. I asked him
what he meant by ‘zap’. ‘They’ll give him an injection which
will release it,’ he replied.

1. Dystonia is a syndrome of spasms and sustained contractions of the muscles.
These muscle movements are not under voluntary control and they result in
repetitive abnormal movements of parts of the body or persistently abnormal
postures. Picked up off net doctor: www.netdoctor.co.uk/diseases/facts/
dystonia.

We took him (half carrying him) to A&E in our car. On the
way he was trying to get out of the car by opening the door, but
his brother just about managed to keep him in his seat by
brotherly brute force. This was a very dangerous situation and
the GP should have prevented that risk by calling an
ambulance. I will never forget that night, I call it the worst
night of my life simply because it was so horrific to witness a
young man of 21 going through so much pain and anguish.

The psychiatrist prescribed Chris two other neuroleptics
(Olanzapine and Ritanserin) to see if they would have any
positive effect, but neither helped his condition so he was put
back onto Piportil again. His brother, Steven, left home to live
with his girlfriend in the May of 1997 and we didn’t have a clue
how much Chris would miss him. Steven was, by now, the only
young person in his life.

Christmas 1997 was another disaster. Christian became very
ill and two days after Christmas he relapsed and was admitted
to an acute ward. After five weeks he was moved to a Rehab
centre – little did we know that he would stay there for the next
five years.

We would visit him in the week and then have him home at
weekends. When we went to see him for the first time our
hearts sank; many of the residents were much older than him.
There he sat, dressed smartly as always, looking extremely
handsome and totally out of place. He would phone me
constantly begging me to take him home but we knew we
couldn’t manage. Sometimes he would threaten to run away
which pulled at our heartstrings. One sunny Friday evening I
looked round at him in the car and the tears were streaming
down his face. He told me that his head was all over the place
and he didn’t know how to straighten his thoughts out. I felt so
very sad and thought, if only I could get inside his head and
untangle the jumbled wiring to release him from his pain.
The months rolled into years. When Chris had been in
rehab for almost two years my husband Paul and I attended a
Rethink seminar in Chelmsford. Professor Adrianne Reveley
was conducting a presentation during the lunch break.
Afterwards I told her about Chris, now 25. I explained that he
became ill at 16 and had been in care (in a rehabilitation centre
to help him return to life in the community) for two years. She
asked me if he had ever been tried on Clozapine? When I
replied no she went on to explain that Chris was probably
treatment resistant (TRS) and that Clozapine was the best
medication for people that were TRS. And so, in 1999, seven
years into his illness, and two years into his stay in Rehab, he
was prescribed Clozapine on a trial basis. He’d been tried on
two other neuroleptics but neither made any difference to his condition.

He’d been on it for about three weeks when Paul and I
thought he seemed better. We were almost scared to believe it.
Twelve weeks later Chris was moved into 12-hour care – a
further step towards independence. He was to spend another
two and a half years there.

A psychiatrist once said to me that recovery in mental illness
is like a flower bulb in your hand – years later it’s grown in size.
It’s just terribly slow – it is happening but you just can’t see it.

As far as Chris was concerned, I do think it’s far worse to
develop this condition at such a young age, if you’ve had
relationships, learnt to drive, held down a job, lived
independently, you have all of those things to fall back on as
you travel down the long road to recovery.

So finally, in September 2002, Christian was well enough to
move into his own flat, a five-minute car journey from where
we live. Just before he moved a hundred residents staged a
protest at a junior School across the road from the flat stating:
‘We don’t want the mentally afflicted living near us.’

A colleague of mine who worked for the mental health
charity MIND at the local branch drop-in went to a meeting

Loving Christian
Caring for someone with mental health problems
organised by residents who were complaining. She said that
people at the meeting were; ‘like baying wolves’, not allowing
her or anyone else to speak about mental health problems.
Several letters appeared in the local paper, one of them was
headed Caring about Children and read ‘it’s because we care
about children that we object to the type of people going into
this complex, we’d have no objections at all to the physically
disabled but we do object to the mentally ill because of the
danger to our everyday lives’.

Christian read the letters and couldn’t understand why
people would judge him without even knowing who he is.

After a couple of months settling in to his new flat Chris
decided to start going swimming again; we were really pleased.
He was going for about an hour, three times every week. One
day one of the lifeguards called him out of the pool wanting to
know why he went swimming so much. Chris told him the
truth, that he’d had a mental illness and was trying to build up
his muscles. Warning bells rang for me, whereas Paul thought
the lifeguard was just being friendly. I had this gut feeling that
something horrible was going to happen. The next time Chris
went swimming he rang me at work. At first I didn’t even know
it was him because he was shivering and crying at the same
time. He kept repeating ‘what do they mean about children?’ I
managed to calm him down and was horrified to hear that two
uniformed policemen had called him out of the pool and asked
him, ‘Why are you in there while there’s children in there?’ I
can still feel those same feelings of disbelief and disgust to this
day.

That day, Paul picked me up from work and the first stop
was the swimming pool. I asked the manager what had
prompted him to call the police. To my amazement he said it
hadn’t been him but the head teacher from the local school. I
went to see the head teacher who told me that she was there to
protect children. When I asked her what from, she repeated,
‘I’m here to protect children’. Again I asked her from what? She
replied: ‘Well he sort of stands at the side of the pool for 10
minutes.’

I explained that Chris has problems making a decision and
that he would be trying to decide whether to get out or stay in.
At this point I felt we’d taken enough. This situation had
occurred because my son made the mistake of telling the
lifeguard that he had a mental illness and because of public
ignorance. Christian didn’t go swimming again until nine
months had passed. If I suggested he went he’d say that he
couldn’t because he felt ashamed. This incident affected him so
much that he had to start taking Prozac for severe depression –
which we found hardly surprising since it’s not everyday you’re
practically accused of being a paedophile.

My feelings of anger and disgust remain within me and I am
sure they always will.

The young police sergeant who called Chris out of the pool
came to see us and openly admitted that he knew nothing at all
about schizophrenia. I was amazed that this was someone who
was likely to get called out to a young person going through
their first psychotic breakdown and yet he knew nothing at all
about what he would be dealing with.

As I explained earlier those were the bleak years and now it’s
time to move onto the better times.

Recovery

About five years ago Chris was offered a psychodynamic talking
therapy, based on the concept of the ‘other mind’. He has been
having one-and-a-half-hour weekly sessions combined with art
therapy. It began with one-to-one sessions and then progressed
to group therapy. This has made an enormous difference, giving
Chris a level of understanding over his condition so that he has
a good insight into, and knows the difference between what’s
reality and what’s delusional content from the ‘other mind’.
We were also offered family therapy, and I joined a carer’s
group which was facilitated by a group analyst. There we all
learned about our own ‘other minds’.

Using the psychodynamic therapy with the concept of the
‘other mind’ has been hugely helpful both to my family and to
my son. In our ignorance we arranged for Christian to see a
cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) counsellor but after five
sessions he refused to go back explaining in his own words that
‘it does my head in’. We were lucky enough to make contact
with a psychiatrist who explained that patients need to be
assessed to find out which therapy will work best and so
Christian was finally assessed. CBT works on the basis of
attempting to change our thoughts and as Christian is quite
thought-disordered, we saw that CBT made matters worse in
his case.

For example, in the assessment interview Dianne was
talking to Christian about his day-to-day concerns. She’d been
talking to him about the ‘other mind’ and he was beginning to
distinguish what was his healthy self and what was coming from
the other mind. He was able to concentrate and express some of
his current difficulties. When I entered the room with no
warning he turned to me and said in a rather loud and
complaining voice, ‘You can’t expect me to say more than this.
Why do you always want me to be different? It’s not fair.’

I felt uneasy and embarrassed. I tried to brush it off and said
‘It’s OK Chris. I don’t expect anything of you and I haven’t even
said anything.’ The psychiatrist said ‘I think the other mind is
telling you that your mother is criticising you even though she
hasn’t said a word.’

For a moment Christian was about to argue then suddenly
his face changed and he smiled and with some relief said,
‘You’re right. I don’t think she’s criticising me at all.’

Together with the psychiatrist we decided to take a multi
pronged approach to a multifaceted condition. The first
treatment in this approach was to be neuroleptic medication at
the lowest possible dose – the psychiatrist explained that it had
an important part to play. This was combined with attention to
his diet. All too often sufferers resort to takeaways and
processed foods, all of which add to poor general health.

The whole process of recovery is more one of ‘discovery’ –
discovering what works well and what doesn’t and finding a way
to manage the painful symptoms. This emphasises the need-
adapted treatment principle – that is, treatment adapted to each
individual’s needs. The third component of our recovery plan was
family work with a family therapist who understands working in
two minds. This understanding was a great relief to family and
friends who all too often live, or spend time with, the sufferer.

Another element of the treatment plan was psycho-education,
which was incorporated into the assessment interview that we
had initially with the psychiatrist. In the interview we were able
to understand the principles behind Christian’s treatment. This
helped both at the time and somewhat later on when we had
family therapy with a therapist who understood the treatment
principles. This has been hugely helpful.

And finally, the psychodynamic therapy with Christian,
incorporating the ideas of ‘other mind’, was the piece that
completed the jigsaw for Christian. Of course other types of
talking therapy might suit other people better.

So my conclusion from our experience as a family is that
talking therapies are an essential part of the treatment of
chronic psychosis. But they are not the only treatment as the
illness affects many facets of a person’s life.

Our experience tells us that it is essential to have long-term
talking therapy available for people who have been suffering
with mental health problems for years. So much more should
be offered by a civilised society for the management and
treatment of chronic psychosis. So let’s get civilised …

Discovery or recovery?

Chris has done more in the past year than he did in the 17
years leading up to it. I believe this is all down to the factors
I’ve described above and also having an excellent personal
assistant, who has supported and interacted with him in so
many positive ways. Direct payments provide another of the
keys to mental well-being and social inclusion. It is not enough
to rehabilitate people and then abandon them to ‘treatment in
the community’, because it will lead to a revolving-door
syndrome, isolation, depression and then of course relapse and
back on the wards again. I call it ‘feeding the spirit’. Recovery
isn’t just about the medical model, it’s about human beings
enjoying life, feeling part of society and regaining self-worth
which has been destroyed by a devastating and debilitating
condition.

Helpful learning and information that I feel has
helped in Christian’s recovery

1. Love, support and compassion from family friends and
mental health professionals
2. The right medication, tailored to suit individual needs
3. Attention to diet
4. Talking therapy, family therapy and carer therapy
5 Paid part-time employment and support from work
colleagues
6. Independent living
7. A befriender
8. Pets (in Chris’s case a dog and a talking parrot)
9. Exercise (walking, swimming)
10. Physical relaxation, for example, we bought a hot tub and
this has helped Chris to relax
11. Veg Epa Omega 3 Fatty Acids 7 capsules daily
12. Direct payments employing the right personal assistant

And so life goes on I believe that this tragic life event has changed all of us what we have learned is invaluable as this poem explains

“Who We Are”

Schizophrenia is a learning curve
It’s made us who we are
2 decades on and now your 35
We were shell shocked we were grieving
We marvelled at your strength
Your iron will that helped you to survive
Were aware that you’re a different son
Nothing like the son we knew
The son that we brought up for 15 years
But this was to be our destiny
We could not intervene
We waded through a river made from tears
Schizophrenia is a teacher
It’s taught us all so much
Compassion kindness and humility
Everyone of us has changed
As our journey took it’s course
It’s made us how we all were meant to be
You say I don’t achieve much mum
I’d have a loved a wife and kids
In the workplace? Well I haven’t fared so well
I remind you of your strength your sheer tenacity
How you’ve managed to survive this living hell
So don’t question things we’ve missed
Reflect on what we’ve learned
On this journey that has taken us so far
Lets look forwards to the future
Be aware of what we’ve gained
This has made us all exactly
“Who We Are”




The following poems are extracts from Georgina books and showcases some examples of Georgina's writing. Georgina finds writing poetry extremely cathartic she believes that poetry is better than Prozac.

Poems from "A Mother's Story"
The Word | Gritting My Teeth For The Fight | One Day Mum

Poems from "Through the Maze..."
The Grim Reaper | The Wheels of Improvement | Enigma | Proud | The one who stole our son

Poems from "Addict's Language"
Caught Within The Headlights | The Hawk | The Solvent King

 The Word* (back to top)
(We were not told for years what was wrong with Chris
so consequently I didn't accept that he had schizophrenia,
this next poem tries to explain this)

Schizophrenia there its done
Doesn't quite roll off the tongue
8 years it stayed within my mouth
I couldn't quite manage to spit it out
A sad achievement but there its done
A label for my precious son

We thought naively they'd be able
Within weeks to make you stable
But sadly you sleep your young life away
16 hours on average every day
Now you're timid quiet subdued
Not fiery angry hyper rude

My senses scream my senses shout
For God's sake whats this all about
Wondering endlessly what this curse is
Depot injections and psychi nurses
Mrs Wakefield try not to worry
We're doing all we can we're sorry

You know there's not a magic pill
Now calm down or you'll both be ill
Make an appointment see your G.P.
This is bad for Christian can't you see
G.P. gave me Prozac and after a while
I'm flying high I wear a smile

But we're both exhausted from the strain
We watch you struggle feel your pain
Split mind? Split Personality?
Get the leaflets then you'll see
Or just ask me I've read them all
Its really not like that at all