THE SPYCHIATRISTS

A Psychiatric Survivor’s Account of Coercive

Treatment in Dorset, England

by Frater Pyramidatus

An aerial photo of Forston Clinic and Melstock House

 THE SPYCHIATRISTS

Front entrance of Forston Clinic

An aerial photo of Linden, Westhaven, and Weymouth and Portland C.M.H.T.

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Front entrance to the Linden unit

PREAMBLE
I am one of many psychiatric survivors, with other eleven years of experience with many psychiatrists, many
types of psychiatric drug, someone who has forged strong friendships with other patients, someone who was
tried to escape the ‘system’ several times – I have even been described as a ‘difficult’ patient.

I just think that all the accounts of the modern psychiatric system are written by psychiatric staff, mainly in
the notorious ‘mental health notes’ (I am into roughly my seventeenth volume), or sometimes a fictional
account of the asylum is penned by a novelist who has never actually been there. Thus, my little book about
various experiences, some pleasant, some harrowing, in the present day institution.

DISCLAIMER
Although the actual names of the institutions I attended are given, I thought it was safest, and arguably more
ethical, to not give the names of patients, staff, doctors, visitors and ‘fringe patients’. From a purely legal
standpoint a degree of anonymity is essential – as I am sure all would agree. The purpose of this little book
is more academic and cultural than journalistic. The potential backlash from the psychiatric staff as well as
ex-patients is not worth the hassle. I identify each person by asterisk only; I have no intention in making
things worse by revealing superfluous details – none whatsoever.

On the flip side, I also am not attempting to keep my own identity secret. This is for despite serious legal
reasons involving accusations of ‘statutory indiscretion’, illicit drug use, and because of potential libel writs
against me. It also is the case because of extreme embarrassment about what I have come to conclude is a
singularly sordid past. Please forgive me. However, this is not a work of fiction, it as an autobiographical
account of modern psychiatric, forced treatment and the increasingly vague world of ‘psychopolitics’.

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REASO% FOR ALPHABETICAL FORMAT

Due to combination of fear, genuine mental distress, and lethargy, your austere author did not keep any kind
of regular journal, or record, of his experiences in hospital.

When I cast my mind back, certain things stand out, but the dates and other extraneous details are extremely
fleeting and almost entirely escape me.

With no record of dates to serve as an academic fulcrum, I thought the best thing to do was construct this
little book on an alphabetical heading basis. This helps me to organize my incoherent memories, and might
go some way towards helping the genuine psychiatric researcher. It should help all the events to be relayed
as expeditiously as possible.

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TABLE OF CO%TE%TS
Absconding..…………………………………………………………………………….6
Alcohol and Mental Illness……………………………………………………………...7
Cannabis and Mental Illness…………………………………………………………….8
Care in the Community………………………………………………………………….9
Confidentiality…………………………………………………………………………..9
Confiscation of Property……………………………………………………………….10
Description of Psychiatric Wards & Buildings………………………………………...11
Diagnosis and Prognosis……………………………………………………………….12
Diagnostic Alphabetical Listing………………………………………………………..14
Doctors that Provided Treatment……………………………………………………....15
Drugs Prescribed………………………………………………………………….……17
Economics of Treatment…………………………………………………………….…22
First Personal Encounter with Psychiatry…………………………………………...…22
Friendships Made………………………………………………………………………22
Glossary of Terms……………………………………………………………………...26
Illicit Drugs on the Ward………………………………………………………………27
Illicit Drugs in the Community……………………………………………………...…28
Interview with a Schizophrenic………………………………………………………...29
Leaflets Provided…………………………………………………………………....…30
Miscellaneous Instances and Examples of Madness………………………………...…35
Nurses who Provided Treatment…………………………………………………….…36
Occupational Therapy…………………………………………………………….……39
Personal Subjective Symptoms…………………………………………………………40
Police Involvement…………………………………………………………………..…41
Religion and Thelema on the Ward………………………………………………….…42
Side Effects from Psychiatric Drugs……………………………………………………57
Social Workers that Provided Treatment………………………………………………61
Supernatural Experiences and Hallucinations……………………………………….…62
Tribunals……………………………………………………………………………..…67
Ending Remarks……………………………………………………………………...…74

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ABSCO%DI%G
I have escaped, or in modern psycho jargon ‘absconded’, from Forston Clinic, in Dorset, and Linden, again
in Dorset, several times. Almost invariably I absconded in order to get plenty of alcohol in my system.
This again invariably led to the psychiatric staff phoning the police, who then would track me down and
hand me back into the capable hands of the nursing staff. The longest period of complete absconding was
only three days, one night of which was spent in Poole police station.

On one occasion I was banished to the outer garden, complete with eight foot high electro alarmed fence.
The reason for this was because I encouraged myself, and two other men, to refuse their oral medication.
To try and stop me ‘rioting’, I was told that I would to stay in the garden, without a cigarette. All I did then,
after entering the fenced in garden, was get a light for my roll up off the already smoking ember belonging
to a young man ****. This exacted the fury of the nurses who then locked us into the garden. All we did
then was chain smoke roll ups, continually lighting one fag of the previous. After twenty minutes of this the
bemused nurses said it was time to go back in. I refused to go back in.

I then walked up to the corner of the fence, and shifted my not insignificant bulk over it, ignoring the
warnings from the two female staff that I would hurt myself.

After successfully traversing the green metal fence, the staff resigned themselves that I have escaped and
walked back into the ward. They would have then phoned the ‘busies’, or police force.

Although I had had my mobile phone confiscated, I had my wallet on me, about fifteen quid, and most
importantly a membership card of the recently opened gym and health spa that was located about two
hundred yards away. I was also wearing a black suit that did not make me look like an escaped mental
patient, or a stereotypical patient anyway, whatever that means! A quick stroll down the hill lead me to the
gym, which as it happens used to be a psychiatric chapel in the days when Herrison Hospital looked after
the 2000 or mental patients, rather than the 32 patients that North Dorset Primary Care Trust fostered over.
I simply showed my membership card, bought a cup of tea, and asked the proprietor to phone me a taxi to
take me to Dorchester (about five minutes drive). I had enough cash to pay for the taxi, and I knew that my
benefits card have a few hundred in it.

A mixture of nervousness and exhilaration plagued me in the twenty minutes or so that I waited for the taxi.

I got to Dorchester and proceeded to get very drunk on Stella Artois and the odd Jack Daniels. After about
four hours the cops got me and took me back to Forston Clinic.

It does a great deal for the dejected morale of the average mental patient to know that someone has escaped,
and those returned to treatment after absconding enjoy an ephemeral ‘celebrity status’. I was so drunk on
that occasion that I ended up going naked around the confines of the ward, whilst smoking my pipe and
drinking decaffeinated tea. If I remember correctly the hangover was exquisitely embarrassing. All in all it
was just a piece of ‘entertainment’ for the other inmates – completely and totally at my expense.

On another occasion I absconded from Linden, which has no fences (it is a Community Support Unit rather
than a Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit like Forston). They have confiscated my cash, but also strangely
made me sign a form saying that my possession were my own responsibility – a kind of protocol disclaimer.
I signed it but also included a marginalia that this ‘responsibility’ also, by definition, that my cash was also
up to me to look after. They promptly gave me my money back, and I walked – eventually into the closest
pub: The Admiral Hardy.

I sunk a few jars there, probably two pints at the most, and ordered a taxi into town. I then withdrew all my
benefits, and went to a pub called the Cutter Hotel, and proceeded to drink a few more. Eventually I had the

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brainwave of visiting Wareham, which had the benefit of being quite a distance from the psychiatric ward,
and also held the prospect of an adventure.

The barmaid at the Cutter knew a taxi driver, and we settled on the princely sum of forty pounds to cover
the journey. In retrospect this was a massive mistake. I ended up being drunkenly abusive, even racist
(which is out of character for me), to the Wareham locals. Sooner of later the police caught up with me. I
resisted arrest, got sprayed with CS gas, got handcuffed and worse. I spent the night in a cell, got about an
hour’s sleep (if you can call drunken collapse ‘sleep’). In the morning the custody sergeant gave me an on
the spot eighty pound fine. I also got a legal document about the CS gas that they squirted into my eyes
stating the active ingredient (which I forget) and the consoling statement that it was only five per cent
concentrate. Jokingly I said that that was a coincidence because I had been drinking the five per cent Stella
all night! This cheered things up a bit.

Even better, when they handed me my possessions I got a brown envelope with 125 quid in it!

I was now in Poole, and proceeded to find a J.D. Wetherspoons because I knew they opened early.

So I kept on drinking like a monster and ended up loosing a few hours in a blackout. That night the Poole
police found me again (after unsuccessfully trying to get a night’s rest in a kebab shop), they then tried to
get me admitted to a mental home called St. Annes in vain. Eventually they drove back to Forston Clinic.

A Doctor B. gave me a quick physical, a few lorezepam. She asked me, in the interview room (or 136
room) how I felt; being totally honest I responded with a single word, “euphoric”. And I went on to have a
very ‘pyschedelic’ night’s sleep – for some reason in my life being incarcerated in police cells and
hallucinating violently go hand in hand.

ALCOHOL A%D ME%TAL ILL%ESS

After about ten years in the psychiatric system being labeled as a paranoid schizophrenic, I eventually
became promoted into the distinguished community of the ‘dual diagnosed’. At the time of writing I am a
paranoid schizophrenic AND someone who suffers from ‘harmful use of alcohol’. It is strange that what my
close friends worked out in a matter of days took the gang of overqualified doctors nine years to spot.

Indeed, my history of hospitalization is closely related with a love/hate relationship in respect of alcohol. I
can go as far as saying that almost EVERY time I have been locked up has something to do with being
inebriated. The fact that Weymouth has 80 or so pubs is not a small factor in the equation.

Generally what has happened is that a night of innocent drinking sooner or later turns sour, I get arrested,
the police type my details into one of their databases, they find out I am ‘mentally ill’, they then get in what
is called an ‘appropriate adult’ (generally an Approved Social Worker or Community Psychiatric Nurse),
and the psych member sees how bad I look, sound and smell. And most of the time a stay in hospital is
recommended – either for ‘drying out’, alleviation of symptoms, but most often for both.

I do not refer to myself as either an ‘alcoholic’ or a ‘consistent drinker’. Without doubt I am a ‘binge
drinker’, and a fully paid up member of ‘binge drinking Britain’. And believe it or not I am a strong
exponent of ‘controlled binge drinking’, whether or not that is a contradiction in terms. To be a puritanical
binge drinking involves a good stint of alcohol induced insomnia; and as one avoids the bad combination of
antipsychotic drugs mixed with booze, the neuroleptic withdrawal from the pills only helps one to go on
extreme spells of sleeplessness. (In fact it has been established in my notes for years now that my ‘relapse
signature’ is a blend of insomnia, not complying with medication and gargantuan amounts of the ‘devil’s
brew’.)

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And along with senseless booze binging you can add the inexorable incidences of taking other drugs, being
promiscuous and on occasion being physically violent to property, and swearing at people (people who
normally, if one was sober, one would not even look at in the wrong way). It is because of all that that I
envy people who are ‘consistent drinkers’, like my father who has been drinking for 55 years, even though I
could count the number of times I have seen him properly drunk on the fingers of one hand.

CA%%ABIS A%D ME%TAL ILL%ESS

I once sent a long letter to my Member of Parliament about this drug, he then sent it to the Home Office as
he thought it was an expedient narrative and a good first hand account. The gist of this letter was that
cannabis, at the time a Class B drug and now a Class C drug, should be reclassified to a Class A drug. I
know that stance will not make me popular, but you must remember that my schizophrenia was largely
caused by this stuff.

Clinicians and psychiatrists have been saying for a long time that marijuana causes ill health both physical
and mental, and as someone who smoked it for many years I agree.

A lot of dope smokers talk about feeling ‘paranoid’ and ‘paranoia’ as a kind of inevitable side effect of the
drug – this to me is just the beginnings of schizophrenia. There was a documentary of TV a few years ago
called ‘Cannabis Psychosis’ that made the following point that schizophrenia would invariably develop in
someone if they: a) started smoking at a young age, b) had a chromosomal predisposition towards the
illness, c) smoked large amounts (‘caning’) and d) smoked one of the stronger varieties such as ‘super
skunk’, ‘Purple Haze’, ‘Silver Haze, ‘AK47’ etc. I fit into all these categories; although guessing about
point b) I think I do have some kind of genetic probability as mental illness is rife in both sides of my
family.

Anyway in this letter I stated that cannabis strength has increased a great deal since the 1960’s with a
multitude of different plants developed through a highly aggressive breeding and hybridization program.
My M. P. responded that THC levels in cannabis had been monitored since 1996, but by then the breeding
programs, in Amsterdam for example, had already been going for decades! So little is known about exactly
how much stronger the dope is, but I know for a fact that it is pretty bloody strong.

And no matter what others say, I know that I had my first schizophrenic attack in a hostel by the Red Light
District of Amsterdam. I don’t want to do into details but let’s just say I started ‘hearing voices’ one night
and it has taken about ten years to get rid of them (if at all)!

In stark contrast to alcohol, when people are stoned they generally just loaf about and appear quite relaxed.
They can sit there for hours very peacefully, and it was probably partly on this observation that the drug was
decriminalized. But what you don’t notice is the mental turmoil some of them are going through. This can
cause them to dissociate from the paranoia and over time can lead to schizophrenia, Multiple Personality
Disorder and/or Dissociative Identity Disorder. I also have reason to believe that the lethargy caused by
dope smoking could lead one into depression.

And as well as this the dope can give you brain damage and lead to retardation, although I must admit this is
not severe and even in bad cases can be remedied given enough time and abstinence.

But what really annoys me about my own case is that fact that my illness was labeled as drug released
rather than drug induced. In other words I would have, according to the psychiatrists, gone mad even if I
had not touched a single drug my entire life. I wholeheartedly disagree with is. When I was a relatively
innocent child I was fine, even though I may have acted out I was not suffering in the same degree I did
when I was ‘high’ on various drugs.

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But to end I would like to say one good thing about cannabis: it is very easy to stop. Half the time all an
addict needs to do for a better life is: a) make a firm decision to stop (this is usually made after reaching an
emotional threshold about how unpleasant the drug can be) and b) get a new circle of friends that don’t use
drugs or go to rehab. I quit dope many years ago and, with a few negligible exceptions, have never looked
back.

Schizophrenia and hash don’t mix!

CARE I% THE COMMU%ITY

After quite a while in Minterne ward at Forston Clinic I was assigned a Community Psychiatric Nurse
(CPN). This was a balding and bearded middle aged man called ****. He was a Bachelor of Philosophy, a
strict vegetarian, married to a political ‘high up’, and was at one time a card carrying member of the
Communist Party. In quite a refreshing vein the conversations we had rarely revolved around my level of
‘mental wellness’. We played chess, talked about philosophy (which for me meant the teachings of Aleister
Crowley), met over coffee, we even bumped into each other in the pub a few times – although he said that
he couldn’t talk to me over a drink because it would be ‘professionally inappropriate’. I really liked ****.
He helped me find decent accommodation and government benefits, stood up for me when the psychiatrists
went on a wrangle, and most importantly I felt I could confide in him ‘off the record’ if you will.

It was a shame when he had to retire a few years early because of a respiratory complaint. His favourite line
of official psychopolitical rhetoric was to establish the ratio between the ‘nature’ of the illness and the
corresponding ‘degree’ to which I was supposed to be suffering. All the talk of ‘nature and degree’ has
never left me!

But **** was put out to pasture, and a young lady called **** was assigned to keep tabs on me. I am not
sure if she too is vegetarian, but she loved yoga, and running marathons and other feats of athletics. She is
my CPN at the time of writing.

You see the things is that to keep you in hospital you need to be under the Mental Health Act 1983;
however, you can be released from hospital and still kept under a Section of the MHA. This effectively
means that you do not have be, strictly speaking, ‘unwell’ to be readmitted – you just simply have to break
the condition of your leave (Section 17 of the MHA), which for me was abstinence from alcohol. And this
is where the CPN comes in. Of all the people working under the psychiatric umbrella these CPNs must eat
more ‘porky pies’ (lies) than anyone else.

In this connection, I used to lie a great deal to get out of hospital, but eventually the staff ceased to trust me
in the slightest. Eventually I learned that it was best to be honest, and that to overemphasize ‘part’ of the
truth, and to leave out gory details, was preferable to bare faced lies and fabrications. When answering
questions thrown at you by CPNs you have be aware of various rhetorical devices and indeed it would be
good training for a career in politics. I don’t want to do into too much detail, I will just say that generally
what happens is you are asked extremely vague and open ended questions, and the doctor or nurse expects
you to ‘incriminate’ yourself whilst they are scribbling away in your mental health notes.

Below I relate some more about the CPNs I have had dealings with.

CO%FIDE%TIALITY
My grudge against psychiatric ‘confidentiality’ is quite simple: a great deal of new patients believe that
what they say, and the behaviours they exhibit, will go no further than the ward within which they have

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found themselves. This is bullshit. At the very least, depending on the length of your psychiatric ‘career’,
many different doctors, senior nurses, nurses and even ‘nursing assistants’ (with only a few weeks training),
Occupational Therapists, lawyers, Community Psychiatric Nurses and so on, may have on occasion recourse
to analyze your mental health notes. So it is like saying that being ‘schizophrenic’ is secret amongst, say, a
hundred or so mental health professionals! (In contrast to this if one sees a counselor he will not say boo to
a goose, let alone keep a detailed written record.)

And if that wasn’t enough, if you are diagnosed as mentally ill (and not even with a recognized diagnosis –
having hard contact with the system is enough) the police will have this recorded on their databases. This is
also the case with Customs and Excise, and with the DVLA. And if that isn’t enough your mental health
notes are kept for a significant time after one’s death, if not archived for good!

And of course remember that you share the ward with other patients, some of whom may talk about you
behind your back; not to mention a plethora of visitors that will share the ward with you!

And if you manage to relocate after all that mudslinging, you had better make sure that you are off
medication like antipsychotics because frequently they are only prescribed for mental illness such as
schizophrenia. Trying to get a prescription abroad would effectively be an ‘admission of guilt’.

Forgive me if I am wrong, but I believe that until 1991 a mental patient was not allowed to look at his
mental health notes, period. Now you can peruse your notes whilst supervised, if a Consultant Psychiatrist
gives the go ahead.

CO%FISCATIO% OF PROPERTY
One thing that is part and parcel of being an ‘acute’ psychiatric patient is having various items taken from
you.

Priority number one is to confiscate items that could cause actual physical harm: razors, lighters, ‘ligatures’
(belts, shoe laces, braces etc.) and even heavy blunt objects.

However I also had my computer confiscated (although at one time in the past they were permitted), as well
as my memory stick even though they had a computer in the Occupational Therapy department and the staff
would be able to see what I had filed on it.

Worse than this, although I was allowed them in the past, certain pieces of literature by Aleister Crowley
(the famous Victorian polymath and wizard) that were of a religious as well as occult value to me, were
taken from me. Even a book I had written myself was taken away because it involved the Crowleyan, or
Thelemic, style of so called ‘occultism’. Various different rationales for confiscating this literature were
given, but they all revolved around the superstitious fear of Crowley that stems from newspaper articles
written about him in the 1920s’. I wrote a long letter complaining about this but I fear it only caused to
make the staff to marshal their Xian/scientific forces against yours truly. I suppose at the end of the day that
psychiatry and medieval-style ceremonial magick do not mix!

Some people, considered as suicide risks, had their belts and shoe laces confiscated, in a similar fashion to
what is done in police Custody Suites. We were not allowed lighters at all because of potential arson; we
had to use a big coil style lighter that was riveted to the wall of the smoking room. Funnily enough, I
remember one female patient who had found away around this – an electric hair dryer! I might have bought
a hair dryer myself, but unfortunately I had shaved my head!

And of course the Minterne ward of Forston had its fair share of self mutilators (known more politically
correctly as ‘self harmers’). These pour souls were watched whilst they shaved themselves to reduce the

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chance of them falling back into old habits (digressing slightly I should mention that some people were not
even allowed to wash themselves on their own to reduced the risk of them drowning). Even though I only
had a long distant, and relatively minor, history of self harm, ‘sharps’ were seriously prohibited – to do my
origami in my room I had to use plastic scissors, and even that option was first ‘discussed with the team’!

Pornography was not allowed, unless you found it in a tabloid newspaper. 18 year old certificate movies
were also prohibited in general. Some exceptions were made, from time to time – and indeed pornographic
DVDs smuggled in…(where there’s a will, there’s a way).

Mobile phones were a big no-no too. The reason for this, which I still don’t believe, was to prevent them
interfering with the localized system of alarms that were set up on the ceiling. However we did have a
payphone (although numbers like 999 and the operator, and premium rates numbers were barred).

If a risk of theft, or absconding, was prevalent one could expect to have one’s cash and bank cards locked
up in the safe, or sometimes in the lockable drawer in one’s room.

Some of the long term patients had their cigarettes or tobacco rationed out to stop them smoking it all in one
go.

I have even heard one Forston veteran complain that he had had pens and paper confiscated. The reason
why? He was innocently keeping note of what was going on around him! Surely free speech and freedom
of expression does not apply to at least some people held under the MHA! In a similar vein I reasoned to
the staff that if my laptop was confiscated due to the possibility that if could be ‘abused’ I asked if I was
allowed a type writer (that could take floppy disks) in my room. No answer, or suggestion, was forthcoming
despite the fact I mentioned this in a creative writing group.

DESCRIPTIO% OF PSYCHIATRIC WARDS &

BUILDI%GS
Forston Clinic was built in the 1950s, forgive me if I am wrong but I think it was opened in 1958 as the
‘acute ward’ for the rest of Herrison Hospital. Looking at it now, even if most of its interior is ‘clinical’, it
is quite rickety and could do with some attention to the brickwork. It is definitely in the vein of
‘functionalist’ architecture. It is in spacious grounds, mainly composed of a fastidiously mowed lawn (I was
told the grounds per se are worth £6 000 000), but the area next to Melstock House (the elderly psychiatric
ward) has Zen type shingle and circular gardens. Between Melstock House and Foxbrake House (now
offices, but at one time housed some elderly folk) in the north there is a small copse. South of Forston
Clinic you have the large village of Charlton Down, which although mainly newly built houses, also consists
of some homes from the redeveloped Herrison Hosptial complex (which was once a massive psychiatric
autonomous community).

There is no fence as such surrounding the entire headquarters, and anyone could walk in (perhaps to pass in
contraband to patients) and they do. However, it would seem quite easy to install a complete perimeter as
most of the edging already backs onto peoples’ back gardens.

Minterne ward has a linoleum floor with offset squaring patterns (32 squares altogether), but the female end
has carpets, albeit very thin ones. The patients’ rooms normally have a sink, although the ‘hot’ water is
hardly more than warm; they have elaborate medical beds that can be raised and put at an angle; they all
have circular metal mirrors (glass it too dangerous one would assume). All the doors have slide style
windows on them so the staff can effectively spy on you at anytime. Although these doors lock on the
inside (so patients can stop other patients from entering) it is illegal for the nurses to lock you in your room
(Forston Clinic does not have a ‘forensic status’ like St. Anne’s in Poole). Until recently each room had a
double window, even though you could only raise them by a few inches; but now only one will open – this

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is because the bar between the windows could be used as a ‘hanging point’ that could potentially be used in
the wrong way by suicidal patients. Each room has a desk, a closet and a set of drawers. The closet and a
drawer in the desk can be locked by the staff so people can look after their valuables.

There are not unisex toilets or washing facilities. None of the rooms have their own showers or baths.

There is a lounge where men and women can socialize together, but don’t expect any hanky panky because,
like most doors that the patients use, there is a window for the staff to espy through. All the internal
windows are mesh laminated to prevent people hurting themselves.

On the ward, and off the ward, there exist several store rooms for people’s possessions. These generally are
quite disorganized and miscellaneously filled with bits and bobs people have left behind over the years.
The most used storeroom has a safe in it.

There are very few pictures on the walls, and any that are there are riveted to the wall and have plastic
covering rather than glass. In a similar way all the fire extinguishers are locked up in plastic boxes.

The outside garden for Minterne ward has quite a good selection of plants. It is half grass and half patio,
with only one concrete based bench. The fence surrounding it is a good eight feet or so, with a sensor alarm
wire along the top. Two video cameras watch what people are up to in the garden.

Occupational Therapy has a kitchen, with a pool table and air hockey table, a ‘relaxation room’ (which used
to be a gym), a quiet room with a small library, a small office for the staff, a pottery room, a woodwork
room, the main room (which has a couple of old computers and all the arty crafty stuff) and the garden. The
garden is tiny. I remember during smoking time this little garden would have three or four agitated smokers
going backwards and forwards trying not to step on each others’ toes.

The distinction between being on the ward, with relatively little to latch onto, and the OT department with a
myriad of works of art on the walls, was quite acute.

And I cannot forget the elderly ward, known as Melstock House. I was told by a few different people that
this was originally designed to treat juvenile drug addicts, but now it houses the over 65 mentally ill
brigade. It is oval in shape, and only has a ground floor. Every room has its own washing facilities, and
each of the 16 patients have their own room. Inside it has a little ‘forest’ of sorts that reaches up to a
skylight. A large segment of the ground floor is devoted to the patients’ seating arrangement, which is a
circle of inwardly facing armchairs and sofas. There is a shingle garden outside, and two other inwardly
facing circular brick gardens. Unlike Minterne ward, the elderly living room has wonderful views of the
hills in the west. And also unlike Minterne, the elderly contingent have resource to drink caffeinated tea
and coffee!

DIAG%OSIS A%D PROG%OSIS

I was quite honest about my symptoms in the early days (although I did learn to lie eventually); indeed it
was a police doctor eleven years ago who asked my how I got a deep cut on my left hand, I told him it was
self inflicted. He then asked me the 64 million dollar question, “Do you hear voices?”, to whichh I quite
innocently replied, “Yes, all the time.” I was then carted off by ambulance to Forston.

After a few nebulous queries from a Consultant Psychiatrist, I was very quickly labeled as paranoid
schizophrenic.

Schizophrenia is the modern term for what used to be called dementia praecox. It is a convenient umbrella
term, a generic to end all generics, that basically means that you have a subjective perception that seriously

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differs from everyday normality. It encompasses hallucinations of any or all of the five senses. With this
uncommon perception, schizophrenics frequently develop unusual belief systems, usually of a conspiratorial
nature in which the sufferer feels persecuted.

Most schizophrenics ‘hear voices’. The protocol questions that the psychiatrist ask are typically, “Is the
voice of someone you know? Is the voice inside or outside your head? How often do you hear it? Do the
voice(s) tell you to do things? Does the voice, or voices, run a commentary on what you are doing?” etc.

I should add that out of the dozens of schizophrenics I have met, and discussed the illness in depth with, I
have never met two the same. I am sure most of the doctors would concur with this as well.

My diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia is one of the most stigmatized diagnoses. If you watch the news
you will know that most people who are mentally ill and attack or kill someone have this label. Not only
that but my illness apparently was not ‘drug induced’ (by cannabis) but ‘drug released’. In other words I
would have become unwell even if I had never smoked a joint in my entire life.

Although I now consider myself a psychiatric survivor, eleven years ago this label of paranoid
schizophrenia became my proverbial ball and chain.

I have been interview by something like a dozen psychiatrist and they all agree as to my diagnosis.

I am also diagnosed as having ‘harmful use of alcohol’, which although having a very unscientific
nomenclature means that if I even start to drink moderately, and they find out (and believe me they have
breath detection devices) they may ‘nip it in the bud’ and Section me before I become too unwell. This
being ‘proactive rather than reactive’ type of preemptive analysis is basically a complete pain in the *** and
could be interpreted as an infringement of my civil liberties.

In terms of medication just about all of the antipsychotics I have been prescribed are exclusively treatments
for schizophrenia. This is a real problem if one decides to travel or relocate because you will end up
possibly asking a foreign doctor for drugs that he will know to be only used with schizophrenics (in other
words a reality deviant or what used to be called a witch). This foreign doctor will probably consider
having you locked up for assessment or maybe even treatment. In effect this means that I will probably
have to come off the drugs before I relocate to Sicily (a pipe dream of mine for quite a while). This whole
thing throws doubt onto the confidentiality ratio of psychiatric treatment as a whole.

At my last Mental Health Review Tribunal I briefly heard it mentioned that there has been some
prevarication about whether or not I have Schizo Affective Disorder instead of the diagnosis mentioned
earlier. This basically means I may have schizophrenia combined with elements of manic depression (a
jargon term for having mood swings). This diagnostic diversion stems from the fact that the ward
environment is so boring at times, and so oppressive, that one instinctively makes up one’s own
entertainment. Basically, if you want to stay sane you have to be a little bit of a clown. In the same way
that someone in solitary confinement might recite poetry to pass the time, the mental patient ‘larks about’
and indulges in ‘monkey business’. A person in the community would occupy himself with something more
gainful, but in the ward there is so little to do except muck about that most people appear to have mood
swings or ‘manic depression’.

On a funnier historical note I would have been diagnosed years ago with ‘drapetomania’. This is what the
doctors would diagnose the negro slaves (in the days of severe apartheid) after they ran away from the
plantations, or mines, or kitchens etc. So I suppose I am a Paranoid Manic Depressive Schizoid, with
Alcoholic and Drapetomaniacal Tendencies. Personally I think someone is ‘barking up the wrong tree’!
And if you are offended I have spent eleven years to earn my sergeant stripes of engrained cynicism. (Woof
woof!!)

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DIAG%OSTIC ALPHABETICAL LISTI%G

Below is an alphabetical list of psychiatric labels, nouns and adjectives in general. There are 199 different
terms in total. They are taken from a book that was based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Fourth
Edition (DSM IV):

Acute dystonia, Acute exacerbation, Acute psychosis, Acute stress disorder, Adjustment disorder, Agnosia,
Agoraphobia, Akathisia, Alcohol dependence, Alogia, Alzheimer’s type dementia, Amnestic disorder,
Anhedonia, Anorexia nervosa, Anterograde amnesia, Antisocial personality disorder. Appetite disturbance,
Attentional deficit, Autonomic hyperactivity, Avoidant personality disorder, Avolition

Behavioural disinhibition, Bipolar I disorder, Bipolar II disorder, Blocking (speech), Blunted affect, Body
dysmorphic disorder, Borderline personality disorder, Bradykinesia, Breathing related sleep disorder, Brief
psychotic disorder, Bulimia nervosa

Cardinal feature, Cataplexy, Catatonic, Catatonic type schizophrenia, Cholestatic jaundice, Chronic mood
disturbance, Chronic worry, Circadian rhythm sleep disorder, Circumstantiality, Clanging, Clinical history,
Cluster A personality disorders, Cluster B personality disorders, Cluster C personality disorders,
Continuous paranoid type, Conversion disorder, Cyclothymia

Degree of hopelessness, Delirium, Delusional disorder, Delusions, Dementia, Dementia pugilistica,

Dependent personality disorder, Depersonalization, Derealization, Disorganized type schizophrenia,
Dissociative amnesia, Distractibility, Double depression, Dyskinesia, Dysmorphic disorder, Dysphoric,
Dyssomnia, Dysthymic disorder, Dystonia

Echolalia, Echopraxia, Emotional turmoil, Erotomanic delusions, Excessive euphoria, Excessive

somnolence, Extrapyramidal side effects

Factitious disorder, Factitious psychosis, Flat affect, Flight of ideas, Frank delusions

Gender identity disorder, Generalized anxiety disorder, Grandiose delusions, Gross disorganization

Hallucinations, Heroin dependence, Histrionic personality disorder, Homicidal ideation, Hypersexuality,

Hypervigilance, Hypochondriasis, Hypomanic episode

Ideas of reference, Identifiable precipitant, Idiopathic, Illusions, Inflated self esteem

Jealous type

Lability of mood, Leaden paralysis, Life stressors, Loosening of associations

Magical thinking, Major depression, Major depressive episode, Malingering, Manic, Marked stressors,
Melancholic, Miosis (pinpoint pupils), Mixed episode, Mood congruent, Mood incongruent, Mood
pathology, Motor immobility, Mutism, Mydriasis (dilated pupils)

Narcissistic personality disorder, Narcolepsy, Neologisms, Neuroleptic exposure, Neuroletpic malignant

syndrome (NMS), Nihilistic, Nocturnal myoclonus, Nocturnal polysomnography, Non-bizarre delusions,
Nystagmus

Obsessive compulsive disorder, Obsessive rumination, Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD),

Occupational dysfunction, Oculogyric crisis, Olfactory hallucinations, Organic etiology, Organic factors,
Overmedication, Oversedation

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Panic disorder, Paranoid ideation, Paranoid personality disorder, Parturitions, Peripheral anticholinergic
blockade, Persecutory delusions, Perseveration, Persisting amnestic disorder, Pervasive anhedonia,
Pervasive depressed mood, Pervasive fatigue, Photosensitivity, Post partum onset, Post traumatic stress
disorder (PTSD), Postpartum onset, Poverty of speech, Premenstrual dysphoric disorder, Premorbid social
functioning, Preoccupation, Pressured speech, Primary hypersomnia, Primary insomnia, Pseudodementia,
Pseudoseizure, Psychomotor agitation, Psychomotor retardation

Rapid cycling, Rejection sensitivity, Residual type schizophrenia

Schizoaffective disorder, Schizoid personality disorder, Schizophrenia, Schizophreniform disorder,

Schizotypal, Schizotypal personality disorder, Sexual indiscretion, Side effect profile, Simple delusions,
Situationally bound panic attacks, Situationally predisposed panic attacks, Sleep apnea, Sleep architecture,
Sleep paralysis, Social dysfunction, Social phobia, Social reticence, Somatic delusions, Somatization
disorder, Somatoform disorder, Specific phobia, Stupor, Substance induced psychotic disorder, Substance-
induced anxiety disorder, Suicidal ideation

Tactile hallucinations, Tangentiality, Tardive dyskinesia, Toxin exposure, Trichotillomania

Undifferentiated type schizophrenia, Unexplained panic attacks

Vascular dementia

DOCTORS THAT PROVIDED TREATME%T

There have been several, I would say about a dozen all of which were based with the North Dorset Primary
Care Trust (nowadays the Dorset Primary Care Trust), except for one or two who used to work for the Trust
but came in to provide a supposedly impartial second opinion.

The first and probably the most memorable was Dr. ****. He was a handsome man in his late thirties, a
consummate and respected professional (not merely a psychiatrist but a ‘Consultant’) who always dressed
like a kind of swanky Italian and sported a trimmed goatee and expensive looking spectacles. He would
normally begin our interviews by saying, “You have a serious mental illness”, or words to that effect. He
was my doctor for several years, but now works his profession dealing with Her Majesty’s prisoners and
probationers. To my best recollection he is the only doctor I have threatened (with gesticulation) to actually
punch – but I suppose that is an occupational hazard of sorts. He also turned me into a pioneer of a new
‘novel’ antipsychotic called Olanzipine (see elsewhere). I remember him quite fondly.

There was also Dr ****, who was also my dear mother’s doctor for quite a while. She was quite an odd one
and I don’t recall much about her.

Then, when I was back in Weymouth, I dealt with the infamous Dr. ****. She is the closest approximation
to a pure hybrid of Consultant Psychiatrist and Dumb Blonde anywhere in the mental health system. She
has admitted to me on one occasion that I ‘scare her’. Whatever. However, I think she is well meaning.
Most of her decisions as regards my treatment are based on the notes that are written when she is absent.
For her age she is very attractive indeed.

Then there was the ‘temporary’ Dr. ****. He was just filling in an administrative gap between more
permanently employed doctors. He was a Scotsman, of the well to do variety. His only real contribution to
my treatment was to increase the amount of Risperdal Consta injected into my bottom (every two weeks)
after every instance of me absconding and getting drunk – this carried on until I was being given 50% over

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the maximum dose as recommended in the British National Forumulary (BNF).

Dr. **** turned up next. He was a very calm man who dressed more casually than most of that ilk. Of all
my doctors I think I liked him the most, despite his facial twitch. Most psychiatrists, indeed most medical
officers, have appalling handwriting – but he would sign his letter ‘n’s as flat lines for some reason. His
biggest crime was to accuse me of using ‘neologistic speech’; this basically means using words that don’t
exist – a neologism is strictly speaking a ‘new word’. I do not agree with this and simply think that my
vocabulary in some fields is higher than his; this is not conceit on my part, I am quite sure that the fact I
have read a great deal of antiquated books has left me not realizing every now and again that people are
flabbergasted by what I spit out. I may admit to the occasion effective neologism only if Dr. **** admits to
a highly tangential form of handwriting – I leave it to the reader to decided which is worse!

Shadowing all the consultants under heaven we have Dr. ****, a man of undetermined ethnicity and even
more undetermined accent of speech. This doctor did at least ‘call a spade a spade’. I found myself talking
more slowly than usual because I suspected he had difficultly catching my drift. Along with all the other
docs he concurred that I was paranoid schizophrenic, but unlike the other Registered Medical Officers
(RMOs) he not only agreed that alcohol was bad for me, but that I should drink orange juice! I must admit
he was quite lenient when it came to giving me leave. I am unsure whether or not he could make head or
tail of my book about Thelemic magick (A Glossary of Thelema). He really dropped his sword during one
of my Mental Health Review Tribunals when, after being asked to provide medical evidence, kept repeating
that my ‘injection’ was in fact a ‘good injection’.

One doctor that actually ended up, if the grape vine has indeed produced a vintage this year, in an institution
herself we Dr. ****. She was an elderly, wrinkled, short and rather spiteful piece of nasty work. I
remember after informing her of one of my drug indulgences that I was not certain what the pill I took was,
she responded, “It was probably Ecstasy.” I then said, “I don’t know what it was, all I know is that it had a
smiley face on it.”. Then came the sublime retort, “If it had a smiley face it was definitely ecstasy…” This
only leads me to believe that the reason she was committed may be more illicit than most suspect.

A one Dr. **** actually tried to prescribe me something called ‘Maxepa’ which is basically cod liver oil of
a strength three times anything available over the counter. This would take months to work, I was assured,
but the diarrhea it caused made me give it up after a few weeks. This chap was a really nice guy, and was a
‘shadow’ to Dr. ****. He must have been in his fifties but was quite sprightly and he had obviously taken
good care of himself. I don’t really remember much of what he said, but I do remember that him and his
immediate superior agreed upon every point of my treatment with textbook accuracy.

Most recently Dr. **** took the bull by the horns in putting me back on Clozaril. I only flirted briefly with
this olive skinned man, and to all intents and purposes he is OK. I think he might be even younger than me!

Last but not least, I cannot forget the only psychologist rather than psychiatrist that provided help. It took
me a good ten years to be officially referred to a psychologist (still a proper doctor I should add) but I got
there in the end! She was a slender, short and vital lady by the name of Dr. ****. Unlike the other doctors
up to that point she did not actually refer to my mental health notes, or add to them – instead she had her
own relatively tiny grey folder. I believe the fundamental difference between these two types of doctor are
that the psychiatrists treat and monitor physical symptoms (such as diet, sleep pattern, suicidal tendencies,
drug use, alcohol use, hygine etc.) whilst the psychologist is more involved with the mind, belief systems,
motivational structure and models like Maslow’s ‘hierarchy of needs’. We had about twenty sessions
together, during which we delved into the formative causes behind my illness. She seemed quite
preoccupied with my family tree for some reason. I remember gladly how she eschewed the primitive labels
that the psychiatrists used like ‘paranoid schizophrenia’ and ‘bipolar disorder’. However, our first session
was so intense that it was partly responsible for driving me back to the booze! She eventually left for
another Care Trust based in Southampton.

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DRUGS PRESCRIBED
For the sake of brevity I’ll list all the psychiatric drugs I have taken, mainly those prescribed for me but a
few that were not. Please forgive me for any probable spelling mistakes as I do not a copy of the BNF
(British National Formulary) with me.

Chlorpromazine – This was never prescribed for me but my friend had a bottle, and he was sick of taking
them and didn’t mind me taking a whole container. This is a very old drug (I think from the 1950s) and can
be classically described as a tranquilizer or a hypnotic. I only took this stuff over one session and it made
me dreamy, and created the cocoon effect a bit similar to heroin or opium. However, like many psychiatric
drugs, it gave me nervous spasms in the extremities of the limbs – forgive me if I am wrong but I believe
this is called ‘dystonia’. If I am correct this drug is often given to prisoners, probably because it is cheap.
A famous expression in the clientele of psychiatry is the ‘Chlorpromazine shuffle’ – a movement disorder
created by prolonged use of the drug, and called by the doctors ‘tardive dyskenesia’ or just TD.

Citolopram or Cipramil – This is quite a modern antidepressant or SSRI (Selective Serotonin Reuptake
Inhibitor). I was only taking it for a few months, and I do not think it helped me. I only ever took the tiny
daily amount prescribed and do not know what it really does at elective doses. I jacked in taking this
rubbish after three months or so, with the doctors’ blessing. I am led to believe that it is quite widely used
for mild depression.

Clonazepam – This is a benzodiazepine similar to Temazepam a bit, and virtually identical to Lorazepam.
It is the longer lasting version of Lorazepam, for which it was prescribed for me stop me getting too
addicted to Lorazepam. In the conventionally applied small doses it just aids relaxation, in high doses it
produces elation, euphoria and mild hallucinations. Withdrawal problems can occur from stopping a regime
of regular small doses, and can also occur from taking one-off high doses. It, like all the benzos, is
potentiated, or elevated, by alcohol. I have really suffered from the withdrawal in the past, especially when
combined with alcohol. It can come through the glandular systems as a bad odour, especially when
withdrawing. My ex girlfriend could not believe how badly it made my sweat smell when I was gradually
withdrawing – this may have been partly responsible for our breakup. It is not so much used in Forston as
Lorazepam is.

Clopixal Acuphase – This is a ‘medication’ generally reserved for patients who become violent, and it is
only available as an injection. Normally it is given once a day for three days maximum. It makes people
sleepy and can literally knock you out for days. In people who have not had it before it can cause spasms
(known in the veteran community as ‘locking up’) that are extremely uncomfortable to say the least. This
adverse reaction has been fatal in the past, and probably will be in the future. To alleviate the symptoms of
‘locking up’ the nurses will normally administer procyclidine as an injection or oral liquid.

Clopixol or Zuclophenthixol – This is one of the older anitpyschotics. It is given as a small dark red tablet
daily, or a weekly depot injection; I have been on both. Eventually it was established that I had a ‘poor
history of oral compliance’ and I had to put up with the depot for about a year or so. This is one of the
worst drugs going. It reduces the sex drive quite a great deal and can cause a movement disorder known as
tardive dyskinesia – which I have had experience of. I believe it is only used these days because it is very
cheap. On top of all that you have to take procyclidine (see below) two or three times a day; if you do not
you will feel terrible, because literally your brain chemicals are being fundamentally thwarted. I remember
going without my procyclidine for days on end (I had taken them in overdoses because it made me high)
whilst on this depot and I am not exaggerating when I say it was a living hell. But strangely enough I have
met one individual who is on this depot who does not need any side effect medication. Some nurses refer to
this depot or tablet as an ‘aggressive medication’, which is to me a contradiction in terms.

Clozaril or Clozapine – This is what I am taking at the time of writing. It is a ‘last resort’ antipsychotic, and

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I think I am correct in stating that psychiatrists can only use it if at least two other drugs have been tried. It
was developed in the 1960’s but ending up killing a few people by effecting their white blood cells. It was
reintroduced along with the stipulation that clients had regular blood tests. The dose is anywhere from
300mg to the legal maximum of 900mg, but believe me that is still quite a margin for error. The biggest
side effects of this drug are overeating (I have the stretch marks to prove it!), and oversleeping; it also
makes you dribble in your sleep – many times have I woken up in the middle of the night desperately
choking, sometimes with acidic God knows what in my nasal passages. The good side of it is that it is the
best drug to avoid a movement disorder – in this respect it is the best of the best. It has the quickest
withdrawal and relapse signature of all. If you stop taking it in one go you will have your original
symptoms return in about four days, along with the notorious ‘rebound psychosis’. Basically what happens
is that people rely on the Clozaril to get a good night’s sleep – sometimes they take it for years. Eventually
your body forgets how to sleep without it, so if you stop taking it you become insomniac. On one occasion I
hardly slept for what must have been something like ten days! In my case I turned to alcohol to knock me
out, but this as you might expect only compounded the problem. When you start taking it the protocol is to
‘titrate’ the drug, in other words to increase the daily amount by careful increments. To someone who is not
titrated even one 100mg tablet can be devastating at best, and at worst fatal. The most I have taken at once
is 1000mg, or ten tablets, and I experienced the most horrible hallucinations of my life, a prolonged Out of
Body Experience, and the sensation of being continually smashed into the walls of bedroom – quite literally
being plunged into a kind of living hell. I am not employing poetic license in the slightest here…
Withdrawal sends one’s sex drive through the roof, it also makes a smell (which one friend described as
‘burnt wood’) come through the pores of the skin. My advice? Just take the prescribed amount and try not
to miss it for more than one dose. Take an exercise program; if you are putting one weight then rub in
vitamin E cream into your skin as this will reduce the stretch marks. Do not indulge in sexual activity soon
after taking it as it can (in my case invariably) stop one ejaculating despite having an orgasm – and I am not
sure what this does to one’s ‘plumbing’. I do not want to go into details but I believe Clozaril, in my
humble opinion, is the most likely antipsychotic to be employed by the military that is today used on
civilians.

Dihydrocodeine – I have only flirted briefly with this stuff on an illicit basis. It is known as ‘DF’ in the
black market. It to me is just another opiate type drug similar to heroin. It is taken quite widely in the
heroin community to cope with withdrawal. Can’t say much about this one, I have never known it to be
given to mental patients per se.

Haliperidol – Another nasty one here. People tell me the Nazis used this in the Holocaust in high doses as a
form of torture. It is sometimes given as an emergency injection for violent or very disturbed patients. It is
also given as a long term depot injection (with a different composition), or as a daily tablet. In my case I
have had it as an emergency injection, but also as a ‘tide over’ antipsychotic combined with other
antipsychotic medications. The rationale for this was at first because the Risperdal was not fully ‘adjusted’
in my system, and later because: ‘the nursing staff have noticed an improvement in you since it was
prescribed’. This stuff is really nasty, and almost as bad as Clopixol. Just thinking of those lime green
tablets gives me a shudder. Again it is probably used in our prisons, and in less developed countries simply
because it is cheap. Shame. In psychiatric veteran lingo it is referred to as ‘haldol’, and someone who has
been given it is referred to as being ‘haldolled’.

Lorazepam – This is the definitive ‘old favourite’ of the Dorset psychiatric wards. It is a benzodiazepine
and comes in a blue cigar shaped, or more rarely a white cylindrical, tablet. You can almost guarantee that
if you are new on the ward, and maybe not even necessarily displaying symptoms of distress, you will be
‘offered’ this drug. If you refuse then the whole farcical ritual of ‘if you will not take it orally then you will
get it in the bottom’ begins. It is a classic hypnotic and tranquilizer. I believe it was designed for people
who are ‘pre operative’; in other words those who are due for surgery in the morning and are having trouble
sleeping out of nerves. Indeed it even says in the leaflet that legally comes with the boxes of tablets that is
should not be given to people with a history of drug abuse (me), and for that matter people with a
‘personality disorder’! So why is it used? I will tell you – because it is dirt cheap (about five pence a pop).
Again, even though a maximum dose of four tablets a day is recommended, I have been prescribed 16
tablets (four taken four times a day) daily! And again it is difficult to withdraw both from long term minor

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use, as well as short term major indulgences. Symptoms of overdose include euphoria, nervous spasms,
hallucinations (especially seeing objects or people ‘breath’, ie. moving or shifting of their own accord),
prolonged sleep and in the morning you may feel like your frontal lobes are ‘shrinking’ or ‘tense’. Longer
term withdrawal can produce a strange ‘chemically’ type excretion in ones sweat, especially from the
armpits and groin. Lorazepam is also given as an injection for intractable patients, quite often in
conjunction with an injection of procyclidine which can really space you out a great deal. It has quite a
strong black market value.

Maxepa – This is a fish oil tablet given in yellow gelatinous capsules. It was prescribed for me as a direct
response to my schizophrenia rather than for general health benefits. I didn’t notice any difference
(although I had not completed the trial period of three months or so), and because it was giving me diarrhea
like symptoms I stopped taking it. I was not obliged to take the Maxepa like I would be with an
antipsychotic.

Methadone – I have never been prescribed this but I know it is used to treat heroin users, possibly in a
psychiatric setting, so I think it warrants inclusion. It comes as a thick, green and transparent liquid. It is
the medical establishment’s answer to heroin abuse. Years ago users could get a week’s, or even a month’s
amount in one go. Because addicts were selling it, however, the addicts now have to go to the pharmacists
every day to get their fix. I have taken it about three times, always after buying it from heroin addicts. It
makes you relaxed, euphoric and lethargic. On the negative side it can make you itch a great deal,
especially around one’s face. This drug has killed off quite a few people via overdose, a few of which I
have know personally. It generally comes in 50ml bottles. It is not really worth taking, and I have heard
that it is more addictive than heroin. I also heard that is builds up overtime in one’s bone marrow as a green
crystal deposit.

Olanzipine or Zyprexa – Dr. **** made me one of the first few people in the UK to go on to this drug, if
one doesn’t count the clinical trials. In fact this drug would have been ideal for me except that it gave me
quite intolerable nervous spasms (literally like shocks of bio electricity) in the feet, and sometimes even in
the hands, wrists and occasionally in the torso. As you might expect I stopped taking it once I was back in
the community, and quickly relapsed with my alert and well meaning fools of parents informing the doctor
of my ‘odd’ behaviour. Oddly enough I have never heard anyone else on this antipsychotic complain of the
spasms that I experienced. It is not available as an injection, but it does come as a ‘quicklet’. A quicklet is
a tablet that dissolves in the mouth very quickly, and this is used in hospitals to prevent ‘cheeking’ of pills –
in other words hiding them under the tongue and spitting them out in secret. This ‘cheeking’ is done by
those who dispose of their tablets, but also by people who stockpile their medication in order to overdose
later for various reasons, including suicide. This drug makes one overeat and oversleep, but not as badly as
Clozaril (see above) does. If I hadn’t have got the spasms I probably would still be taking it now. This
drug is good if you are worried about a movement disorder such as tardive dyskenesia (TD). I have heard it
mentioned that after the Olanzipine company had recovered their research and development costs, they then
introduced the quicklet tablet at ten times the cost. Even though I can’t verity the last sentence it is the sort
of thing most of the pharmaceutical industries would do. Money makes the world go round, and sometimes
makes it go pear-shaped!

Orphenadrine – This is a side effect pill. I was put on it during a short trial of Pipothiazine Palmitate. I was
told it was effectively the same as Procyclidine, but had less chance of being abused. I remember I did not
need this drug, as I probably would have when on Clopixol. I saved three tablets. One day I thought I
would take all three to see what it did. I was fine to begin with, chatting and making merry in the garden of
Linden ward. All of a sudden, about two hours later, I realized, with a shock, that I was a high as a kite! I
had to go and lie down, I felt very panicky and swore to myself that I would never do drugs again. I later
found out that ten of these little buggers can kill someone. I think they are ‘less liable to be abused’ not
because they don’t get you high, but because the high they give creates anxiety.

Pethadine – This is more a drug for acute pain rather than a psychiatric drug, but I want to include it here.
The first time I experienced it was at 15 years of age, after I had broken my ankle, when it was given as an
intra muscular (IM) injection. It got me high very quickly. And then about 13 years later I met a guy in a

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pub who offered me some in the tablet form. I was past caring through the booze, and took about six tablets
over the evening. I was acting very strangely that day, and quoting Enochian magick keys and other silly
stuff; actually I was suffering from the acute delusion that I was in fact the reincarnation of Aleister
Crowley. Eventually I ended up sleeping on the pavement unable to move. The third and last time I took
Pethadine was when another patient in Minterne ward smuggled some in. I can see how people get hooked
on this stuff.

Pipopthiazine Palmitate – This was given to me as an injection. It is categorized as not quite an old
antipsychotic, but at the same time not a new ‘atypical’ antipsychotic either. It is quite possible that I was
put on this simply because I had exhausted all the other chemical options, ie. it was the ‘drug of the month’.
I went from a massive dose of Risperdal Consta to a test dose of Pipothiazine. I was attracted initially to
this depot because it can be administered as infrequently as every four weeks – this meant to me that I could
travel abroad for three weeks, in theory, and come back to the UK without missing a dose. However the
doctors were cautious and gave it every two weeks instead. I can honestly say that the combination of
Risperidone and Pipothiazine made me potentially very dangerous. I kept on thinking, quite impulsively,
about hitting people and vandalizing stuff. I think this actually led to one quite violent incident that
occurred about two weeks after being put on a Pipothiazine depot (see elsewhere). Again the nurses agreed
that this incident (for which the police put me on a five year caution) occurred out of character because I
was not displaying any psychotic symptoms before it occurred. And, the proof being truly in the pudding,
when I was fully established on the Clozaril this hidden preoccupation with menacing violence diminished
and disappeared and has not bothered me for months. What I am saying is that ‘polypharmacology’, or
combining drugs, made me more violent and was consequently definitively unprofitable. The jargon for
reducing the amount of one drug, whilst increasing the amount of another, is ‘tapering’ or ‘cross tapering’.

Procyclidine Hydrochloride – Of all the demonic compounds that spend their lives locked up in the ‘jolly
trolley’ this stuff is the most mind blowing, toxic and dangerous of all. Total head fuck juice, without a
doubt. It is never given on its own due to the fact that it is a ‘side effect’ medication prescribed for ‘locking
up’ or the Parkinson’s type symptoms created by the older, and a few of the modern atypical, antipsychotic
meds. This stuff has a very strong black market value, and is known on the street as ‘cycles’. In small
doses it simply provides a very weak light headedness, and alleviates some of the crappy feelings associated
with drugs like Clopixol. In high doses, anything from 50mg to 100mg (please do not take more than 20
pops at once – its your funeral) it creates intense euphoria, a feeling of floating, heightened sexuality,
hallucinations, and the on the negative side an extremely dry mouth, a need to urinate often, dystonic
spasms and blurred vision. It also takes a good five days or so to get the toxicity out of your system. You
can also expect severe short term memory loss so intense that you will not be able to finish a sentence, even
inside your own head. This can funny to an observer, but extremely distressing to ‘cycles’ virgin. If you
want to be really crazy, like me, then mix a high dose with alcohol in which case you can expect ‘concrete’
hallucination, blackout, astral projection, paroxysm and even coma. Even though when I went into a coma
through it (a bottle of gin meets 24 procyclidine 5mg tablets) after 14 hours, if me friend had not have found
me when I was fitting I probably would have died, or at least have got brain, liver and kidney damage. And
guess what? When I came round from the coma I was still as high as a kite. One thing about this drug that
you wont hear anywhere else is the ‘secondary paranoia’ that it gave me. Because although when under the
influence of this stuff you don’t feel on edge in the slightest, you might be doing something totally innocent
say a couple of weeks or so later and then you might get an ‘anxiety attack’ or even a ‘panic attack’. In the
year or so that I was abusing this drug I constantly had these surges of paranoia and anxiety, my response to
which was to hide in a dark room and try to sleep, and other times to take more procyclidine. I noticed that
these symptoms stopped after the procyclidine was discontinued. I should also state, for the record, that the
effects are stronger if you are on an antipsychotic like Clopixol. I ended up getting prescribed the
maximum dose of this drug (30mg daily) after lying to my GP time after time, that I was still getting
Parkinison’s type symptoms, when the real reason was that I was addicted to the ‘buzz’. If your doctor
wants to put you on procyclidine remember that if you abuse it you are quite unequivocally ‘dancing with
the Devil’.

Risperidone Consta – I was initially put on this depot injection after Dr. ****. said it would reduce the
movement disorder I had at the time which was certainly caused by my Clopixol depot. I was assured it

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would reduce my leg shaking up and down (with the resonance of my Achille’s Heel). Time proved that it
did not markedly help my movement disorder. I was on this depot for quite a few months whilst in hospital.
Every time I relapsed into binge drinking, even if it was ‘controlled binge drinking’ my doctor, at that time
Dr. **** would up the dose by a fraction. This scenario endured for a while until I found myself on 50%
above the maximum recommended in the British National Formulary (BNF), that is a dose of 75mg
fortnightly. The prepackaged Risperdal packs only had syringes that went up to 50mg, so I ended being
injected twice, sometimes in each buttock by a different nurse! And, strangely enough, although I had heard
horror stories about Risperdal Consta and its side effects – I had none. Indeed, I found that, unlike the
majority of antipsychotics, this stuff mixed quite well with the booze, from the standpoint of hangovers and
early morning delirium tremens. The kind doctors gave up in the end, they stated ‘we cannot go any higher
with the Risperdal’ quite emphatically. And so I wound up back on the Clozaril tablets. Someone very dear
to me was on the same depot, I remember her crying about the needle violating her. But I must be careful
not to talk of others.

Subutex – I have only had one run in with this little bugger. It is a tablet used as a heroin substitute, that is
abused by people, generally by crushing it to a powder and snorting it up a nostril. I cannot vouch for it in
any authoritative sense because my experience of it was blunted by much alcohol on that particular night. I
suppose it was not much different from most of the natural or synthetic opiates. I do remember that it made
my face, especially my nose, itch terribly for something like two days. I think it may also contribute to one
becoming insomniac, and paradoxically enough to make one sleep for a long time.

Temazepam – I had an early encounter with this drug. My dear mother was prescribed this for some malady
or other, and I used to rifle the drugs’ cabinet and take. This was around the age of twelve or 13, and I used
to treat my circle of friends with a few of what was at the time quite an exotic drug – I suppose some kids
will always find drugs intriguing. It is just a plain and simple benzodiazepine that is generally used to help
people sleep. It used to be produced as a liquid filled ‘jelly bean’, the larger variety of which had the street
name of ‘green meanie’. After several years it is compounded into a powdered tablet, one would suppose
because opiate addicts used to take out the Temazepam liquid and inject it into their veins. Many years
after my innocent childhood indulgences it was prescribed for me to help me sleep (I think my restless
repose was because of the clinical environment, and probably because I can’t stand blankets over duvets). I
found that if would help me sleep as long as I went to bed immediately after taking it, but because it created
a mild euphoria, one would stay awake and enjoy the high. When the high wore off it was frequently more
difficult to sleep anyway! To this I must stress that my dreams were far more convoluted, cryptic and
obscure – to a certain degree my dreams became ‘faster’. Also the benefits of Temazepam wore off over
time as my body developed a natural tolerance, and then I was presented with the problem of gradually
withdrawing off them. Once I was told that I would not be allowed into Linden because I was drunk. After
much persuasion I ended up in my girlfriends house, could not sleep because I had no Temazepam, and
drunk a bottle of Pernod just to cope – as well as phoning up the Samaritans.

Trazedom – This was dished out by the well meaning Dr. ****. I was becoming more and more restless at
night and he promised it would help. And help it did. For about two weeks I got such good rest it would
make a baby jealous. But oddly I became increasingly manic, puerile and idiotic. Just out of sheer curiosity
I asked on of the night nurses to let me look at the clinic room’s copy of the BNF, that rested next to the
clinical apparatus as stalwart as the Bible on its lectern. He could hardly refuse, so I flicked onto the entry
for ‘Trazedom’ and found out, slack jawed, that it was a trycyclic antidepressant. My psychiatrist had told
me that it was for sleep, he had not given me an inkling that it was used to treat depressives. I promptly
discontinued it out of fears of a bad chemical reaction.

Zopiclone – This is a sleeping pill that I haven’t taken for about seven years. It does help you sleep, but
people take it for the ‘high’ more often than not. I think once I took ten, ended up loosing a few hours, and
wound up arrested for some sort of antisocial misdemeanor. It was so long ago that I do not remember
much about this one.

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ECO%OMICS OF TREATME%T
The prime example of psychiatric economics (as usual working against the clientele, or the patients) is the
example of the fences that keep people imprisoned in Forston Clinic. You see once upon a time there were
two wards in Forston Clinic: Upper Minterne and Lower Minterne. Those on the ground floor were kept
locked up most of the time in Lower Minterne. However, if one behaved oneself for two weeks or so then
one was elevated to Upper Minterne, and effectively had the freedom to dwell in the not insignificant
grounds. I remember these days with fondness; in the summer months it was actually fun to be a mental
patient in Forston! But eventually Upper Minterne was got rid of, and we all had to be fenced in…

The official line for this is because Minterne became a PICU (Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit) in order to
fill a logistical gap for such a place in the county of Dorset. However the real reason is because the old
ruins of the neighbouring Herrison Hospital had been partly converted and partly knocked down to make
way for housing (all done by the illustrious Bellway corporation); and to have mental patients walking
around the locality would have lowered the value of the new buildings. I suppose both these theories as to
why the patients are fenced in are equally true. But this is true: as the new buildings started to sell the
fences went up!

I suppose another thing hot on many peoples’ lips is the economic substrata of medication. I remember that
I was one of the first people in the UK to be prescribed Olanzipine. It didn’t work for me, but the point is
eventually the pharmaceutical company that made eventually recouped there research and development
costs; the price dropped significantly when other companies were allowed to reproduce the stuff. But guess
what? With perfect timing out comes the Olanizipine quicklet (in other words a pill that instantly dissolves
– this stops people spitting it out later)! And the price is sky high! I rest my case.

FIRST PERSO%AL E%COU%TER WITH PSYCHIATRY

You may not believe this but my first encounter with a psychiatrist was when I was five! At the time I was
at playschool, a lovely place called Drayton House in Guildford. I remember hiding in the bushes and being
simultaneously intrigued and terrified by the behaviour of the other kids. I don’t think I did a great deal of
socializing. Indeed I was labeled as ‘isolationist’, which is found in about one per cent of young kids. I can
even go back further than that. My mother tells me that I was the perfect baby and did not cry or make any
noise at all for the first two years of my life. But now I remember only very vague fragments.

Well the head mistress of Drayton House was concerned about me and told my dad to take me to see a
psychiatrist! My dad says he just went along with it and actually took me to a shrink. I do not remember
this. Well basically the shrink told him he could not work with someone so young, and told him where to
go!

FRIE%DSHIPS MADE
Over the last eleven years I would say that most of my social contact has been with people labeled as
‘mentally ill’, not only on the wards, but in the community at large. I have made and lost great and magical
friendships. I have even fallen in love with one of them, a lovely woman twelve years my senior, who now
avoids me like the plague.

One of the earlier friendships was with Mr. ****. We connected early on the subject of the esoteric,

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specifically the Tarot and the Tree of Life (which had become something of an obsession since my 18th
birthday – not as you might think because of Masonics, but simply because I bought a Tarot deck on my
birthday for reasons that completely escape me). We would play chess to pass the time, and when we were
both back in the community he would mentor me in ‘the game of the gods’. I would stay at his place once a
week because it was close to a Qabalistic study group in the town which he lived. He was quite isolated, out
of choice, and I think some weeks I was the only person he saw. His passion for the teachings of Crowley
was only over shadowed by his love of Kenneth Grant’s books. He tried to clue me up in regards to Grant
(who I think is still alive at the time writing) but I would rarely follow his clues. This man was my close
friend for many years, one could say he was my magical teacher, or at least he was one of the few people
who would discuss in detail the ‘arts of yesteryear’, when most people exhibited real or feigned utter
ignorance. He was a talented artist, architect and metaphysician amongst other things. However, our
friendship ended because of three things: alcohol, a very attractive woman and my own complete lack of
discretion. I think he forgives me, but maybe he bluntly avoids attempts at renewing the friendship because
he knows that he cannot teach me anymore, as is often the way within the esoteric world.

Around the same time that I met **** I met ****. This guy was the most literary gentlemen (in every sense
of the word) you could probably meet. He had read more books than most people have had hot dinners.
Although I have not seen him for years, I know he is well, and probably consuming more poetical
abstractions than ever before. This chap is a prime example of how perfectly normal people end up
Sectioned under the Mental Health Act. He was not only sane, but profoundly intelligent, a teetotaler, a
strict vegetarian, a non-smoker, and he probably only had minor skirmishes with drugs. I cannot imagine
**** ever attacking anyone - and I remind you that the bottom line of the MHA is that you can only Section
someone if they are a ‘real and present danger to themselves or others’. The fact is I not only met people in
the wards who were normal, but people who were BRILLIANT. This man is an initiate, if not in explicit
magick then its close cousin of the written medium. He did tend to frown upon my interest in Crowley, but
only with admonition, and in later years when I actually PRACTICED Thelema in Forston Clinic I think I
earned some of his respect (more on this later). The funniest thing about him was his poetry; during a quick
visit to his flat he began to read from a bulky manuscript – it was poetry without nouns! He used every verb
and adjective imaginable but avoided both the common and proper nouns like their were mines in a
minefield! When I mentioned this he smiled enigmatically and avoided the entire subject. It should be
stressed that this man was quite profoundly anti-psychiatry in general; he had read Thomas Szas and all the
others. If anyone could tackle the doctors on their own ground then it would be ****. But like many other
psychiatric friends he too is no longer within my sphere of influence – it maybe due to me having learned
my lessons from him. Only time will tell, just as only time can heal…

A volatile character was ****. He was an artist and scientist. An accomplished guitarist and lyricist, I
never beat him at chess either. One of his fascinations was mineralogy and fashioning trinkets. He
understood electronic music (I think at the moment he is trying to found a band). However, he was
staunchly anti all things Crowley, one could perhaps say he had a pathological hatred of the metaphysical.
As this could hardly be out of ignorance, I suspect it was because he was aware of the damage caused by the
meta narrative of the older religions, the wars engendered by simple semantics, the confusion created by
ontologists, and the corruptions of teleology (*!jeepers!* I can hear Dr. **** shouting ‘NEOLOGISMS’ all
over again!). One little adventure I had with him was climbing the rooftops of the ruins of the disused
Herrison Hospital. But alas, in this he beat me again – I could not correspond with his courageous
ascension of the rusty iron ladder of a water tower. You win again! I would be surprised if he was friendly
towards me, I expect every time my face pops into his head it is connected with the word ‘uncouth’. We
almost came to blows once in the smoking room of the clinic, but in a strange kind of way we could never
be reduced to fisticuffs. Ever played ‘slaps’ or ‘knuckles’? Well just try playing it slowly for once.

Years later I bumped into Mr. ****. He had been on the circuit for years, and like me had relatives
involved with mental care. He was into computers, and was of a punctual, precise yet bubbly nature. His
most entertaining skill as far as we mere mortals were concerned was his photographic recollection of song
lyrics. Although not the greatest singer in the world, he commanded complete attention of a room full of
smokers (their pinky-orange embers bobbing up and down in the dark) whilst he went through song after
song with what could not be described as a ‘silly’ voice, but what was quite certainly not a ‘normal’ voice.

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Great fun! He had a passing interest in old school metaphysics. One of our favourite lines was ‘We must
marry I.T. (Information Technology), and O.T. (Occupational Therapy) to meet E.T. (Extra-Terrestrial)’.
Which is basically what we did, as amateurs do. I do not expect he will phone me anytime soon; when my
face pops into his head he probably thinks of the words ‘wasted potential’.

And of course, with a mixed sex psychiatric ward like Minterne, I had the grace to meet some exemplary
members of the fairer sex. Most prominent in my mind is ****. I think she was younger than me, and quite
impressed with my black clothes (I was a ‘black rag man’ for quite a chunk of my career), and notorious
consumption of alcohol and cannabis. She was suffering from ‘multiple anxiety’ whilst I was very self
assured, and I thank it was a case of ‘opposites attract’. However, for the record, I did not befriend her in
Minterne but in a local social services hostel in Weymouth. Together we dabbled with alcohol, cannabis
and bamboo bongs, Tarot spreads and casual sex. Those were the days… I quite miss her but cannot pin
her down on the Web, when yours truly is quite publicly speeding down that old Information Superhighway.
Take the word ‘Minterne’, take away the initial letter and put a ‘t’ on the end and what do you get? Oh
what a wicked web we weave, when we make our minds up to deceive!

And then, of course, was the lovely and sexy Mrs. ****. We courted on Minterne ward, but only
consummated things months later. The sexual chemistry, at least as far as I was concerned, was immense.
She was twelve years older than me, but that just made my loins stir even more. She was a practical, down
to earth person, who had tried her best to take good care of herself. She lived in a village on the outskirts of
Dorset, and my infrequent but plentiful stays over gave me my greatest insight yet into village life; and the
painfully infrequent visits to the only pub insights into village politics. We went on day trips all over the
county, holding hands most of the time. She eventually tired of my idiosyncratic behaviour, my binge
drinking, my ‘unhealthy’ obsession with the Thelema, and quite possibly also my increasing weight. But the
bedroom politics were tremendous! I think we both learned valuable lessons from each other. Even though
she doesn’t even answer her phone to me anymore, if she phoned me up now I would wrapped around her
little finger. When my face pops into her head she probably thinks ‘satanist’. I might fictionalize the gory
lusting details in a novella if I ever find myself on Death Row.

And then we cannot forget the illustrious ****, again obviously female. The politics of this sensuality
warrant inclusion below (no pun intended!). She was totally away with the fairies, despite having an arts
degree, and coming from a noble and fine family. She did not shave her legs and armpits like most Western
Europeans, and this only added to her emphatic declaration of being ‘conceived in Witch Wood’ – wherever
that is… She also was a kind of naturist, which is OK in a nudist colony, but rather frowned upon in
Minterne ward, well frowned upon by the female nurses anyway. I remember sitting in the Occupational
Therapy garden, smoking away happily, and then (as if by magic) saw her lying in the sun completely nude.
All this was happening whilst the O.T. staff were busy colouring in bookmarks as usual. That must have
been the happiest five minutes of my life. Anyway more about that little number later (for readers gifted
enough to be reading the unexpurgated 11 volume edition of this book).

The young yet tragic **** also became a friend over a few odd months. She was ten years my junior, but
she must have had a soft spot for your humble and chubby narrator because she gave me a love letter. We
had a kind of platonic relationship over time. I even bought her a web cam and we would net it together.
This young lady was a self harmer. Many weeks passed and we only kissed once or twice. As she got
closer to being released her symptoms worsened. Finally she was allowed around Dorchester alone, but
around this time she stopped answering my text messages, and generally avoided me. I think she was too
young (you could almost say she looked 17, unless she spoke and then she was quite mature) to have a
proper relationship. I used to say to her we were having a ‘psychiatric and cybernetic romance’. After she
told me to get lost I remember crying for ages, even in public, I think because I was also modeling myself as
a protective ‘father figure’ as well as potential lover. She really cut herself to ribbons and it hurt me
psychologically over time. It is a shame because she was thwarting what could be a great future.

One of the few patients whose friendship has endured to the present day is Mr. ****. Like most patients
who genuinely suffer (and not one of those who actually revels in the unconventional) he supports the
efforts of modern psychiatry. He is trained in robotic engineering, is again better than me at chess, and has

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the most unique interpretation of Christianity I have ever encountered in either people or in books. He has
what I once called a ‘highly evolved cosmology and metaphysic’. When it comes to seeing beyond the veils
that blinker most mere mortals he is a kind of blending of microcosm and macrocosm that is quite frankly
rarely encountered. But on the flip side he suffers premonitions; once I done a Tarot spread for him. He
asked the question, “When will I die?” My response was, “In one year, or in three days, or in one year and
three days.” I don’t think this reinforced his faith in divination. He also likes to show people different
locks, punches and kicks that he has learnt from various oriental schools of unarmed combat. If he says,
“Grab my wrist”, expect the unexpected.

Another figure is Mr. ****. He is schizophrenic, almost… Just as his birthday falls on the Autumnal
Equinox, he is correspondingly an admixture of the light and darkness, good and evil, Jehovah and Satan –
and is even Gnostic in his outlook. He loves movies, and is making real and present strides to be
recognized as a screenwriter, and if he lives long enough might even one day own a Hessian chair with his
name emblazoned on the back. Unlike most aspiring writers with their notorious and annoying code of
secrecy he likes people to read his work whilst it is not yet finished. I personally think he should focus
harder on his writing, to the exclusion of all else, then success will fall rich and ripe into his hands. Unlike
most of my psychiatric friends he is younger than me, and he probably overvalues my opinion – an opinion
that is quite flippant at times.

One friendship that went sour was that with ****. Him and I basically had a ‘codependent’ relationship that
revolved around cannabis abuse. The last time I saw him he was on a Drug Treatment Order concocted by
the turnkeys and governors of Her Majesties prisons. I can’t blame him for being angry with me, because of
all my psych mates he knew me in my darkest hours, and believe me the mud can stick like superglue
sometimes. He had the added difficulty of being an orphan, and experiencing an early adulthood thrown
into the frenzies of substance addiction. If I met him again I would be congenial if he reciprocated my
attempts at ‘burying the hatchet’.

A really tragic case was that of ****. I met him outside the mental health system first. He was the youngest
of several brothers, all of whom were well established at least in Dorset. He got engaged to a younger
woman, who was also mentally ill. This led to the complication that if they were both Sectioned under the
Mental Health Act they were put in different hospitals – this may be clinically sound but it is effectively
very cruel. I believe this man’s ill health was exacerbated by them both being involved in a certain coercive
Christian church/cult. I spent a few months with this man in Minterne ward, at that time he was full of life
and quite fun to be around. I saw him at Linden several months later, I found out his wife had filed for a
divorce. At this time he was very depressed and appeared utterly different. Not much later he hung himself
in a quarry on Portland.

Last but not least I should include another psychiatric friend that is dead at the time of writing. ****
actually met me first when I was homeless in Weymouth. He offered to put me up, and we spent a few days
together getting stoned and hanging out on the beach. I met him a few years later in Linden, and it
transpired that his psychiatric career had started long before we became friends. Of all the people I have
met it was this man that hated and despised the mental health services the most. I think this attitude was
centered on the fact his father had had dealings with them. He was ill treated by his family as well. You
could see by the way he vented his concerns that he was volatile, and that his argument was convoluted and
complex. I really miss him, we were good friends. He was only 46 when he died, as I am told, of a heart
attack. I cried my eyes out for him. R.I.P.. I am just kind of glad that he died in his flat, and not in
hospital.

And of course the list of friends, acquaintances and colleagues could probably fill a volume. But I just
wanted to illustrate that just because someone is labeled as suffering mentally does not mean they are
without value, it does not mean they should be trampled upon, it does not mean they cannot live productive
lives.

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GLOSSARY OF TERMS
A.P.A. – American Psychiatric Association.
A.S.W. – Approved Social Worker. These are social workers specially trained in mental health. They,
along with the opinions of two doctors, have the power to put people under the Mental Health Act.
A.W.O.L. – Absent Without Leave.
ADVOCATE – This is basically someone who ‘sticks up’ for you. Normally advocates are people who
have been mental patients themselves.
AGGRESSIVE MEDICATION – These are the older medications like Clopixol, Haliperidol and
Chlorpromazine. See ATYPICAL ANTIPSYCHOTIC.
AKITHISIA – Severe agitation and restlessness, associated with an inability to sit still and pacing up and
down.
AMPOULE – The container, frequently made of glass, that contains a serum for injection.
APPROPRIATE ADULT – This could be a C.P.N., A.S.W., advocate, doctor or family member. It is
necessary to have an Appropriate Adult if a mental patient is arrested by the police.
ATYPICAL ANTIPSYCHOTIC – These are more modern drugs. They are less likely to give one a
movement disorder, but more likely to create weight gain.
B.D. – A Latin abbreviation for ‘twice daily’ and used on the medication scripts.
B.N.F. – British National Formulary. This is a publication brought out every six months. It has brief
descriptions of just about every pharmaceutical drug, along with the contraindications and cost.
CATATONIA – Not moving, talking or responding to one’s environment.
C.&R. – Control and Restraint.
C.B.T. – Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. A form of talking treatment normally given by psychologists
rather than psychiatrists.
C.M.H.T. – Community Mental Health Team.
C.P.N. – Community Psychiatric Nurse. These mainly deal with patients once they are reintroduced to the
world at large.
C.S.U. – Community Support Unit. These are basically mental homes with minimal security. Linden in
Weymouth is a C.S.U., whereas Forston is a P.I.C.U..
D.S.M. – Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. A book which helps diagnose patients. At the time of writing
the D.S,M. IV (Fourth Edition) is in vogue.
DEPOT – An injection that is given on a regular basis, typically anything from every week to every four
weeks.
DOPAMINE – A brain chemical that creates pleasure, euphoria etc. Most drugs for schizophrenia
selectively inhibit different types of dopamine.
DYSTONIA – Nervous intolerable spasms associated with some psychiatric drugs.
E.C.T. – Electro Convulsive Therapy.
I.M. – Intramuscular.
I.V. – Intravenous.
INAPPROPRIATE BEHAVIOUR – This term is employed against patients who are kissing, hugging,
holding hands etc.
INSIGHT – This is a patient’s awareness of their own mental illness. Typically you either have ‘good’ or
‘poor’ insight, into the ‘nature’ and/or ‘degree’ of your disorder.
LEVEL ONE – Having to be monitored at all times.
LEVEL TWO – Having to be checked every twenty minutes or so.
LEVEL THREE – Having freedom to walk around the ward at all times.
LEVEL FOUR – Being allowed leave around the hospital grounds.
LIGATURE – Anything like a belt, shoe laces, guitar string, strap etc. that could be used by someone to
hang themselves or harm others.
M.H.A. – Mental Health Act.
MANIC DEPRESSION – A diagnosis for someone who has massive mood swings, typically from elation to
despondency.

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N.M.S. – Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome. This is a very adverse reaction to drugs like Clopixol
Acuphase and Haliperidol. It makes one seize up, especially the face and neck, and causes difficulty in
breathing and speaking. It is known to be fatal sometimes. Normally if you have this then the nurses with
counter it with Procyclidine.
NEGATIVE SYMPTOMS – These are things like lethargy, poor attention to hygiene, apathy and laziness.
O.C.D. – Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
O.T. – Occupational Therapy.
P.D.U – Practice Development Unit.
P.R.N. – Pro ra nata. This is written in one’s medicine script and is Latin for ‘as and when required’.
P.I.C.U. – Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit.
PIP – This is the nickname for the alarm trigger that the nurses keep on their belts.
POSITIVE SYMPTOMS – These are things like hearing voices, having delusions of grandeur, feeling
persecuted, communicating with TVs and radios etc.
R.M.O. – Registered Medical Officer. This is normally a Consultant Psychiatrist.
SCHIZOPHRENIA – An umbrella term for people who perceive and/or conceive reality differently from
people in general and that have difficulty coping because of this.
SECTION 2 – A 28 day assessment order. This is applied to someone when the doctors are unsure if
someone is mentally ill or not. After 28 days they must allow you to leave or put you under Section 3.
SECTION 3 – A six month treatment order. After six months a doctor must renew your Section or let you
go. When it is put in place for the third time it only has to be renewed from then annually. It takes two
doctors and a social worker to put someone under Section 3; but it only requires one doctor to end, or renew
a Section 3.
SECTION 17 – This is a leave form that you must have if you are under the Mental Health Act and wish to
go out.
SEDATIVE – Generally benzodiazepines like Lorazepam, Clonazepam, Temazepam etc.
SEROTONINE – A brain chemical similar to DOPAMINE that makes us feel pleasure, euphoria etc.
SHARP – Any thing ‘sharp’ like scissors, razor blades, knives, broken glass etc. that could be used to harm
others, or could be used by someone to hurt themselves.
SIDE EFFECT – This is a byproduct of a medication, and is not what the chemical is supposed to do. The
beneficial effects of meds are generally the same for everyone, whereas side effects vary a great deal from
person to person.
S.S.R.I. – Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor. A fancy name for a modern antidepressant.
STATUTORY RAPE – This is where you sleep with someone who is so mentally ill they are not considered
able to give consent to the sexual act. You can end up screwing someone as you normally would and then
end up on a rape charge.
T.D. – Tardive dyskenesia. A movement disorder associated with the older anitpsychotics, and with some
of the modern ones.
TRIBUNAL – A chance to prove you are sane and get off Section. Discussed elsewhere in this volume.
URINE TEST – This is done to check for drugs, but is also done to look for deficiencies in vitamins,
minerals and Ph level.

ILLICIT DRUGS O% THE WARD

If someone is drunk it is quite easy to tell, and alcohol being a sizeable booty is difficult to smuggle into a
ward; however, illicit drugs are frequently potently concentrated and easy to hide in one’s underpants or
pass through a window. I personally got stoned (that is the colloquial term for the effects of cannabis) quite
often in Minterne ward, Linden ward and the half-way house known as Blackdown (which is now a crèche
or something). It is far harder to tell if someone is stoned as opposed to drunk. I smoked it in Forston’s
gardens (mostly back in the day when it was partly an open unit) during the day, and in the toilets during the
night. I do not have really any fond memories of cannabis on the ward. It is notorious for making some
people ‘paranoid’ and to be honest it exacerbated my schizophrenic symptoms; but it is the same kind of
adrenaline of paranoia that gives you enhanced appreciation of music, colour and conversation. Most dope
smokers have an ambivalent relationship with the drug.

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And even more surreptitiously than cannabis, which leaves a distinctive tell-tale smell, other drugs like
speed (amphetamine) leave hardly any trace – indeed any indiscretion is only betrayed by the behaviour of
the user, or sometimes glazed eyes and dilated pupils. I took speed a few times, but because I was up all
night in other patient’s rooms (not forbidden if the patient is the same sex but frowned upon) the night
nurses left a note in the diary; the day shift nurses then made us do a ‘supervised’ urine test. This test can
detect traces of opiates, speed, cannabis, benzos, cocaine and heroin. We were found out and our stadium
incrementi of leave was abruptly stopped. I suppose they were lenient in so far as that they rarely informed
the local constabulary.

Because I was generally free of street drugs, my urine had become a valuable commodity to those who had
been asked to provide a ‘specimen’. In the days before supervised urine testing I gave freely of my ‘golden
shower’, well more like a golden trickle, into a plastic cup. Without me someone would have lost their
Section 17 leave, and don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade.

You see one really crazy thing about Forston Clinic was the illusion that it was a secure stronghold. To visit
a patient one would to go through two automatic doors, and then two locked doors. But, and this is mad, if
one wanted to get contraband in all you would have to do was walk into the grounds, go round the back and
hand something through the window. In all fairness the windows would only open about five inches, and
some of the patients’ rooms were behind a security fence (roughly a third), things did get passed through. I
just hope to goodness that it is only dope and speed and not a knife or a gun.

The speed was OK compared to a stash of ‘cycles’ (Procyclidine Hydrochloride) that one **** brought in
from his leave. I am just glad that we took it at night time when the rest of the ward was winding down, and
the night staff burying themselves in trashy novels, or even worse – mental health notes. Being high on
procyclidine is OK if one is not being interviewed by a shrink, because acute short term memory loss does
not help to convince them you are ‘well’.

On one occasion a bottle of wine was smuggled in, but the customer ended up playing whistleblower and
handed in the bottle, perfectly empty, to the staff. The smuggler ended up with their period of leave being
curtailed for the time being.

I am not sure of the entire extent of illicit drug use, but I suspect it is amongst an already identified minority
that are generally young and wind up in mental homes because of infractions either domestic or too minor to
even make it to the magistrates.

Arguably the biggest problem on the ward is the ‘cheeking’ of medicine in order to create a stockpile that
would knock someone’s socks off. I personally never did this, I was too busy flushing it down the bog.

ILLICIT DRUGS I% THE COMMU%ITY

Weymouth Police Station used to own a nearby graffiti scrawl on a nearby building site: “WELCOME TO
WEYMOUTH, THE HOME OF UNDERAGE PREGNANCY, DRUGS AND BOOZE.” And although I
do not agree with graffiti vandalism this statement cuts to the chase. Weymouth not only has one of the
UK’s highest concentration of pubs, it has its fair share of dope heads, speed freaks, heroin addicts and God
knows what else. I also have heard it has a lot of sex criminals – but that is an unnecessary digression. I
personally have explored this sub culture in my teens and early twenties, and it isn’t a pretty picture. To be
sure the biggest problem is alcohol, probably followed by cannabis, then speed, then heroin. Ketamine and
mescaline, cocaine and solvent abuse probably contribute too. However the impact of people selling their
prescription drugs, for which see above, might be what is driving the nail home. Nothing would surprise
me, let’s face it Weymouth is a far cry from Salt Lake City. In all fairness though these problems are
endemic in most urban areas in Europe, I suppose my statements are relative in that ‘if you look for

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something you’ll probably find it’. And most importantly I have no intention of leaving Dorset – even
though I could easily.

I do not have a problem with most drugs, illicit, taxed or prescribed – I just sympathize with those in the
quandaries of addiction. Eventually any substance fails to remove the perceptual blinker/filter and one’s
personal affairs slip out of control, one ends up taking the drug just to feel normal. Maybe its time the
Twelve Step groups started an ‘Addictions Anonymous’.

Whatever the politics, my own illness became slowly engrained through cannabis abuse (especially through
a brief stint of money flinging in the capital of Holland) and eventually exploded into a diagnosable illness
via good old fashioned alcohol. However strange it may sound, the expedient of drugs in one’s youth to
reach a ‘manic episode’ to me is preferable to the ‘midlife crisis’ of the middle aged dad or mom.

I don’t want to waffle on about drug addiction in our towns and cities as it is over documented already.

I%TERVIEW WITH A SCHIZOPHRE%IC

I have a close friend who has the unique advantage of not only being a psychiatric veteran, but who also is
not entirely for or against the institution that is modern psychiatry. I conducted a brief interview with him
about his experiences of various things in and around the system. This interview was not rehearsed, and I
had no idea exactly as to what he would say, although I may have had an inkling due to the fact our
friendship has endured for quite a few years now. It has not been edited to serve any bias of my own.

This interview was conducted on Saturday 21st of July 2007:

Q: How long have you been involved with psychiatry?

A: 18 years.

Q: If you could name two positive things about the system what would they be?

A: A good night’s sleep and a sense of security when required.

Q: If you could name two negative things about the system what would they be?

A: Being locked up for extended periods of time, in a hospital against your will; and electro shock therapy.

Q: Do you feel that you have wasted time whilst is hospital?

A: Whenever I’ve been in hospital I’ve always wanted to be there, but on the face of it, it is an extremely
long time, it may be a waste of time but I’ve always enjoyed myself when I’ve been there.

Q: Do you believe that psychiatrists in general know what they are doing?

A: Yeah, but I think you get good psychiatrists and you get bad psychiatrists, I’ve met some that are
obnoxious.

Q: Where do you think you would be now if you had never been involved with psychiatry?

A: Dead.

Q: Do you consider yourself ‘mentally ill’?

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A: I consider myself mentally disabled. I’m only ill at certain times.

Q: Do you think that the mentally ill are discriminated against by society?

A: Oh yeah, very much so.

Q: Do you believe that modern psychiatry has been infiltrated and corrupted by the pharmaceutical
industry?

A: I think the pharmaceuticals charge far too much for their tablets.

Q: If you could change two things about the system what would they be?

A: I would make the tablets cheaper; and I would stop countries like America and others from knowing if
you’ve been on a Section 3.

LEAFLETS PROVIDED
Welcome to Forston Clinic
A Guide to Services for Patients, Carers and Relatives
Forston Clinic
Telephone: 01305 - 361300
How to Find Us
Forston Clinic is four miles from Dorchester, near the village of Charminster. By car, from the
A35, follow the by-pass to the A37 (the Dorchester - Yeovil road). Follow the A37 for quarter of a
mile then take the A352 road towards Sherbourne. Beyond Charminster, turn right over a bridge
towards Herrison and Charlton Down Estate. Follow the signposts for Clinic entrance. Car
Parking is behind the Clinic. By bus, Forston Clinic is served by the Charlton Down to
Forston bus route, by Coach House Travel, Route 007. This runs from Dorchester South Station
and Trinity Street every hour.
Forston Clinic
Charminster, Dorchester, Dorset, DT2 9TB
Telephone: 01305 - 361300 Fax: 01305 - 361330
Leaflet: FC / 12 Updated: Sept 2001
Welcome to Forston Clinic
This booklet has been designed to give you some information about the wards and facilities
available within Forston Clinic. It is a guide for patients, their families, carers and visitors. Forston
Clinic is part of the North Dorset Primary Care Trust. The Clinic is set in secluded, country
grounds near the village of Charminster, and provides a peaceful setting for health care
requirements. There are two wards at Forston Clinic, both for people with mental health problems:
Melstock House cares for people over 65 years old, from the
West Dorset geographical area.
Minterne Ward cares for people under 65 years, also from the
West Dorset region.
For patients of both wards, there is an Occupational Therapy Department (or “O.T.” for short).
The O.T. staff offer many opportunities to use or develop practical, physical skills and coping skills
in a variety of activities and therapies. Further information about these wards and services can be
found in separate leaflets, available from a member of staff. “On behalf of all the staff at Forston
Clinic, we hope that you find your stay here helpful and constructive=.”
- Mark Humphries, Senior Manager, Forston Clinic.

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Our Philosophy
Our Philosophy at Forston Clinic is to provide a climate of care and recovery by providing the
following:
• Quality care for those with mental health problems.
• Treatment that works hand in hand with patients’ carers and carers in the community who are
involved in patients’ treatment - during their stay and afterwards - so that carers take a active part
in patient’s recovery.
• An environment where staff can continually learn and develop skills that will motivate other staff
and feedback into better patient care
• Care for “the whole person” - physical, emotional, social, occupational and spiritual needs.
• Identify and resolve problems in any personal matters.
• Self-directed recovery involving specific needs and goals directed towards complete recovery.
About Forston Clinic
Visiting
Visiting is welcome any time. However, visits must not interfere with treatment programmes in any
way. These may include ward or Occupational Therapy activities that require participation at set
times. For this reason it is asked that you telephone ward staff before visiting. Staff are always
pleased to discuss visiting times with visitors and patients. Children are welcome to visit, but
please note that the Trust operates a Policy that children must be accompanied by a parent or
responsible adult at all times. In all cases, please inform a member of ward staff when children are
going to visit a patient.
Car Parking
Parking is free for visitors in the area at the rear of the Clinic. Please DO NOT PARK AT THE
MAIN ENTRANCE or on Clinic approach roads - hospital vehicles, ambulances and other
emergency vehicles need to have easy access in these places. Clients on the wards are asked
not to park at Forston during their stay as spaces are restricted.
Transport
Under normal circumstances, the Trust does not provide transportation to and from the Clinic.
Under certain circumstances, transport arrangements can be made. Please ask ward staff. An
hourly bus service runs between Forston Clinic and Dorchester - see the back cover for details or
ask a member of staff for help.
Your Health and Safety
Alcohol and Drugs
The use of alcohol or drugs is not allowed anywhere within the Clinic. Alcohol or substance
misuse during your treatment will result in a review of your admission and possible discharge from
hospital. This is a Policy of the Trust which is designed to prevent health risks to yourself and
other patients. In certain health conditions or when a specific drug is being taken, even small
amounts of alcohol or other substances can have a serious effect on health.
Smoking
For the safety of patients and staff, smoking is RESTRICTED TO CERTAIN AREAS which are
clearly marked throughout the Clinic. Your co-operation with this guideline is appreciated.
Fire Precautions
If you discover a fire you must inform a member of staff immediately and they will take the
necessary action. Please be guided by instructions from staff in the event of a fire. Fire alarms are
tested on Mondays.
Mobile Phones
It is very important that mobile phones are switched off whenever entering the Clinic. The signals
sent out by mobile phones can sometimes affect medical equipment. The Trust cannot be held
responsible for the loss of such items, which should be clearly marked with the name of the
owner. Public pay phones are available for patients’ use. Those on wards are asked to leave their
mobile phones at home, or to hand them to the hospital bank during their stay.
Thank-you for following these
important guidelines
Before You Arrive
Please tell the nurse admitting you to the Clinic ifyou are taking any tablets, medicines or receiving

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injections. When you arrive, it is important that you hand in any medicines that you have brought
withyou. No drugs other than those prescribed by your Ward Doctor should be taken whilst at the
Clinic.
What to bring with you
• Any information relating to previous involvement with health care or social care services,
including social workers or district nurses
• Several sets of day-clothes
• Safe, comfortable shoes for day-wear
• Night clothes, dressing gown and slippers
• Toiletries, including shaving equipment
• Personal appliances that you normally use, such as hearing aids, glasses, and walking
aids
• Things to pass the time, such as books, magazines, videos or knitting
• A small amount of money for the telephone
• Smokers will need a supply of £1 coins to use the cigarette machine at Forston Clinic
Your Circumstances and Staying in Hospital
Your financial circumstances may well change as a result of being in hospital. The Patients’
Affaires Officer or a Social Worker will be able to help you further. Detailed information is
available on the wards. The following is a brief guide to your changing circumstances during
admission.
If you work, your employer will require a sickness claim-form to cover the first seven days of your
illness. These forms can be obtained from the Ward Office. If your stay is longer than seven
days, the staff will issue you with a medical certificate through the hospital doctor. This is updated
whenever necessary.
Patients receiving any DSS benefits should inform the Social Security office of admission to
hospital as soon as possible, as it may affect benefits. Medical Certificates are also required.
If you receive a pension, a relative or friend may cash your orders on your behalf while you are a
patient. Order books brought into a ward should be handed to staff for safe-keeping. If
you are going to be in hospital for more than eight weeks, you should inform your local Social
Security office.
If you drive, you are required by law to notify the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA)
in Swansea of any illness, disability or medication which is likely to affect your ability to
drive safely.
During Your Stay
The Structure of Your Day In keeping with our philosophy of quality care and
participation in your recovery, staff aim to follow, as far as possible, whatever daily routines are
usual for you. However, this may be, to some extent, constrained by meal times and other
pressing appointments!
You will be encouraged to take part in a programme of care involving occupational therapy, based
on an assessment of your individual needs.
People you are likely to meet Staff at Forston Clinic do not wear uniforms, so you may find it
difficult to identify who is who, but all staff wear name badges. The people you are likely to meet
within the Clinic may include:
Medical Staff
Nursing Staff
Occupational Therapists
Assistant O.T.s
Community Psychiatric Nurses
Student Nurses
Social Workers
Managers
Clerical and Secretarial Staff
Academic Services Staff
Reception Staff,
Domestic Staff

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Hotel Services Staff

Volunteers
Meals and Catering The dining room is situated on the ground floor of
the Clinic by the entrance to Occupational Therapy. Meals are served at these times:
Breakfast 8.30 am until 9.30 am
Lunch 12.15 pm until 1.30 pm
Evening Meal 5.30 pm until 6.30 pm
There is a choice of menu daily. If you have any special dietary requirements, please let your
ward nursing staff know - they will be happy to arrange the catering for your needs.
The dining room in the main building is for patients’ use, but may also be used by carers and
visitors to Forston Clinic. There is also a small dining for certain patients staying on Melstock
House. Hot and cold drinks are available at other times of the day from the ward kitchens. A
drinks dispensing machine can also be found on the first floor of the Clinic (main building).
Facilities
Telephones
The telephone numbers for friends and relatives making enquiries are:
Minterne Ward: 01305 - 361269
Melstock House: 01305 - 361282
Occupational Therapy: 01305 - 361274
If you wish to speak to your friends or relatives from Forston by phone, please use the public
payphones. There are two public payphones in Forston Clinic for your use. These are located
outside of the wards, on the ground floor and first floor. The telephone numbers for these are:
Ground Floor payphone: 01305 - 264349
First Floor payphone: 01305 - 251983
There are also payphones for clients’ use within both wards at Forston - please refer to ward
information for these numbers.
Post
Incoming mail will be delivered to your ward. The address for your incoming post is:
Ward Name
Forston Clinic
Charminster
Dorchester
Dorset DT2 9TB
Outgoing mail is collected daily at 3.30 pm, from staff at Reception. Please make sure all mail is
stamped before handing it to them.
Valuables and Personal Property
You may need a small amount of money, for the telephone. It is not advisable to bring in large
cash amounts, valuable items or anything of great
sentimental value. The Trust cannot be held responsible for any money or items lost anywhere
in the hospital. Clothes and personal belongings should be marked with your name. While pass-
time activities and items of sentimental value are accepted, the Trust cannot accept responsibility
for these items if lost or damaged.
Patients’ Bank
If you cannot avoid bringing in money onto the ward, these will be handed in will be placed in a
personal hospital account in your name. Withdrawals can be made as required through the
Patients’ Bank. Any valuables will be kept safely for you and returned to you upon discharge. The
Patients’ Bank is situated in the Occupational Therapy Department, on the ground floor of the
main building. The opening times are: 9 am - 12 pm and 2 pm - 4 pm, from Monday to Friday.
Chaplain and Church Visits
A Hospital Minister, Reverend Nigel Tooth, is based at Dorset County Hospital and visits the
wards on a regular basis. Please ask ward staff if you would like to see the Minister, or a
representative of your own church or faith. Transport is provided every Sunday morning at 9.15
am for the local service at Charminster Church.
Leaving Hospital

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When you are nearly ready for discharge, there will be a discussion with you about your
continuing care. It is important to remember that it takes time to regain your mental health, so
contact may need to be kept up with you for a time.
Prior to leaving the Clinic, please remember to do the following:
• Ensure preparations have been made at home for your return
• Please ask your relatives or friends to take away as many clothes and personal belongings as
possible before you leave
• Make sure you reclaim any money or personal belongings from the patients’ bank
• Ask for a Medical Certificate if you need one, for employment, benefits or any other reason
• Please remember to leave a forwarding address if you are going anywhere other than home
Your GP will be sent a letter with details about your hospital stay, and information about follow-up
care you may require. A 7-day supply of your prescribed medications will be given to you, along
with information about side effects and how to take them. It may be suggested that you attend an
Outpatients’ Clinic. These clinics are held at various locations in West Dorset. Full
details will be given to you at the time of leaving Forston Clinic. Staff will work with you on your
Care Approach Programme and ongoing plans for your care beyond hospital treatment. Social
Services and the Community Nursing Service provide support for people who need any ongoing
help at home with activities of daily living. You may also be referred to a member of the
Community Mental Health Team. The team includes psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses,
occupational therapists and social workers. The teams are based in various centres around West
Dorset. The Community Mental Health Team offer a flexible service and can see you in your own
home, or at a location near you. If you are worried or have any difficulties with any aspect of your
discharge arrangements, please do not hesitate to talk to your Keyworker or nursing staff.
Patients Meeting
For those wishing to find out about the development of Forston Clinic and its services, a meeting
is held for patients staying at the Clinic. It is held EVERY THURSDAY MORNING, in the
Occupational Therapy Department. Patients are very welcome to attend, as well as carers and
relatives. A member of the Advocacy Services attends the meeting every month and can
offer advice on request. Minutes of each meeting are posted on the ward notice-board.
Relatives and Carers
Relatives and carers are encouraged to participate in the care of patients both during and after
treatment, with the agreement of the person concerned. Telephone calls regarding patients’
welfare and any routine enquiries are welcome during the day, through the switchboard
or direct to the wards. In a case of emergency please contact the ward at any time.
Suggestions
The staff at Forston Clinic want to provide the best possible service. As such, any comments you
may have are welcomed - about what we do well, so that we can keep it up, as well as what we
need to improve! Your views and suggestions can be shared with your Keyworker. Positive
feedback will be passed gratefully onto staff members. Any complaints you may have can be put
to your Keyworker, Head of Ward or the Senior Manager for Forston Clinic. You may also put a
formal complaint in writing to the Trust Chief Executive who will deal with the matter through the
Trust complaints procedure. Please write to:
North Dorset Primary Care Trust
Forston Clinic
Charminster
Dorchester
Dorset DT2 9TB
Telephone: 01305 - 361300
Fax: 01305 - 361300
For independent advice regarding services provided by the
Trust, please contact: West Dorset Community Health Council
Damers House
Damers Reoad
Dorchester
Dorset DT1 2JX
Telephone and Fax: 01305 - 251302

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MISCELLA%EOUS I%STA%CES A%D EXAMPLES OF

MAD%ESS
As one would imagine a great deal of things must have happened in my eleven year career as a paranoid
schizophrenic. These are all real things that happened on the ward, or on hospital grounds. I have
numbered them solely for east of reference rather than any other reason, the list progresses quite arbitrarily.

1) I remember one chap that seemed quite nice. Before I discovered he was a self professed
pedophile he asked me for my phone and address details. I diligently wrote it down. He took the
piece of paper, turned around, pulled his pants down, and stuffed the note into his rectum, all right
in front of me.
2) Once me and a few other men were smoking away in the designated room. A female patient
walked in. Someone told her to take her clothes off, which she did. After embarrassing most of us,
ten seconds later a nurse came in and accused us of voyeurism – and this even though we had had
no time to get her clothes back on.
3) A poor chap at the time had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and had to keep on repeating
things like taking his hat off and putting it back, walking back into rooms, and touching people.
Another quite sadistic patient kept on saying, “Do it again ****, do it again!” The guy’s symptoms
got ten times worse in as many weeks, and nobody reprimanded the goader.
4) The same sadist in 3) liked to hurt people in a more concrete fashion as well. One patient let him
hold the ember of a cigarette against his arm for five seconds.
5) One patient, who was very well educated, left deposits of excrement around the ward.
6) A male patient, was so paranoid that the police would come and get him, always slept with his
clothes on, and with the light on, so he could run away at a moment’s notice.
7) On the ward cigarette lighter were banned. One patient got round this by using an electric hair
dryer to light their cigarettes. The nurses never suspected a thing.
8) One chap had put a cigarette lighter into his anal passage, he pulled his pants down and proceeded
to deposit it on the floor outside the staff office in front of everyone.
9) A man had obvious OCD put the staff did not stop him shaving off ALL of his bodily hair, and
covering his already tattooed body with ink motifs.
10) Once a woman lay naked in the Occupational Therapy garden, and no one noticed for ten minutes.
11) One chap, from abroad, did not talk to anyone for weeks, he did not smile or do anything for ages,
but the system kept him in a violently manic environment that could only have driven him further
into his introspection, via trauma.
12) Sometimes you could hear three or more different TVs and stereos going off at once, and nobody
questioned how disorientating it was.
13) One thoroughly disturbed patient had an extremely high pitched voice, and was referred to as
‘squeaky’. Pretty soon someone joked that she should be forced to inhale helium so we could
crack the windows and escape.
14) One patient was from abroad, from the Eastern Block countries, and could not speak English very
well. No one bought him a bilingual dictionary and he was forced to learn the vernacular from
‘mad people’.
15) One guy that was relatively ‘well’ was an expert guitarist, he was not allowed his guitar because
the strings constituted a ‘ligature’ or something someone could hand themselves with.
16) One heavily lactating patient reveled in squirting others with her milk, whether they asked for this
treatment or not.
17) Once, in the old days when we had Upper as well as Lower Minterne, I was confronted by another
male patient who didn’t like the fact I read a great deal of Crowley. He broke a snooker cue on my
waist. Although he was in the wrong, it was me that was kicked out! I had to walk to the nearest
payphone, miles away, and reverse charge call me dad. However, the next day I was recalled!
18) In the days when I was allowed a Tarot deck, I made the mistake of not locking them away.
Somebody rifled my deck and stole all the Aces! Why not just take the whole bloody deck?

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19) There is a sign in the grounds of Forston that states ‘Do not park on the grass’. One patient stood
in front of it, holding his guitar, smiling away, whilst his friend took a photo on his mobile phone.
The words taken out of view were ‘Do not park’, leaving the words ‘on the grass’ on the photo.
20) One patient, who used to be psychiatric nurse, triggered off the fire alarm and punched a nurse on
the same day. This chap smokes roll ups through a Nicorette Inhalator.
21) I heard a story that one woman who has hospitalized not only broke out of the ward, but hotwired
a car and was chased by police.
22) One woman, who I met, didn’t come back after leave. She took her children, that the social
services were trying to take from her, and went on the run. She ended up on the news a night later;
she had been caught and was being held in another institution.
23) There was one autistic patient who was obsessed with swearing, although he couldn’t do it himself.
Quite often other patients would corner him and unleash a barrage of expletives – he would
become excited and manic thereafter and started joking about cutting off staff members’ heads
with a chainsaw etc.
24) One male patient very proudly went around saying he was a peadophile, but he said it was morally
acceptable because he only fantasized about kids older than five years of age.
25) One poor chap, a chronic alcoholic, ended up smuggling white spirit into a ward. He diluted it
with orange juice and actually drunk himself to death over time.

NURSES WHO PROVIDED TREATME%T

COMMU%ITY PSYCHIATRIC %URSES
These are people who work mainly in the community, as you might guess. Most of them, if not all, begun
their training in a clinical environment however. They are often referred to by the initials ‘CPN’. Although
they do not have the power to put someone under the Mental Health Act, their ‘opinion’ carries a great deal
of weight as they may have been the only contact a person has with the services for weeks on end. I have
only ever had two in the last eleven years, and I deal with them in chronological order:

Mr. **** is now retired early because of medical reasons but I remember him quite well. I was given
treatment for quite a while before he was assigned to me. He was tall, bearded and bald. You could say he
looked a bit like a hippy. His wife was a high up in the council, and he was a Bachelor of Philosophy that
used to be a card carrying member of the Communist Party. I probably could not have been awarded a
more ‘left field’ CPN. We frequently talked in a philosophical way. I had no problem talking about
Thelema, which at that time I thought was my ‘religion’. We even played chess sometimes. It is a shame he
had to retire early as he was well respected in his chosen fields. When he came to rescue me from
Weymouth Custody Suite (the police cells) I was very grateful that he was playing ball. Once or twice we
bumped into each other in one of Weymouth’s Labour Clubs but he said it would be ‘unprofessional’ for us
to get pissed together. However he did invite me to his retirement party, but sadly I never went. My biggest
regret is once when I threatened to beat him up over the phone; this was not his fault but due to the fact that
I was pissed off about a night of tormenting side effects from the Olanzipine.

Mrs. **** is my CPN at the time of writing. She was of average height, athletic figure, with dark, shortly
cut hair, light freckles and blue eyes. I cannot say she was more ‘by the book’ than my previous CPN, but
one does get the distinct feeling that she was more administratively aware. She is a mother and marathon
runner (and has raised large amounts for local charities), who did yoga; I am not sure if she was a
vegetarian, but it certainly wouldn’t surprise me. But the important thing is she tried her best to get me
leave from hospital and, even more importantly, to keep me in the community. I don’t really think of her as
‘my nurse’ but more as a friend. She even visited me in the pub once where I eloquently and emphatically
preached about the virtues of alcoholism.

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DAY %URSES
For some unknown reason the nursing staff do not stick in my mind as much as the doctors. This is despite
the fact that one typically spends a great deal more time with them overall, than one does with psychiatrists.
Anywhere here goes.

In terms of unremitting professionalism, as senior nurse called **** was the tops. He was a grey haired, tall
man in his fifties, yet still possessed with a strong physique. I remember that this chap rarely smiled, but he
did call a spade a spade. In one of my Mental Health Review Tribunals he said, “Mr. Newman is associated
with the occult.” Which pretty much sums things up I suppose. He cut through all the waffle of the two
hour tribunal, and summarized things perfectly. I did not win that tribunal. I really don’t think this guy
trusted me in the slightest. He was married to another psychiatric nurse, and they frequently worked
together. I remember once I persuaded him that I needed ground leave, on both psychological grounds and
the basis of adequate exercise, he granted it – I then quickly absconded and went on a drinking binge.
Once, back in day, he chased me around the grounds whilst I was naked; eventually he coaxed me back into
the fold of the ward with the promise of a nicotine fix.

Probably the sexiest nurse was the a one ****. She was always smiling and had a wonderful glow about
her. You rarely saw her as she was predominantly engaged in administrative duties off the ward. I
remember once when I was discharged (for the time being) she kissed my goodbye on the cheek. She was
in her forties, with fair, neck length hair, freckles and a really lovely face. It is a shame I wrote my main
letter of complaint (regarding religious discrimination) to her as I didn’t want to get into an argument – she
was just too sweet. I also like to think that in a world of ‘by the book’ nurses and doctors she injected a
modicum of humour and liberality into the equation.

**** was a short and friendly man from Spain. He was a senior nurse that mainly worked in Melstock, but
also done stints for the ECT department and filled in gaps at Minterne. His accent was obviously Spanish.
He was quite a bubbly character and very well liked. His wife worked as a cleaner at Forston Clinic. Once
he showed us a few magic tricks with a deck of cards. Quite often he would crack dirty jokes, but never at
anyone’s expense.

The ‘coolest’ nurse was a tall chap called ****. He was gingery, well built and had a penchant for surfing.
This chap had a great sense of humour, and I really regret the times when I lost my temper with things, and
consequently him. Once when my wallet was confiscated I accused him of ‘nicking’ it. I can see him
having a good career in the nursing world, and in the grand scheme of all things psychiatric he was very
similar in temperament to ****, the matron. He also had a really cool tattoo - but don’t worry, somebody
tells me it is OK for nurses to have tattoos.

Going back to the days when we had Upper and Lower Minterne there was a nurse called ****. I do not
remember is he was a nurse or nursing assistant. He was very amiable, a first rate guitarist, and I found out
he came from a family that practiced some kind of esotericism. He would always reassure me that I was
getting better. He left the services many years ago and now works in a crystal shop. A nice guy.

As far as ‘fit’ female nurses I will always remember ****. She was about five foot nine, skinny and supple,
with long, curly black hair. With some nurses you get the feeling that you are dealing with a Nazi, a
turnkey, or worse - but you never had that with her. I am not sure if she was a senior nurse or not, but she
should be. (When I think about the differences in temperament exhibited by the range of nursing
professionals it reminds be of ‘good cop, bad cop’ type of stereotype the United States is famous for, but I
suppose it would be ‘good nurse, bad nurse’. Later on I might write about the infamous ‘nurse brutality’ I
have witnessed on occasion.) I remember she went on a long trip to India. Later on I found her profile on a
dating agency - as I was not in hospital I left it up to one of my friends to embarrass her sufficiently, as is
only right.

Anyone who had been at Forston probably could not forget ****. He was a senior nurse, athletically built

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(through playing rugby) and seemed very focused on his job rather than trying to have fun with the patients.
Of all the nurses I have met he is one of the most obnoxious, although this character fault was not obvious -
you had to sniff it out over several weeks or months. His ingrained cynicism could have been a result of
working in Broadmoor mental hospital. As he was much fitter than most other nurses he was often seen
pinning people down (with help of course) for their injection. I remember once I pushed him, he gave me a
look of disappointment, but didn’t, as I had hoped at the time, push me back – I was spoiling for a good
scrap. Then much later I was refusing my regular depot of injection of Risperdal Consta; he took me into
the lounge and proceeded to lecture me. The exact details of our little heart-to-heart are difficult to recall,
but I do remember one thing: he threatened me with a more ‘aggressive medication’ if I didn’t take the
Risperdal. **** took great pride in letting me know he had dealt with far more aggressive and unsavoury
characters in Broadmoor. I suppose I should have retorted that I had dealt with worse people than him in
playschool.

I almost just kicked myself for forgetting ****. He was a minister of some importance with a group he
nebulously referred to as the ‘Free Church’. I also heard a rumour that he was gay which is only really
backed up by the fact he was a priest. He had a wicked laugh, and you could tell straight away it was
second nature for him to look on the bright side. He would actually exercise his other profession in hospital
sometimes by holding ‘services’ in Melstock House (the elderly psychiatric ward in the same complex).
Although I rarely attended I do remember they were a bit of a joke. The hymnal music would be coming
out a cheap tape recorder whilst a handful of mental patients feebly ‘sang’ a few tunes. Once I could not
stop laughing at the proceedings and did the only thing I could: leave! Good old **** would take us on
walks around the village, or the hills and fields north of the clinic, on the weekends – which was great
because we had no Occupational Therapy on Saturdays or Sundays. I think during these little ‘fishing trips’
I had some small philosophical musings with him on religion and magick, but as you would expect I don’t
remember the details.

After the passage of a few years I had the good luck to meet ****. He was a psychology graduate that
wanted to become a clinical psychologist, and therefore done a stint as a psychiatric nurse. He was a
slender, balding (although quite young), and quite vital guy. Very good at pool, but I still beat him at chess.
**** was really easy to get on with, he had a great sense of humour and a balanced outlook on life. He
definitely belongs more as a professional clinician rather than a nurse.

One young yet senior female nurse was ****. She was a bit odd methinks, and always walked down the
corridor with a sense of purpose, a kind of inbuilt dynamism was what she had. I almost got charged with
sexual harassment against her. I did not touch her or anything, but I did say something like: ‘**** over,
**** the pillow, put your *** in the air, cos you know what’s coming next you dirty little *****.’ Woops.
Not the right thing to say to a feminist psychiatric nurse! But again, I must be a cat with nine lives, because
I got away with that one as well!

For some reason I almost forgot about ****! She was, half the time, more crazy than the patients. In her
forties, she had a cackle for a laugh (which she did often) and a strange accent and way of protracting her
vowels. I often referred to her as ‘mum’ because she would patronize us, but in a kind of pleasant way. She
was married to one of the head caterers of Forston. I suppose you could say she ‘called a spade a spade’.
But I kid you not, she was more mental than most psychiatric veterans I have met. But because she had
been working there, and behaved like that, for so long – people didn’t notice after a while. I think you
either loved or hated her.

In a similar vein to ****, we have ****. She was a plump, blonde and noisy nurse from Birmingham. I
think she was quite senior and involved with the E.C.T. department. I used to call her ‘auntie ****’ which
she probably found quite flattering. She had a rose tattooed on her neck. But gee she sure did make a
racket. You see I think some nurses eventually disassociate from the role of ‘nurse’ and identify more as a
‘parent’ of unruly children. She was kind of like our ‘mother duckling’. I dread to think how many people
she zapped over the years. Occasionally I would ask her for E.C.T. on the nipples without anesthetic, to
which she would invariably reply, “No, because you’d probably enjoy it.”

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%IGHT %URSES
Although sometimes nurses that worked in the day also done the nighttime ‘handover’ there are a handful of
characters that only worked the graveyard shift. They only really had to deal with patients for about four
hours, after which they congregated in their tiny office (which lay between the female and male quarters) to
read books, surf the web etc. Although they were close to the ‘observation rooms’ this didn’t stop them
nattering all night sometimes – they made it quite difficult to sleep for me on occasions.

The most amicable night nurse was ****. He was in his forties with short hair, birth marks on his face and a
pierced nose. He would always start his shift by cleaning up the communal kitchen and smoking rooms.
You could just about discern his midland’s accent as he hummed and sang (like most people only fragments
of songs rather than perfect recitals). Although I always thought he was a little camp he was a family man.
I don’t know a great deal about his private life, but I know he liked skydiving.

And then we have ****, a female nurse of generous proportions. She was a mother and was doing an Open
University in philosophy and/or sociology or something. She dressed in bright colours and looked more
like someone from Glastonbury festival than a nurse. I talked with her at length about my religious beliefs,
but she could not share my enthusiasm for that particular ‘school of thought’. With just about everything
we said to her she expressed caution and sought to be politically correct.

The most senior nurse to work nights was ****. He had a ruddy face, moustache, and looked so wide
awake that one could almost imagine his eyes popping out. Very affable, and cracking jokes occasionally,
he was really quite a nice bloke. I found out later that he liked gardening, but one would suspect that it was
‘keeping up with the Jones’ trimming and mowing rather than anything really ambitious. I also recall that
he would give you the extra sleeping pill or sedative (if one’s medical script allowed) without you having to
give the kind of groveling excuse that some of the more stringent nurses expected.

OCCUPATIO%AL THERAPY
In a concerted effort to turn a bunch of psychiatric misfits into talented musicians, artists, writers, sculptors
and chess players etc. on Minterne ward only the most solid reason would excuse one from attending
Occupational Therapy, during weekdays. From 9:30 AM to 12 PM, and from 1:30 till 4 PM the general
range of available luxuries increased tenfold.

Although one begrudgingly went through the whole psycho rote, including O.T., I think that this is where
the real therapy occurs. To become a qualified Occupational Therapist requires much more training than is
used just in mental health – they are also geared up to deal with geriatric people, disabled children, paralysis
patients, coma recoveries and drug addicts and so on. And in fact most of the therapies used in by O.T.s in
mental health are of the ‘art and craft’ variety that I don’t believe is officially covered by an O.T. degree.
So more power to them.

And some of them were quite dishy as well, to risk using a word that this word processor doesn’t recognize.

I done quite a bit of technical drawing during those weeks and months, but mainly I listened to music,
played pool, chess, patience and scrabble, socialized, smoked and drunk tea.

One of our little jokes was O.T.T. time, which the staff pretended to believe meant Occupational Therapy
Tea time, but to us meant Over The Top time – you see we where allowed to smoke for longer than usual,
and smoke with the opposite sex, in the outdoors, whilst playing music – and even though it was in a tiny
fenced in ‘garden’ it was great! Occasionally during O.T.T. time a plane or helicopter flew over convincing
us that our conspiracy was working.

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And to cap if off we also had access to computers, printers and laminators; so if you were quick and
deceitful enough it was a doddle to knock out a quick Ouija board. The whole thing was a game of cat and
mouse. To be fair I never printed off a Ouija board because that would have been a serious no-no as far as
the ward matron was concerned.

I was also, before the latest drag of ‘new and improved regulations’ allowed to look at various files from my
one gigabyte memory stick. This meant I could least print off some of Crowley’s shorter pieces, the odd
poem, the occasional essay etc.

Even after my memory stick was confiscated and the large collection of files I had placed in a password
protected folder was deleted, the staff had forgotten that I had installed several font files in the control
panel. Now as font files (TTF) are ‘bitmaps’ they are not necessarily just letters, numbers, ligatures and
symbols etcetera but can also be pictures. I printed off all the 72 sigils of the Goetia aka The Lesser Key of
Solomon and had at least something of substance to take back to the bare walls of my room. And although I
had no Class A Thelemic literature, an astrology ephemeris program I installed (called Calender 93) had a
wonderful function that provided random verses from The Book of the Law. So I copied and pasted until I
had a page of verses – and that was sufficient enough a victory over the wanabee book burners. So O.T.
that day was one step closer to O.T.O.!

PERSO%AL SUBJECTIVE SYMPTOMS

I should say here, for the record, that I have been mentally ill. I believe it was created more by rogue
factions within society rather than any ‘genetic predisposition’, drug reaction, or strange belief system
associated with the writings of Crowley. My symptoms began eleven years ago, but the seed of disease was
planted in my youth. Basically I have a spirit guide, that was prematurely awakened in me – partly because
of psychedelic drugs, but mainly due to electronic gadgets that can directly interfere with one’s brain for
better or for worse. The quickest way to describe it is as C.A.T. (Computer Assisted Telepathy). If you
think this is nonsense, do your homework, and you will find (at the top of the paperwork mountain) that the
C.I.A. has already been successfully sued several times by harassed individuals that proved beyond any
reasonable doubt that ‘fringe’ technologies had been used to drive them into mental institutions at a
concerted effort to discredit them, or to ruin them politically. Frequently, people subjected to C.A.T. are
simply ‘sitting ducks’ or expendable people that these shadowy operatives use to refine their nefarious
trade.

My own experience was of a very heavy presence of a singularly demonic (this doesn’t necessarily mean
evil) entity that kept on repeating the same expletives and swear words, continually, and so on, for years.
As my brain was so damaged through cannabis I could not ‘think back’ and fill the psychological vacuum,
so to speak. I constantly thought my thoughts were being monitored, I believed quite positively that
thoughts were being somehow inserted intangibly directly into the varying layers of consciousness. I
‘communicated’ with the T.V. and radio. I talked to myself all the time. These last few things are called
‘referencing’ by psychiatrists. I should mention, as a worthwhile digression, that not all people who ‘hear
voices’ are labeled as schizophrenic; indeed many of them have prosperous careers as mediums,
clairvoyants, clairaudients, clairsentients, psychics, dowsers and divinators etc. The psychiatric doctors
generally only get involved if one’s subjective life leads one into criminal, antisocial or most often obscene
behaviour. With me it was all three I suppose.

As I have grown and got older my illness has completely metamorphosed from being quite debilitating to a
precious gift that has made me ‘…delight in dirty and disgusting debauches…to master every mode of my
mind, and to make for myself a morality more severe than any other…’ (to quote good old uncle Al). If I
was to diagnose myself I would say I was a ‘spiritual orphan’ or perhaps a psychopath, in the good sense of
the word.

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POLICE I%VOLEME%T
If anything is true of modern psychiatry it is that it could not function for a single day without the support of
the police force. Not only are reality deviants arrested out of community and Sectioned (or ‘voluntarily’
committed) into hospital, they go ‘patient hunting’ when an absconding inevitably occurs, they are also
called in on a quite flexible basis to help restrain violent, or potentially violent, patients. Typically the
‘busies’ are called into intimidate a patient into accepting an injection peaceably, or to pin him/her down
whilst the nursing staff administer an injection.

I remember the first night I was in a ward proper, I refused the oral meds (if I was not honest I would have
just hidden them under my tongue) quite blankly. Half an hour two uniformed police constables turned up,
who then pinned me down, and hey presto I got it in the buttocks! That’s what you call seriously ‘bent’
coppers.

At the moment I am under a five year police caution. I might as well give you the details about what
happened…

I think it had something to do with me being on Pipothiazine. This was being ‘tapered’ with the Risperdal
Consta, both were depot injections, and I think the combination made me psychotic. Anyway, I lost it all of
a sudden, I was very pissed off about the staff not allowing my me Crowley books. I walked from the O.T.
department, run the door bell to the ward, it was answered by a female nurse (I forget who exactly). I said,
“If I don’t get my Crowley books in the next 20 seconds I am going to put that fire extinguisher through the
window.” The perturbed nurse said, “I can’t get them Adam.” And she closed the door. I then took the fire
extinguisher (a massive red one, not the carbon version but water) of the hook which held it to the wall. I
went over to the other door (the one to the outside world) and without even checking to see if anyone was
on the other side, I threw it through the little square mesh window. It went through quite easily, and the fire
extinguisher bounced on the floor. This must have scared the shit out of the receptionist. An alarm rang
instantly and ten seconds later I was surround by nurses. They asked me if I was OK. I punched the wall
and screamed out, “I WANT MY FUCKING BOOKS.” I was then ushered into my room. Ten minutes
later the head nurse, a man called ****, came to my door. He told me that I could have them in the 136
room (so called after Section `136 of the Mental Health Act which gives the power to have people suspected
of being mentally ill interviewed) only. This pissed me off even further and I took the door, held the catch
open by the handle, and basically smashed it up. **** backed off, shaking his head at me. I really must
have knocked the door some, because a good portion of it broke off. This loose bit of the door I yanked off
and carried into the corridor. The nurses had anticipated trouble and all the other patients had been told to
stay in their rooms. Holding the piece of door, I walked down the corridor. I shouted, “DO YOU WANT
TO SEE SOME FUCKING CROWLEY DO YOU” and smashed the door into the wall a few times, badly
damaging some architraves. Then the metal lock that was in the fragment of door fell out. I picked up the
lock, which was a significant lump of shiny metal and walked towards the group of nurses. At the time I
wanted to go round smashing windows, but I just scared them… One member of staff, ****, looked
terrified when I pulled the metal lock back, poised myself suggestively, and fixed him with a look of pure
hatred. He probably thought I was going to fuck him right up, but I just dropped it on the floor at that point
feeling quite satisfied that I had scared people enough.

Well half an hour later a group of police turned up, about five or six, but because I accepted an injection of
Clopixol Acuphase they didn’t pin me down or anything. I still felt terribly intimidated however, and was
quite relieved when they went away. Eventually the Acuphase mingled with my adrenaline and I fell asleep.
As one might expect I got the full three days of Acuphase, and most of the time I was sound asleep. And
even though much later I agreed to pay for the door (I gave them 135 quid), I was summoned to Weymouth
Divisional Headquarters a few months later. Thankfully this was an informal interview with just one WPC,
she eventually asked the custody sergeant for a caution, which he said had to be a five year one, and I
thought I had better accept it and avoid possibly being charged. This in fact what all the psychiatric staff

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said would happen.

As far as my criminal record in general I only have one count of Drunk and Disorderly in a Public Place.

RELIGIO% A%D THELEMA O% THE WARD

Enclosed a letter that I sent to several people; it basically argues my case against having my books by
Crowley confiscated. There is no point going over it again, the letter is very good in itself.

I have never met another Thelemite in psychiatry, although there has been the occasional ‘witch’ or
‘satanist’. At one point I hade been in Minterne ward for weeks and I made up a personal decision that I
was going to be an ‘orthodox’ Thelemite. Before that I was decided on trying to ‘found an Abbey of
Thelema’ – which is a futile endeavour for someone Sectioned under the Mental Health Act. What this
attempt at being orthodox manifested into was saying Will before meals, greeting people with the words ‘do
what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law’ and performing a ritual called ‘Liber Resh vel Helios sub
figura CC’; as well as reading quite a lot of Crowley (I remember now that the books had not been
confiscated at that point) and keeping a ‘magical record’.

Saying Will:

Knock the table 111 – 11111 – 111.

‘Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. It is my will to eat and drink. That my body may be
fortified thereby. That I may accomplish the Great Work. Love is the law, love under will’

Knock the table once.

‘Fall to.’

Basically saying Will is a very simple form of what is known in magick as a eucharist, that is turning
something mundane into something spiritual and then consuming it.

Liber Resh is a ritual performed at dawn, midday, dusk and midnight. It involves facing the sun and reciting
certain verses of poetry from The Book of the Law, mainly dealing with Egyptian god forms. After the
invocations one is expected to repose in ‘holy meditation’, but to be honest I hardly did this actual
contemplative stuff at the time, but just popped out the poetry. I kept this up for ten days. I might as well
include the verse:

Unity uttermost showed,

I adore the might of thy breath,
Supreme and terrible God,
Who makest the gods and death,
To tremble before thee,
I, I adore thee!

Appear on the throne of Ra,

Open the ways of the Khu,
Lighten the ways of the Ka,
The ways of the Khabs run through,
To stir me or still me,
Aum. Let it fill me!

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The light is mine its rays consume,

Me, I have made a secret door,
Into the house of Ra and Tum,
Of Kheph Ra and of Ahathoor,
I am thy Theban, O Mentur,
The prophet Ankh-af-na-khonsu.

By Bes na maut my breast I beat,

By wise Ta 8ech I weave my spell,
Show thy star splendour O 8uit,
Bid me within thy house to dwell,
O winged snake of light Hadit,
Abide with me Ra Hoor Khuit!

I would recite this, as instructed, in a loud booming voice with my arms wide apart and above my head. At
finishing I would give the ‘Sign of Silence’. I was then supposed to meditate but as said before I didn’t
really bother to be honest. As I wasn’t allowed on the hospital grounds all these wonderful invocations
were made in the ward garden (fenced in), for dawn and dusk, in the O.T. garden (again fenced in and very
small) for midday and in my humble quarters at midnight. Once however I done the dusk invocation in the
dining room whilst people wondered, and tried to hide their giggling.

Eventually rumours circulated about my ‘grandiosity’ etc. But after ten days of this nonsense I was
relocated to the Linden ward in good old sunny Weymouth! Perhaps the staff were worried that I would
convert the ward into the ranks of Crowley’s magical army! I carried on doing this ritual training in Linden
for about a day and a half, and then ran off for a massive drinking binge in Wareham and Poole.

For posterity the longest letter I have ever written to the mental people is given more or less in full:

***** **** ******

****** ** *******
** ******** ****
********
******
*** ***

******* ****** ** ******

****** ***** *** ***

***********************

** ****** * *********
*** **** *** ****

*** **** ****** ******** ********

Weymouth and Portland Community Mental Health Team
Mental Health Centre
Radipole Lane
WEYMOUTH
Dorset
DT4 OQE
******* ******

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Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Dear **** ******,

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

RE: RELIGIOUS A%D LITERARY DISCRIMI%ATIO% I% FORSTO% CLI%IC, DORSET – 7175

words in total in 15 pages

Firstly I should like to say I hope that you and your colleagues are alive and well, at the risk of sounding
obsequious; it is a great relief for many of us that you are, potentially at least, an ‘authority’ over the heads
of the North Dorset Primary Care Trust. I have never written to you before, however, many will be shown
that my problem has national and global implications. Please read on.

It is without doubt the defenders of civil liberties, such as yourself, that have collectively ensured the
freedom of speech, literature and religion that this great nation has enjoyed for the last 50 years. I believe
that my mistreatment at the hands of psychiatric nurses, doctors, C. P. N.s and approved social workers not
only goes against the unwritten constitution of this country, but also the mission statement of Forston Clinic
(where injustices occurred).

My religion is a form of scientific illuminism now commonly known as ‘Thelema’. You may or may not
have heard of this faith, but suffice to say that it is the ‘apotheosis of social and national freedom, but also
the strictest possible bond’. To pontificate endlessly is not my intention, and I am sure you will be informed
as to the nature of my religion by some of your associates. Please read the postscript, which I sent to Dr.
****** ******* some months ago, and which encapsulates all you need to know. The essence of this letter
is that myself, and a few others, are very annoyed that certain pieces of literature were confiscated from me
on entirely false premises, in a most cowardly and underhanded fashion.

The books that were taken from me were: The Holy Books of Thelema (Samuel Weiser, 1988), Liber Aleph
vel CXI, The Book of Wisdom or Folly (Samuel Weiser, 2003), AHA! (New Falcon Publications, 1996) and
finally The Scrutinies of Simon Iff (The Teitan Press, 1987). All of these were authored by the notorious
Aleister Crowley. Also confiscated from me was The Mythic Tarot Deck by Burke, Green and Newell.

Although I have suspicions as to the reasons why these books were taken away, the actual reason the nurses
claimed was that they did not want other patients reading them. This was apparently because the nurses did
not want other patients ‘cutting themselves’, ‘becoming overnight anarchists’ and ‘resenting authority’. I do
not remember the precise details; if you need these I can request a perusal of my mental health file and get
them for you. (At this moment I am unsure if you are allowed to investigate the pertinent manuscripts.)

When I asked if it would be OK for me to download my books onto a palmtop computer, which could be
password protected and therefore impossible for others to read, I was looked at blankly by a psychiatric
nurse. Then up came the invariable panacea of, “…we will have to discuss that issue with the team…” My
request was never answered as I left the hospital soon after, and the ‘issue’ was bitterly avoided by the
‘team’ whenever brought up! This was one of the worse cases of professional procrastination to darken my
doors.

They could present the argument to you that the books where taken away from me to stop me ‘preaching’ or
reading them to others. This is blatantly absurd as I have always done this without books anyway. We are
all aware that reciting purely from memory convinces others; the key to oratorical fireworks is not simply
parroting off what you see in front of you!

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As regards to the Tarot cards… I deliberately chose the most harmless deck possible which had the least
offensive imagery. Most of the pictures are of angels. Two divinations were performed by myself. This, I
have to agree is potentially harmful to others in general, and the nurses have my profound apology.
However, I did promise to stop this but they were still taken from me. Tarot predates playing cards, and is
in fact the forerunner of playing cards. They are not harmful in the hands of someone who knows what they
are doing, and the suspicions of some are completely and utterly unwarranted. In the nuclear and genetic
age they are things far more harmful than Tarot (to use an unforgivable sophism). If you really want to
open Pandora’s box, simply switch on your T. V. after the watershed, do not play with Tarot.

How do I expect the psychiatric team to defend their position? I was told that I could have my books (but
not at all my Tarot) as long as I kept them in my room, and returned them to the safe when finished reading.
Well! That is even more insulting than not having them at all. To go through the patronising and
humiliating ordeal of politely handing back my religion for incarceration ten times a day would be beyond
the pale… I would have preferred it if they had burned them, at least then their cremation would have had
dignity. Besides, knowing the wiles of my psychiatric team, and their duplicity, even this compromise
probably would not have lasted long. Why should I have to put up with pigeon-holing my faith into a box
every day? But things are now becoming pedantic, aren’t they?

The real motive is that most of the nurses and doctors are lip service Christians who closed rank, and this
quite ruthlessly, against me; all this being due to the ill informed opinion that all followers of Aleister
Crowley are satanists! Nothing could be further from the truth. Trust me, I have studied Thelema for eight
years and am in the process of writing a mystical cyclopedia on this very subject. If you desire a print off of
this book, however incomplete (170 000 words, yet will be complete at 250 000) at the present time, it
would be my pleasure to send you one. I have been told by professors, proof readers and occultists that it
definitely has the capacity for a fully published binding, however I will be using the pseudonym of ‘******
***********’. I wonder if ****, of Forston Clinic fame, will stop me having my own book in the future?
She could… but would that be wise?

However, very few literary gems are of flawless quality, and Crowley did leave a few decidedly evil pieces
of work. I am the first to admit this. But you must also admit that the references to infanticide, and this in
God’s name, found in the Holy Bible are just as bad (and remember that poetry is what is lost in translation).
The same applies to the Qu’ran and the Bhagavad Gita, which have similar accounts of torture and hatred.
These worldwide monotheistic religions would reply that these quotes are not to taken literally, but as
symbols. I also reply in the same way, but because I am a predatory ‘satanist’ (as the nurses would think) it
is not allowed for me to counter attack in the same shade! And this sort of semantic merry-go-round has
continued unabated for most of my adult life! We must also remember the social climate in which Crowley
lived, his perpetual tongue in cheek attitude and his knowledge that, as far as fledgling religions are
concerned, any publicity is good publicity. Please stop paying attention to the tabloids of the 1920’s such as
John Bull and The 8ews of the World. Obviously my consultant psychiatrists have not.

Consultant Psychiatrist Dr. **** diagnosed me as a paranoid schizophrenic many years ago. I have spent
quite a few years in various hospitals, and have clocked up over ten admissions, most of them under Section
3 of the Mental Health Act. For years I did experience auditory hallucinations and suffered from delusions.
I will never pretend that I have not had an illness. However, for years I could not ‘think back’ against my
hallucinations, or whatever they actually were. A woman of your education should know that there is no
such thing as a psychological vacuum; we have to replace negative thoughts with good ones. Hence my
need for esoteric poetry, and discourses on philosophy. If I did not have my books I would quickly fall into
a state of fundamental disrepair. Quite simply they are essential to me as I have more or less devoted this
life to promulgating the principles and teachings they exemplify. How can it be good for a schizophrenic to
be denied the healing influence of literature and religion, especially when one uses them for preventing
thought block? For me the worst thing for a schizophrenic is lack of stimulation, and this is what I found
when my religion was denied me.

After discussing this situation with my mental health team, as your delegates most probably will, you may
develop serious doubts as to my sanity… This is, of course, unavoidable. If I say that I am well, the

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doctors label me as someone who has ‘a lack of degree of insight into their illness’, so I cannot really win
either way! But trust me, I am in perfect physical, emotional and mental health. The only medication
required is a low dose of Risperidone Consta (an atypical antipsychotic), every two weeks; I do not take any
other tablets for any other condition whatsoever. These considerations have prompted me to include with
this letter a so called ‘advance directive’ from Consultant Psychiatrist Dr. **** that my mental condition
was fine at the time of writing this letter. If she will not sign this document then I really should be back in
‘hospital’ and once again under the control of the book burning nurses (metaphorically speaking). You
understand that I have to fight fire with fire, and professionalism with professionalism.

What action do I want taken? First and foremost I would like a written apology for confiscating the
aforementioned books. Ideally, I would like a guarantee that Forston Clinic will actually take notice of their
ostensible mission statement and strive to avoid bigotry no matter how it manifests. Thirdly, I would like
permission to take as many books as is desirable into my quarters if, God help me, I am admitted in the
future. Fourthly, I would like financial compensation for the distress I have been caused (this one is the
least important, but I would like to make an example out of Forston Clinic, and have the press let others
know how sinister they can be). Finally, as my mental health record will inevitably become a source of
posthumous embarrassment and humiliation for my dear family, it is requested that this letter, the advance
directive, and any subsequent correspondence between myself and your delegates be included in that very
record. Perhaps we all want to steer away from a game of ‘Chinese whispers’.

It is possible you will want to meet me in person before taking any action. Perhaps we could meet at
Forston Clinic with Doctors **** and **** and finally thrash this issue into yesterday? I would suggest
neutral turf, but I know that tortoises rarely come out their shells.

As a professional woman, it is possible that you, ****, are a member of some august body such as the Grand
Lodge of England, the Templars or the Rosicrucians. If you wish to know my affiliations please let it be
known that I am not a full member of anything like that. There are two minor exceptions: The Builders of
the Adytum, and the Invisible House of Vancouver. However, in both cases it was simply a matter of
associate membership, and quite short lived correspondence. Let us not allow others to believe that if any
action is taken that it is simply a matter of occult nepotism (I mention this due to the nature of my religion
and the book I am about to publish); it is quite the opposite, and let us face it, this is more in the nature of a
truce and, I hope, resolution (this chapter in my life is already too long).

Why did I not bring this to your attention sooner? Quite simply to assist my advance directive, and to place
some distance between myself and my last Section 3. The last thing that was recommended to me was to
write this letter whilst within the confines of Forston Clinic. That would only let you think that the letter
was written in a poor frame of mind, with bitterness in its heart rather than accuracy and retrospective
insight.

In a nation such as ours which claims an almost unprecedented polytheism and multiculturalism this letter is
not as absurd as some would imply… It is the duty of yourself and your delegates to preserve this freedom,
and my case for justice is entirely valid. Maybe you understand Nietzsche when he stated that ‘the harm the
good do is the most harmful harm’, maybe you know that money is not power, and that magic and ‘the
occult’ are not synonymous terms but indeed often prove to be mutually exclusive. The staff in Forston
Clinic do not seem to comprehend any of these statements, and I want them to be reprimanded before their
psychological mind games get out of control. Please help me. I have many other complaints about this
institution (see below) if you would like to hear about them in detail, but this one about religion is by far the
most pressing.

Vide the rubric:

In Forston Clinic, if I become ‘unwell’ again I can be medicated forcibly, given E. C. T. (maybe that stands
for Extremely Challenging Treatise?), have my sexual freedom not only removed but placed in perilous
ambivalence, be threatened with a rape charge if I do not reject a woman’s advances, be denied all my
money in my giro, have no internet access whatsoever, have my Occupational Therapy work eventually

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thrown away (and as far as I can tell not archived as it should be – or even better – put in my mental health
record), be denied visits, be denied a lawyer, end up with akithisia, dystonia, tardive dyskenisia and
neuroleptic malignant syndrome (all four of which I have personally experienced), end up covered in stretch
marks (Clozaril gives you a healthy appetite), end up with less than 20/20 vision (this last is purely a
conjecture and is difficult to prove), be denied a computer in my room, not be allowed free access to fresh
air (“…please nurse may I go into the garden…”), be denied alcohol and other legal drugs (even when on
leave – their budget can stretch to breath testers), to be told that if I hitchhike down country roads that my
Section 17 will be revoked, be told that if I visit a friend in F. C. (now what could that stand for?) I can only
visit for an hour (if at all), be patronised and humiliated, be conceptually ganged up on by teams of
Consultant Psychiatrists, be denied a camera and mobile phone, have policemen pin me to the floor whilst I
am injected, wonder about the so called ‘confidentiality’ between my G. P. and the psychiatrists, expect my
employment prospects to be limited (‘schizophrenics’ are officially demonised by the media), be told that I
will be on drugs that I don’t want for the rest of my life, be told that I will never be cured only ‘stabilised’
on medication, be put on tablets that are so small they are impossible to cut into smaller pieces, have nurses
look under my tongue for tablets, end up in a statistical manual of a major multinational pharmaceutical
company as another statistic, be told that I cannot smoke at night, mysteriously find it impossible to get
health insurance, have my credit rating put into paroxysm, find that I cannot turn off T. V.s in lounges and
smoking rooms that are behind toughened glass, be denied takeaway food when I want it, be denied seconds
at the dinner table, be told I cannot take an apple from the dining room to my bedroom, be denied
caffeinated tea and caffeinated coffee, be placed on a barbiturate that it is ten times stronger than valium, be
told not to hold hands with someone (‘inappropriate behaviour’), be told that I need a doctor’s permission to
use exercise equipment (a ‘gym slip’), have my private notes removed out of rubbish bins and handed
around for entertainment (nurses and patients), have nurses talk and laugh all night so I cannot sleep (the
‘observation rooms’ are near the office), find that important phone numbers have been ‘blocked’ on the pay
phone (the operator and 1471 for instance), be forced to associate with arsonists, ex-cons and a self
confessed baby killer, have my chances of getting a driving licence lowered, find it impossible to enter the
U. S. A. (a ‘treatment order’ does this), be dragged into insane conversations with lunatics, be bullied by
lunatics, have ex-prostitutes play on my sexual ambivalence for days (a form of sexual torture), have
members of one of the lowest paid professions (psychiatric nurses) assume they are more educated than me,
find that no one takes personal responsibility for your treatment but always refers back to the ‘team’, have
an eighth of an acre fenced in garden when six acres are available, be watched by video cameras, have my
mental health record studied for thirty years after my death, be told that I am not allowed a cigarette lighter
(even in the garden), to have to wait five years to change my ‘next of kin’, to go to a Mental Health Review
Tribunal without a lawyer (Dr. ***** will tell you about the old days), to know that my medication has been
tested on animals, to be denied legal pornography, to have my essential oils confiscated because the bottles
are made of glass, to have the window on my bedroom door opened permanently (“…please nurse could
you lock my window…”), to be told that I can only smoke at certain times, to know that I am fenced in to
stop the value of nearby houses dropping (whilst being forced into communism), be forced (persuaded) to
give blood samples whilst on Clozaril (a little something called ‘neutropina’), find that I can no longer enjoy
alcohol because it mixes badly with the pills, be put on injections that I cannot gradually reduce, find that
when I stop taking medication I cannot sleep, have G. P.s (Dr. **** of Crescent Street Surgery) come to
section me after a week earlier not allowing me sleeping pills, find that there are no shops anywhere near
Forston Clinic, find that Forston Clinic is in fact in the middle of nowhere, find that my psychiatrist cannot
remember what drug or dose I am on, discover that most of the roads out of the Clinic do not have
pavements and I cannot walk to Dorchester, to see mysterious communication bunkers (or at the very least
an unmarked stronghold with aerials) one mile away from the Clinic, to find that the copse between
Melstock House and Foxbrake is full of rubbish and then told by the porter that I cannot clean it up, to find
that printed and stated Mission Statements do not apply to Thelemites, to put up with patients smoking
cannabis in the toilets, to be asked by other patients to piss in foil trays for them so that they will pass a drug
screening, to have to ask for the toilet and baths to be opened, to find that the only readily available toilet
has taps that don’t work, to be put initially in an ‘observation room’ that does not have a sink, to listen to
several patients play pop music at once, to find that Radio One is undetectable on my stereo, to be
disallowed electrical equipment until a ‘professional’ has ‘checked’ it for potential faults (this may take a
fortnight), to see strangers coming in and going almost without end, to become part of something I do not
understand, to feel depressed, to be told that mind control technologies are not real when its existence has

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been proved in supreme courts, to have only four T. V. channels when the civilized world has four hundred,
to find it extremely difficult to follow a vegan diet (I was a strict vegetarian for years), to be told that
alcohol is bad for me when my grandmother was the president of Guildford Licensed Victuallers for many
years, to find that I am marginalised in my grandmother’s last will and testament because my parents believe
the label I have been given, to not sleep for ten days because of psychotic drug withdrawal (Clozaril is in a
class of its own as a form of treatment), to suffer hair loss and months of agitation because of this, to find
that medication stops me remembering my dreams, to find that Clozaril makes me go from 16 stone in
weight to 21 stone in weight (I can show you some ‘before and after’ photographs), to be given
antipsychotic injections and ‘side effect’ injections (Clopixol Acuphase and procylcidine) at the same time,
to find that I am addicted to procyclidine tablets for two years, to wonder about my the validity of my
psychiatrists’ Hippocratic Oaths, to find that in O. T. most people only colour in pictures like children, to
discover that most patients cannot be bothered to answer the payphone and that it rings incessantly, to ask
for a full copy of the Mental Health Act and be looked at in bewilderment, discover that when I discuss
magick or the book that I am writing that I am looked upon as deluded, to be asked if I believe I have any
‘special powers’, to experience sophisms, vague arguments, nebulous explanations and refusals to elaborate
on a daily basis, to have vitamin pills (C) taken away and rationed severely when I need many times the R.
D. A. because I am a smoker, to find that I can no longer feel the wind on my face when I sleep (the
windows are in the main closed), to not be allowed a ciesta, eventually to learn that Forston Clinic has been
accredited several times by Southampton University and that even the liberal academics agree with the
psychiatrists and to wonder why etc. etc. ad nauseum, ad infinitum, and that is without even mentioning Dr.
Moniz! Have I just given you a graphic depiction of hell, or will the nurses and other professionals accuse
me of being economical with the truth? I can even be denied a reading of my mental health record (in other
words a real ‘occult book’), and before 1991 I would never have been allowed to read it. And now the dear
doctors and nurses want to take away my religious freedom. Even in Camp X-Ray the prisoners of war
were allowed copies of the Qu’ran. Well I am starting to feel a whole lot better… Do you find that
amusing? The reason I smashed your windows and doors was because I DO NOT (you’ll find that juicy
story in my record), capiche? I also became violent because I could feel another bout of neuroleptic
malignant syndrome kicking in, and if you find that funny then you are sick. The N. M. S. felt like it was
killing me. And people accuse me of being unduly paranoid! I am not paranoid, these are the facts! Now,
please tell me, who are the people that are misinterpreting ‘do what thou wilt’ to mean something
completely different? Is it Crowley or psychiatry that is the stegosaurus? Quite frankly your sugar coated
fascism does not impress me anymore. Are you trying to ‘toughen me up’ boot camp style, or are you
attempting to remove my human rights completely? Am I being unreasonable or is Forston Clinic? If you
had let me have my books this letter would never have been written; you opened this can of worms yourself
and only have yourselves to blame. (Please ****, realise that I am using the word ‘you’ creatively to mean
Forston Clinic and not yourself, and that you should allow me some artistic license). And to finally put the
icing on the cake I have never asked for the help of Forston Clinic. Please enlighten me as to what is wrong
with a book of poetry? What is it you are afraid of? Are you all mentally ill? And yes, sarcasm may be the
lowest form of wit, but incarceration is the lowest form of treatment.

**** said in her response to my initial complaint three main things: a) that my books are disturbing and may
lead to other patients becoming unwell. Have you, ****, ever heard of Grand Theft Auto? Well if not let
me tell you! It is a computer game that has graphic depictions, not only of gratuitous violence, but also
prostitution, drug running, car theft and protection rackets. It is an 18 certificate. This game is allowed in
Forston Clinic, for several people to play at once, behind a glass shield so that you even have to ask a nurse
to turn it off for you! Do you want your children, your ill children, to play this? Well of course, but don’t
let them read Crowley’s poetry… I rest my case. b) that my books were not of a religious nature. The
Holy Books of Thelema is self explanatory by looking at the title. It is religious. Deeply religious.
Anything written by Crowley, especially the A.·. A.·. Publications in Class A and B are considered as
integral facets of what we, as Thelemites, are striving towards. And c) that these books contain references to
ritual slaughter and self-harm. In none of those four books was self harm mentioned (it is mentioned in two
other of Crowley’s books), and the ‘ritual slaughter’ is a metaphor for something else, which I am not at
liberty to explain. (Besides see elsewhere for those considerations.) Suffice to say if I read certain passages
of the Holy Bible, in a certain tone of voice, that would probably be confiscated from me as well. If the
literal Crucifixion was not an extreme case of ritual slaughter, then what is?

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Please stop being a hypocrite, Mrs. ****, let me have my books or I will start writing letters (I know you
will never stop writing about me!) to the corridors of power. You people turned this into a Jihad and not
me. And remember that writing and erudition is not the only tool at Our disposal; We also have filing
cabinets, doctors, lawyers, accountants and political clout. Perhaps both you and me could exchange the
insult of being ‘religious fanatics’ at each other? The Book of the Law versus the Mental Health Act
perhaps? It is your organisation that bears all the hallmarks of a coercive mind control cult and not Ours. It
is Forston Clinic that uses incarceration, chemical hypnosis, indoctrination into a scientific reductionist
model, constant reference to ‘manuals’ and so on, and so forth, and not any Thelemic church… It you want
to emasculate my right to read what I want, including the ‘occult book’ called my mental health record, then
do it with the blessing of Dr. ****, and please stop passing the buck! If the witch hunt is in full swing then
please burn me first! I have already confessed! “You have the right to remain silent, but it may harm your
sanity if you ignore your doctor.”

The will to love is the law to live.

93 and kind regards,

Yours in good faith,

****.

Postscript – This is a short essay which cocoons the ideals and ideology of the present movement under
microscope. It was sent to Dr. **** some months ago by myself, it was written by myself and I believe it to
be accurate (it has been edited since for some grammatical and syntactical errors, but remains essentially
identical):

THELEMA / ΘΕΛΗΜΑ

You asked me during our last meeting for a written statement about the belief system which I adhere to,
which is known generally as ‘Thelema’. I am very pleased you gave me an opportunity to voice my
opinions as it may go some way to showing you that the forced confiscation of literature that I experienced
in Forston Clinic was criminal. Please let me be as concise as I can.

The central text in Thelema is known as The Book of Law which was received by Aleister Crowley in Cairo,
during April 8th, 9th and 10th in the year 1904. The word ‘Thelema’ is Greek for ‘will’ and is spelt Theta-E
Psilon-Lambda-Eta-Mu-Alpha.

The first thing about my faith that you really should know (and I also plead you observe) is that no one is
allowed to discuss, study or attempt to openly intellectually dissect The Book of the Law. This injunction
exists for several reasons. The first and foremost is to prevent the evangelical tyranny that has plagued
earlier faiths. We know of many examples of unscrupulous individuals who have memorised the Holy Bible
and turned their ostensible erudition into a form of charisma that simply lends them the imagined authority
to control others. (Do you remember the governor in The Shawshank Redemption?) We also are all too
aware of the so called ‘holy wars’ that have been fought over points of dogma. The third reason of many is

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to ensure that each person who encounters The Book of the Law does so with an impartial and unbiased
viewpoint and his interpretation therefore remains purely his own. Thelema is elastic and undogmatic. So
please do not expect me to enlighten you on specific areas of Thelemic theology. This injunction of silence
has been leveled at Us as a surreptitious means of glossing over some ‘unpalatable’ passages found in our
holiest of books. I simply refer you to the threats made in the Qu’ran towards infidels, and the promises
God made to the camp of Egypt in the vein of locusts and plagues in Exodus, and a thousand other examples
(my King James translation and highlighter pen are virtually married by now!). There is nothing
‘unpalatable’ in our holy books that has not been matched or excelled by other divine texts.

So after saying all that you can see that I am at cross purposes in trying to explain my religion to you…
Enough said that if I stick to facts alone, rather than informed opinions or interpretations, I may be able to
avoid breaking the rules and enlighten you in the process.

Thelemites do believe in sovereignty, and freedom, and do quite often greet each other with the phrase ‘Do
what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law’ [sic]. This ‘motto’ (I hate to call it that!) is balanced by the
almost invariable response of ‘Love is the law, love under will’. You may interpret this ethos in anyway
you wish. However, I believe that this superficial resemblance to anarchy and hedonism is rooted in deep
misunderstanding. ‘Do what thou wilt’ is the apotheosis of freedom, but it is also the strictest possible
bond. This new Law is not a call to indulge one’s every passing whim but rather a mandate to discover
one’s True Will (capitals intentional) whilst leaving others to discover and perform whatever appeals to
them in their own unique ways. But you also must remember that these statements are only two sentences
from The Book of Law and that many other guidelines exist. Our commandments and holy books are a set
of divinely inspired theophanies that utterly defy rational criticism.

Most Thelemites practice a form of ceremonial magick that borrows heavily from the past but that also
utilizes advances in modern psychology. An almost synonymous term for Thelema is ‘Scientific
Illuminism’. Our watchword for decades has been ‘The Method of Science, the Aim of Religion’. Rather
than staying the dusty home of demons and devils the magical temple has become the laboratory of the
spirit. We eschew superstition, blind following of superfluous ritual and religious fetters. Aleister Crowley
did not ask his followers to blindly believe but rather to make serious excursions into clearly delineated
techniques and decide for themselves what works and what does not. Most of these ceremonies are
‘Qabalistic’ in origin, if you are aware what that is, but suffice to say it is a form of sacred geometry and
mystical algebra. Thelemites practice a form of mathematical magick that comes from the Jews. This
system of spiritual discipline is not to create outstanding and incredible feats of miracle working; but rather
it exists to effect a gradual subjective transformation in ones intellectual and moral faculties. It goes
without saying that Thelema is not concerned with the ‘rabbit out of a hat’ legerdemain of Paul Daniels and
similar ilk, nor is it interested in controlling the weather or manifesting hosts of spirits. The principle
‘Crown of the Outer College’ is basically becoming aware of one’s higher self, in Thelema known as the
‘Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel’ (in modern parlance this is called
‘schizophrenia’). However, I must confess at this point that they are two examples of thaumaturgy (miracle
working) contained within the Crowley corpus of writings, but these are seen as symptoms of success rather
than something to actually strive for. For more details of the mechanics of Thelemic magick I can refer you
to the book I am constructing which is called A Glossary of Thelema. This is an A-Z dictionary detailing
the ‘magical alphabet’ in all its ramifications. (When completed a copy will be sent to your team for
inclusion with my mental health record.)

Alongside ceremonial magick and Qabalism, the art of yoga is also studied. However this is not the
stereotypical yoga we see Gerri Haliwell performing, nor that of the learned Indian Hindu, but in fact simply
a set of adjuvants to proper meditation. Another thing I have noticed is that it is very difficult to meditate in
Forston Clinic because you never know who is coming round the corner, there is little privacy, the
lorazepam is too much and because if you do yoga the nurses write in your record – ‘…subject has been
seen to twist his body into strange positions…’. You get the idea.

Whether or not Aleister Crowley was an evil man, or a prophet and saint, has been a hotly debated point for
decades. I do not want to give you a lecture on moral relativism however as I have resolved this issue in my

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own mind a long time ago. I believe we as human beings are on this earth for one reason and one reason
only: the accumulation of experience. History is full of figures who were denounced whilst living, but who
not only achieved a posthumous fame, but a posthumous adoration as well. In my opinion Crowley is just
such an individual. His legacy stands head and shoulders above his mischief and it will be a long time
before his unquenchable lust for life is seen as a bad thing. Let’s face it, we are on this planet to experience
new things and satiate our sense of adventure to the utmost, and even Crowley’s detractors must admit that
he was driven by a quest for well deserved recognition. I want to live life to the full because I am in perfect
mental health! The treatment has worked! The applause is not only deafening, but intoxicating…

On a more practical note we can safely assume that if Crowley actually did the things the tabloids of the day
accused him of that he would have been institutionalized, or probably even killed.

Is Thelema a form of euphemistic Satanism? Only if the practitioner wants it to be! Freedom is a two
edged sword and some are not ready to accept the consequences of their actions. It is a difficult thing to
live away from the herd, and the journey is perilous. I simply refer you, kind doctor, to that famous
aphorism of Nietzsche – ‘The harm the good do is the most harmful harm’. Now why does that statement
remind me of confiscated books? Please excuse my untimely sarcasm but it is one of the few weapons I
have left!

Is Thelema a dangerous cult? Well…. There are many definitions of what constitutes a ‘cult’, but my
favourite one is this. Most cults diminish with the deaths of their founders, however religions prosper as a
result. Crowley has more followers that he could ever have dreamed of during his lifetime. Cults also
follow a systematic program of indoctrination and coercion, which I do not believe is an aspect of what I am
into. And, most importantly, Thelema encourages the individual and makes assertiveness a paramount
criterion of its practice. One of our books, which sets up rules for an ‘Abbey of Thelema’ states that each
group shall be no more than eleven members in size; this of course is a condition that no greedy mind
control cult would ever subscribe to, as we all know they attract as many dupes as is possible. So quite
simply Thelema is not a cult, it is a religion.

Because that Thelema’s fundamental concepts (despite the rubric given above) can be easily misinterpreted
as those of a heresiarch, is it then a ‘terrorist’ group? Whilst it is true that We are not pacifists by any
stretch of the imagination (you have to fight for your freedom), needless violence goes against the utopian
society that We hope to engender. And again terrorists are generally a secretive and covert bunch that hide
their operations from the authorities. My friends and I are publicly accountable. Another watchword in
Thelemic dogma is – ‘Mystery is the Enemy of Truth’. The difference between Us and the I. R. A. for
instance is the difference between half-light occultism and divine magick, those two poorly defined entities
that only the vulgar consider as sibling notions, and that only the Thelemite sees as mutually exclusive. I
can at least say, at the very least, that I cannot make a bomb, concoct poison or know how to lay a
landmine! And besides the recent semantic mutation of the word ‘terrorist’ in the annals of American law I
am sure it does not apply to me.

Do I belong to any groups of this nature? Only two. The first was simply a matter of naïve correspondence
with someone from Vancouver and the other membership fell into abeyance some years ago. So I am more
or less practicing this on my own.

What drew me to this spiritual college? At one point I was studying so many different systems of
attainment that I decided to stick at something that generated respect. Buddhism was one failing signpost
for me, amongst others, but I finally accepted a path of Thelema because I wanted something to get my teeth
into. The enormity of Crowley’s writings appealed to me strongly. When I was first admitted into Forston
Clinic I was skating on extremely thin metaphysical ice. The decision was eventually made that it would be
better to have a sharp knife in one’s pocket than a thousand multicoloured knitting needles. That decision
was made many years ago. So the closest thing I can give to a reason for following Thelema is one of
spiritual refuge.

Anyway I think that is about as brief I can be with such a complex subject. However, I should state that I

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think to deny me access to religious literature can in no way help my mental health, even if the nurses
believe that it will worsen my condition not to. In truth it is only because of Thelema that I have recovered
from an intense bout of schizophrenia.

What I am demanding is an apology and a reassurance that such obnoxious methods will not be used on me
again.

Yours ALways,

**** ******.

n. b. Please **** could you refer to the carbon copy of this letter that Doctor **** should have, and get her
to sign the below with me when I see her at an undetermined date soon in the future. Also, could you please
tell her that this is a prelude to a full ‘advance directive’ that I am preparing with all due care.

A PARTIAL ADVA%CE DIRECTIVE FOR BRIA% ADAM %EWMA%

Parties involved are ****, of **** Weymouth; Consultant Psychiatrist Dr. **** of the North Dorset Primary
Care Trust; and finally Mrs. **** the Locality Manager of Weymouth and Portland C. M. H. T..

This has been written by ***** **** ****** to add legal and political clout to the letter he wrote Mrs. ****
on Wednesday September 14th regarding ‘religious and literary discrimination in Forston Clinic, Dorset’.
He feels that the letter is of such a controversial nature that his sanity, however temporary, must be
professionally established.

At the time of signing Dr. **** and **** agreed with the
following statements:

a) that the aforementioned letter was indeed written by ***** **** ******;

b) that the topics this letter discusses do not represent a deviation from the previously established
religion, views, philosophy, standpoint etc. of ***** **** ******;

c) that ***** **** ****** has been out of psychiatric hospital for some months and is no longer
under the Mental Health Act;

d) that to the best of Dr. ****’s knowledge, ***** **** ****** believes absolutely that his letter
corresponds with the truth and is free of fabrications;

e) that ***** is compliant and still taking his psychiatric medication, albeit under duress;

f) and finally that in Dr. ****’s professional opinion **** is not suffering from a mental illness that
causes him to experience intense delusions, or that he is unwell enough to lie in his letter to the
third party. However, both parties agree that this stable period in ***** **** ******’s state of
mind may be temporary, and that it is probably helped by medication.

Signed ***** **** ******

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Dr. *****

Date Time

Signed at

Cc: Dr. **** Consultant Psychiatrist

(Weymouth and Portland C. M. H. T.)
Cc: **** Community Psychiatric Nurse
(Weymouth and Portland C. M. H. T.)
Cc: Dr. **** Consultant Psychiatrist
(Forston Clinic, Dorset)
Cc: Mrs. **** Senior Nurse “Matron”
(Forston Clinic, Dorset)
Cc: ***** **** ****** For the mental health record of
(Forston Clinic, Dorset)
Cc: Ordo Templi Orientis The Order of Oriental Templars
(International)

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Here follows a leaflet about ‘spirituality’ that is distributed by the Care Trust:

Spirituality
What is it?
Have I got it?
Where can I find it?
Helping to meet your spiritual needs
while staying in hospital
Introduction
This booklet has been written to enable you to express your spiritual needs during your stay in
hospital. You may find this a help if you would like to do so. Some experiences of spirituality are
shared here and this may prompt you to ask your own questions about your spiritual journey.
Some members of staff have a particular interest in spirituality and mental health. Please ask your
named or associate nurse if you would like to talk about any of the issues raised in this booklet.
What is spirituality?
Dr Julie Leibrich speaking at the world assembly for mental health in Vancouver interpreted
Spirituality in this way:
"Spirituality is an experience, not a religion. Spirituality is beyond doctrine, beyond cultural
difference. It is something deep within our core."
Religion is one interpretation of the experience of spirituality. A means of expressing it. Religion
shapes our spiritual experiences because it is linked to culture, upbringing, a sense of history, but
it is not the experience itself. Religion is also one of the ways we try to share our experiences of
spirituality, but this can be problematic as it can actually create a barrier to sharing spirituality.
Mental health is the state of freedom which comes from accepting one’s self and taking
responsibility for one’s actions. It is many other things as well, of course, such as:
? acceptance of others as they are,
? acceptance of life as it is,
? knowing when and how to change and
? when and how to let go.
Experiences of spirituality
This is how one of Dr Leibrich's patients described spirituality:
“It is the breath of life, the innermost part of me. It is the space within my heart, my essence. It’s
a kind of coming home, the space I go. My being, my spirit, my soul. Doctrine can be a divider,
an excuse for war. Spirituality is a connector, a reason for peace.”

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Another spoke about her illness.

“Every time I have had an episode of illness in my life, I have been on some kind of spiritual
journey by the time it is over. In the long term, through these experiences, I see myself becoming
more and more whole. In fact, I see myself as a mentally healthy person who is sometimes ill.
When I experience severe depression, I seem to lose my sense of self. I feel like I am
disintegrating. Depression is a potential killer. It puts everything into shadow. Colours fade, voices
and music become harsh. It whispers in my ear that life has no value. Sometimes, it is as if I had
died, and the depression then becomes a state of mourning for the dead me. When everything
seems so pointless and full of pain, I have to find some kind of comfort if I am to survive. Although
I need to accept the illness, I also need hope. Sometimes I have a kind of miraculous experience,
a kind of turning point, which involves spiritual insight. I know, deep within, that at these times, I
am healing. That is why I have to reach the space within my heart to get well. There are many
ways into that space for me – through reflecting with gratitude on the things I have, through
focusing on the smallest point of here and now, through letting go of all the things I am trying to
control. Almost always, though, the way in is through silence and solitude. Sometimes, it is too
hard and I am lost or locked out from myself. Then maybe someone else can show me the way
home through my connecting with them and their spiritual self. Maybe they are able to say, “I
know what you are going through. I’ve been there too.” Or maybe all they can say is “I don’t know
what it’s like for you, but I care and I’ll be there with you.” Maybe they just take my hand and sit a
while. I call such people soul mates.”
This is the story of one man's journey:
A young local man discovered he was suffering from a severe physical illness. This illness, which
affects the muscles, eventually will restrict him to a wheel chair and result in his premature death.
As you can imagine he felt distraught and angry when the diagnosis was made. “Why me?” was
his question. He found support and strength from his faith, which grew stronger as his illness
became more noticeable. He felt he needed to give what little he had to others whilst he was able
to do so. Knowing he could be a useful member of society gave him a sense of purpose.
Not only does he now spend his waking hours enjoying the few short years he has left but also
works tirelessly for a variety of charitable organisations. When he was well, he was just another
ordinary chap who just got on with his life. His illness restored his faith in himself and his faith in
those around him. His illness brought out these special talents that had been hidden from himself
and others. Through his illness he has found strength.
How can we help?
During your stay in hospital, your care team can attempt to help you meet your spiritual needs.
Everyone knows how difficult it is being in hospital. Our intention is to make your stay here a little
easier.
? Would you like to see a hospital chaplain or a religious representative during your stay in
hospital?
? Are there particular rituals or practices that are important to you?
? How can your religious beliefs and practices be accommodated whilst in hospital?
We have members of staff who have an interest in spirituality and mental health. Please ask your
named or associate nurse if you would like to discuss any spiritual issues.
Further thoughts
Listed below are five questions that may help you to understand your own spirituality. Maybe you
would like to write the answers down or find a member of staff to discuss them with you.
? Do you take time to reflect on life’s experiences?
? What events in your life have an effect you?
? Are there any things that particularly motivate you?
? Have you thought why the illness has happened to you?
? Is there anything that frightens you about your illness or experience?
Please remember spirituality is not just about religious issues. You can be a spiritual person
and not have any firm beliefs about God. You don’t have to be a Christian or a Muslim or anything
else. It's about understanding the real you and what makes you special. It’s about living with
your issues, understanding them and helping others to understand you better.
Events at Forston Clinic

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Here at Forston Clinic we have some events that may interest you. On the 1st and 3rd Sunday of
the month we have a very simple half hour Service. This takes place on Melstock House in the
dayroom at 7.00 pm. If you have a poem or prayer you would like to read during the service or
choose a Hymn or song that is special to you, see a member of staff during the week. Some
people just like to come along and listen. Whatever part you want to play you are always most
welcome. On Wednesdays in the O.T. Quiet Room we hold an informal discussion group called
“Thoughts”. Many interesting topics have been discussed over the past months. Everyone has
the opportunity to speak - the only rule is that we don’t discuss individual problems or ward
related issues. We have a spirituality notice board situated just outside the dining room; this
has proved to be very popular. Please have a look. It is thought-provoking and informative.
There are plans to establish other events that have been suggested by patients during these
meetings. We will keep you informed as and when these come to fruition.
Leaflet: Spirituality / 611 Updated: June 2005

Here is a snippet from an old short film called Synchronicities, it kind of like sums up the
psychology/spiritual model that led me to becoming schizophrenic:

Madman - When a phantom climbs it’s a ghost of a ladder what serves him.

Bystander - Excuse me?

Madman - From impulsive desire we’re born, but from convention – we die. Words are trans-induction
drugs, we feed on them like addicts to produce dogma and reality. But you sir, are a zombie! A robot
blindly enamoured by your deceit. What you know to be Christianity and democracy are but a tyranny that
works fundamentally to own you as property, and so long as you obey their rules and regulations your
status as property won’t be invoked. YOU ARE A SLAVE!! A bacteria for culture.

Bystander - What?

Madman - Think about it. Americans can eat oysters – but they shy away from snails; the French love
snails – but they dislike locusts; Zulus munch on locusts – but they won’t eat fish; Jews eat fish – but they
wont eat pork; Hindus eat pork – but they wont touch beef; the Russians like beef – but they hate snakes;
the Chinese devour snakes – but they wont eat people; and the Hali, of 8ew Guinea think people are
delightful to eat.

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Bystander - Yes and vegetarians kill vegetables, but not all pacifists are vegetarians. What are you trying
to say?

Madman - I’m trying to say that each competing horde of geo slaves thinks its form of slavery is better.
What I’m saying is each Bible is simply a slaves’ manual, a ‘how to book’, now you see the purpose of
chaos, paradox, nonsense is to set itself against the linear world, to prevent monotheism from controlling
the anxieties created by the unknown. Instead you must jump into the unknown, head first.

Bystander - You’re crazy! What are you trying to say, all ideologies and theologies are dangerous? What
does that mean?

Madman - Meaning is only found after you destroy the search for it. Think about it. What does ‘DOGMA’
spell backwards?

Bystander - A – M – G – O …

Madman - You see, you must transcend beyond your traditions. Ask yourself are you a free man or the
property of some god? 8ow Christianity claims to be the great lever in civilization yet Christ never talked
about quantum physics, or that the purpose of life is self development, he shows a lack of scientific
knowledge. In fact in Luke 20:34 he states that those who marry aren’t worthy of being saved. And if you
wonder why women are so long oppressed you have only to read first Corinthians 7:4 that states that the
woman has no rights over her own body, THE MA8 HAS THEM! So you see belief has created more
problems than anything. Believe in nothing, become who you are. Michael…

Bystander - How do you know my name?

Madman - And Michael, there are millions of solar systems throughout the galaxy upon which life breeds
and evolves, there are more advanced cultures numbering in the millions on other planets. But right now
they exist ahead of us in genetic time. 8ow the neurogenetic plan is to decode the D8A and C8S messages.
8ow after this is done, and only after, can we extend life, increase intelligence, and migrate throughout the
galaxy. Believe in nothing Michael, become who you are. I am that I am. Ha ha ha….

SIDE EFFECTS FROM PSYCHIATRIC DRUGS

The range of side effects from psychiatric drugs is immense. On the leaflets that come with any drug box
the companies are legally obliged to list any and all the potential adverse effects that their product might
create. It is quite common to see over a hundred different things mentioned. The most common side effects
are listed first, with the least likely at the bottom, and so on, in the ubiquitous leafleats. As per usual I give
things I have personally experienced in alphabetical order, rather than order of importance.

EJACULATIO% I only get this problem with Clozaril, but it happens invariably. Basically if you
have taken your dose of this stuff, and you indulge in sexual activity, you can have an orgasm but you will
not cum (ejaculate). This happens quite often, and I really wonder if it does my ‘plumbing’ any permanent
harm.

EYE PROBLEMS Although I cannot directly prove that the psychiatric medication has given me eye
problems, it is quite likely. Until eight or nine years ago I have perfect 20/20 vision. In fact I used to freak
people out I had such excellent vision. Now I am short sighted, with what the optician diagnosed as
astigmatism. I also get very bad ‘floaters’ which can only be described as lights, circles and chains that
cross my field of vision – especially when I look at the daytime sky, or something like a white washed wall

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or ceiling. If this wasn’t enough I sometimes get a vortex type thing, that pulsates with black and white
patterns, and is kind of like a dimensional gateway! I know it sounds weird!

I am supposed to wear glasses, but knowing that they make my eyes weaker, and this very quickly, I
generally only use them when watching movies or when I travel.

HALLUCI%ATIO%S Although the strongest psychiatric hallucinogen is undoubtedly Procyclidine

Hydrochloride, I have also had a trip or two with Lorazepam, although this was because of overdose. The
most frequent hallucination is seeing things move – as if they were alive! I struggled for an adjective to
describe this shifting and contorting of things until someone suggested ‘breathing’; this to date is the most
accurate portrayal. This is very common with Procyclidine, but with Lorazepam overdose I also
experienced seeing my own reflection change (this was quite demonic), my mirror ‘breathe’ up and down
the wall, my Charlotte Church calendar become alive and so on. It should be added that it is quite easy to
cope with seeing objects ‘breathe’ but when people start to contort it can be very scary. (There is a
hallucination program available online nowadays that provides the same identical ‘breathing’ effect, but
without drugs!)

LIBIDO PROBLEMS For me the worst side effect is a reduced libido. This for me is the case with
Lorazepam, Clonazepam, Temazepam, Clopixol, Haliperidol and probably scores of others. This may be a
reason why the little blue pills, the Lorazepam, is given to just about every patient in Forston and to a lesser
extent Linden. When I was on Clopixol depots I was once completely unable to get an erection with a very
sexy woman; eventually I did get one – but then had premature ejaculation! Clopixol was the worst drug in
this connection.

MOVEME%T DISORDERS There are several types of movement disorder generally associated
with antipsychotics, typical, atypical and novel. My first run in was with Olanzipine, otherwise known as
Zyprexa. To this day I do not know why I tolerated those symptoms for all those months. Basically, I
would take my Olanzipine at night, go to bed, and look forward to a good hour or two of torture. I believe
the doctors refer to what I experienced as a ‘dystonic reaction’, but forgive me if I am wrong. If felt like a
nervous spasm, an uncontrollable surge of energy, akin to a self generated electric shock! I would feel it in
my feet, but sometimes by wrists and hands as well. The energy would rise, every 40 seconds or so, and I
would be forced to shake my leg for a temporary alleviation of the excess nervous force. But it would go on
for quite a while, every night. (Eventually I stopped taking my meds because of it, and relapsed because of
neurolyptic withdrawal symptoms.) To not respond to the nervous surges, and keep still, took almost as
much willpower as it would take for one to hold one’s hand over a candle flame. It was fucking horrible. I
got these symptoms to a lesser extent with Clozaril, and when I overdosed on the benzodiazepines.
Eventually I was put on a beta blocker called Metroprolol to combat the dystonia. This helped not
inconsiderably but made me out of breath – another side effect.

Another movement problem I got, from Clopixol, was something called ‘tardive dyskinesia’. This
manifested mainly in my legs and feet. It was nothing like the dystonic nerve spasms mentioned above.
You know some people have a habit of putting their feet on the paddy area below the toes, and kind of like
hitting the nervous resonance of the Achille’s Heel? So that the leg moves of its own accord? Well
basically I was doing that, but most of the waking day! People would remark on how annoying it was – but
I couldn’t stop! This was mainly a problem with the Clopixol dept injections; eventually it got so annoying
that I was put on Risperdal Consta depots, with the promise that it would diminish. But it didn’t! Now I am
on Clozaril tablets and the T.D. has more or less gone away. Thank God for that!

Last but not least in the movement disorder category we have the ‘crisis’. This is a result of Clopixol
Acuphase or Haliperidol injections. Basically you have the milder version where the head twists back, and
it is difficult to speak clearly. The more serious type involves complete muscular seizure, eyes rolling back,
difficulty breathing and sometimes even death. If you get this on a ward you will be given liquid
Procyclidine, or an injection of the same. Because Proyclidine gives you quite a buzz I have even known
people, including myself, to fake the above symptoms. I am not sure if this is true for anyone except me,

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but I did seem to develop a natural immunity over time for the ‘crisis’.

ODOURS This side effect can be subdivided into actual odours coming through one’s skin, and
olfactory hallucinations associated with withdrawal from antipsychotics.

I found when reducing my dose of benzodiazepines (definitely Lorazepam and Clonazepam, and maybe –
but I am not certain – Temazepam) that a strange, toxic and really pretty foul smell would be sweated out of
my skin; especially through the armpits and groin. My girlfriend at the time noticed this and she was
genuinely disgusted – I tried to explain it was the meds, but this didn’t cut the mustard with her. It may
have been a contributing factor to our split up. I cannot describe the smell and cannot accurately compare it
with anything else. It was vile. And guess what? When the benzos were out of my system the terrible
odour vanished!

But possibly worse than this is the olfactory hallucination… My worst experience of this was when I was
homeless elsewhere in Dorset. It was kind of like a cross between damp and rotting clothing, rotten flesh,
and radioactive God knows what. On one occasion I ended up burning down my tent (and all my
possessions at the time) because the ‘smell’ was so bad. I only got this when I rapidly withdrew my dose of
Clozaril, and got it to a lesser extant by a similar withdrawal from Clopixol. In both cases the ‘smell’
followed me around for days, even onto the psychiatric ward! Trust me it isn’t nice.

OVERSLEEPI%G This is a big problem with Clozaril. It is not uncommon for someone even on a
mild dose to sleep for at least twelve hours a day. Generally you can get by on nine or so hours, but the
drug just makes it very appealing to get back into the sack. So, although it is a problem, it shouldn’t be any
trouble for someone with an obligation to get up in the morning, such as someone with a job etc.

On a lesser note, the benzodiazepines, if taken during the day can make you go to sleep during the day
sometimes. This was definitely the case on Minterne ward. I noticed that I would sleep less during the day
as the dose was reduced.

WEIGHT GAI% This is a real bummer for me. Clozaril is the worst antipsychotic when it comes to
weight gain, without a doubt. It doesn’t actually pile the flab on of its own accord, but it increases one’s
appetite significantly. Quite often, if one takes one’s dose before sleeping, one gets hungry about two hours
after taking it; and often enough one has a large breakfast also. When I was first put on Clozaril it was in
the days before Minterne became a PICU (Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit), and one could eat as much as
one wanted. I took advantage of this and consumed massive amounts of stodgy grub. I was not exercising
much (my natural burn off technique is to walk and one only walked around the grounds a few times before
boredom set in) and put on something like six stone in as many months. This also left me permanently
scarred with stretch marks over different parts. At the moment I am about 20 stone.

When I was put on Clopixol, and later Risperdal Consta, the weight eventually dropped off. However, I
think in retrospect the best medication is still Clozaril because, although you might become fat, you will not
be left with a socially alienating movement disorder – you can always lose the weight later, or do sport etc.

For example’s sake I include, verbatim, the side effects associated with Clozaril, taken directly from the
leaflet that comes in the pill box:

POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS

Effects on blood

Clozaril can cause changes to the numbers of a type of cell (white cell) which is found in the blood.
Occasionally, people may develop a decrease in a particular type of white blood cell called a neutrophil.
8eutrophils are responsible for fighting infections and so, if they decrease, you body may be less able to
fight off infection. You may hear this called ‘neutropenia’ or ‘agranulocytosis’. It is for this reason that

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regular blood tests must be carried out. If a significant decrease in white blood cells occurs, further blood
tests will be necessary and if at any point, the level of white blood cells drops below a certain level,
Clozaril treatment must be stopped straight away. It is very important to miss blood tests. Once Clozaril
has been stopped, the white blood cells should recover. In you develop neutropenia or agranulocytosis,
you will not be able to receive Clozaril again. While you are taking Clozaril, it is important that you tell
doctor immediately if you develop any sign of infection, such as an increase in temperature, or symptoms
like flu or a sore throat. This will allow your doctor to perform an urgent blood test in order to check
whether your symptoms are related to your medicine. Occasionally, Clozaril can cause an increase in the
number of white blood cells. Additionally, Clozaril may also cause an increase in a specific type of white
blood cell called an eosinophil. If it rises above a certain level, Clozaril treatment will be stopped.
Clozaril will only be restarted when the number of eosinophils has dropped. A decrease in the number of
platelets (a blood cell essential for the clotting of blood) has also occurred in some very rare cases. If the
number of platelets falls below a certain level, Clozaril treatment will be stopped. An increase in the
number of platelets can also occur.

Effects on the heart

Rarely, Clozaril has been reported to adversely affect the heart. For this reason, before you start taking
Clozaril, your doctor will ask you about any previous heart problems you may have had and will carry out
a physical examination that might include a trace recording of the heart (electrocardiogram or ECG).
Clozaril can cause changes to the ECG, palpitations and an altered heart rhythm. Rarely, it can cause
abnormalities of the heart muscle (cardiomyopathy), inflammation of the membrane surrounding the heart
muscle (peridcarditis), fluid collection around the heart (pericardial effusion) and very rarely cardiac
arrest. It has also rarely been reported to cause inflammation of the heart muscle (myocarditis). If
myocarditis occurs, it usually happens within the first two months of treatment. Symptoms of myocarditis
may include; a fast heartbeat at rest, fast or difficult breathing, chest pain, palpitations, an abnormal heart
rhythm, flu symptoms, unexplained fatigue and raised eosinophils in the blood. If you have taken Clozaril
in the past and been diagnosed with myocarditis it is very important that you inform your doctor, since you
should not take Clozaril again.

Other Side Effects

In some people Clozaril may cause the following:

· Drowsiness
· Dizziness
· Fatigue
· Making extra salive (spit) or drooling
· Faintness or light headedness if you stand up suddenly after lying down
· Weight gain
· Blurred vision
· Headache
· Tremor, rigidity, agitation, restlessness and abnormal movements
· Epileptic fits (seizures, convulsions) and jerking
· Dry mouth
· Increased sweating
· Raised body temperature – especially in the initial weeks of treatment
· High blood pressure
· Feeling of sickness, vomiting, loss of appetite
· Involuntary loss of urine or difficulty in passing urine
· Minor abnormalities in liver function tests
· 8euroleptic Malignant Syndrome (8MS) – a severe reaction to antipsychotic medication
· Some patients may develop constipation whilst taking Clozaril which may become severe.
This should be reported to your doctor as treatment may be necessary.

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On rare occasions CLOZARIL may cause:

· Raised blood sugar levels and sugar diabetes. Very rarely, some patients can be severely
affected.
· Confusion or disorientation
· Abnormal muscle movement of face and limbs
· Raised levels of a type of fat (triglyceride) in the blood
· Clotting in the blood vessels e.g. legs
· Difficulty in swallowing
· Difficulty in breathing
· Accidental inhalation of food
· Severe constipation associated with obstruction of the bowel which may cause abdominal
pain and stomach cramps
· Inflammation of the liver, and other effects on the liver, causing yellowing of the skin, itching
and dark urine
· Inflammation of the pancreas leading to abdominal pain
· Enlargement of the glands that produce salive
· Inflammation of the kidneys
· Skin rash
· Raised levels of an enzyme called creatinine phosphokinase in the blood
· Painful persistent erection of the penis
· High cholesterol levels in the blood
· Anaemia (low haemoglobin)

Tell your doctor straight away if you experience any of the above symptoms or if you have any other
unexpected symptoms not mentioned in this leaflet.

Unless your doctor advises you otherwise, you should not stop taking your Clozaril tablets suddenly
because there have been reports of withdrawal reactions following sudden cessation of therapy. These
reactions include sweating, headache, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea and reoccurrence of your original
symptoms e.g. thought disorders.

Very rarely, sudden unexplained deaths have been reported in patients taking Clozaril. Such deaths are
known to occur among people with psychiatric disorders whether they are on treatment or not.

Yeah, whatever…

SOCIAL WORKERS THAT PROVIDED TREATME%T

The ASW (Approved Social Worker) that presents most strongly at the time of writing is a one ****. He
was a tall, generally casually suited, bearded man that was balding yet with long hair – this gave the
impression that he was tonsured like a Benedictine monk. Although he was partly responsible for having
me Sectioned a few times I never held it against him. He kind of like ‘rescued’ me from the police cells on
a regular basis; and no matter how oppressive Minterne ward can be it is nowhere as acutely painful as the
Custody Suite. Whereas some people have ‘animal magnetism’ this chap had human magnetism. I always
got the impression that he was motivated towards his work with more than just a professional enthusiasm;
he had a kind of instinctual slant on things. I don’t know if he was the member of any magical group, but it
wouldn’t surprise me.

Next in the firing line we have ****. I really was pissed off with him for a while because he Sectioned me,
which lead to a Section renewal and quite a few months locked up. Once I quite emphatically told him to
“Fuck off” but have since apologized for that. He had a pony tail and long gingery beard. Somebody once

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told me that he owned an aviary.

A decidedly nasty piece of work was ****. He once assessed me briefly in the smoking quarters of
Weymouth Police Station. After a few brief observations of my crumbling appearance and mood, he asked,
out of the blue, “Are you still a disciple of Aleister Crowley?” After responding, without a moment’s
thought, in the affirmative, he let me know that he was going to Section me, even though no doctors were
present. I vaguely remember giving this guy the finger in the street in a pathetic attempt at revenge.

SUPER%ATURAL EXPERIE%CES A%D

HALLUCI%ATIO%S
Most of my truly supernatural experiences have occurred whilst in the community, but because those
detailed below were either caused by overdose, or withdrawal, from psychiatric medication – and because
they often led to an admission to hospital – they warrant some kind of inclusion in this little book.

CLOZARIL OVERDOSE I strongly advise against even taking slightly more than you prescribe
does of this stuff. Of all my historical ODs this was by far the worst. If memory serves me correctly I had
been drinking heavily in the days before the OD. In total I took ten 100mg tablets, that is a whole gram.
For some reason I had decided to shave of all of my body hair that night, but as I didn’t have any clippers I
never properly finished the job.

I do not remember if I was actually drunk during the OD, but I definitely did have an OOBE (Out of Body
Experience). I remember being somersaulted, whilst in my astral shell, into and through a dark labyrinth; I
had no control whatsoever. This maze, or labyrinth, was actually all the pubs I had ever drunk in, but they
were all interconnected. Every single pub was joined to the next in an almost endless menagerie, each one
was dark with the occasional candle like illumination in the odd corner or two. And I was rolled head over
hells, through mid air, around this strange ‘adytum’ (a building made not with human hands).

I think what was happening was that I was actually dying from the OD. But then I was pulled back into my
flat (where I took the ten tablets) and a ‘gang’ of what I think could have been demons, or warlocks, or
something else, proceeded to beat me up. You see a lot of people don’t realize that the astral/etheric body is
capable of feeling pain – but after that night I can assure you that it certainly can. I was helpless against this
gang… They proceeded to smash my head into the wall, and me feet into the skirting boards. (Memory
fails to answer the question as to how much of this was physical and how much astral – but it still hurt a
great deal.) The drug must have totally removed my perception of time as the pain of being smashed into
my bedroom wall seemed to go on eternally; it was a bona fide perception of hell itself. At the time I
thought they were trying to ‘merge’ me with the wall. I can see now that this gang of astral warlocks (I
know the terminology is unfortunate – sorry!) were punishing me for almost killing myself, and that if I had
died I would probably still be floating around a darkened labyrinth of a never ending pub(s).

The next thing I remember was hearing my front door bell, which gave me a panic attack. I got out of bed,
looked in the mirror to see that my hair was half missing (I had hacked away at it the night before – but
never the finished the job, it was like I had had a fight with a lawn mower). I opened the front door and,
hey presto, a whole gang of mental health professionals (with the obligatory pair of coppers) were waiting
for me. It was impossible to convince them that I didn’t need hospitalization as the Clozaril had left me
with the worst speech impediment I have ever had! Ten minutes later I was in the back of a police van (the
classical ‘meat wagon’) looking forward to an extended stay in Minterne ward.

CLOZARIL WITHDRAWAL Several years ago I decided to ‘cold turkey’ it off the Clozaril
tablets. Big mistake. (Let me just add for the record that if you come off neurolyptic meds you have to do
it gradually. It will take an absolute minimum of six months to come off most antipsychotics, and to a

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lesser extent antidepressants also.) I had been on a very low dose of 200mg daily for some time. It was
Christmas time and I decided to go into the New Forest to detoxify, and I had a massive backpack with
various camping bits and bobs as well as some magical paraphernalia.

I bought a train ticket to Lower Asherton, but actually got out in Christchurch. I spend two or three days
getting pissed in pubs and ‘sleeping’ rough in various parts of Poole and Christchurch. However, I couldn’t
sleep without the Clozaril.

Things started to get hairy when I was walking out of Christchurch, alongside a main road. I saw in the
distance, in the moonlight, a good expanse of field which looked perfect to pitch my tent. Without noticing
where I was I walked towards this field. The next thing I knew I was up to my waist in water. Then I
slipped again and all of a sudden found that I was up to my neck in dirty water. Any sane person would
have sacrificed the weighty backpack, but I risked drowning by grabbing some roots and pulling myself out.
Soaking wet, in the middle of winter, I resigned myself to the fact that I would not be fit to walk further. I
put my thumb out and spent the next hour or so trying to hitch a ride. Eventually a white van pulled up. I
wanted to go to Weymouth, but even though this chap was going in the opposite direction I accepted a lift.
I probably did this because the van would be a lot warmer. He dropped me off in Poole. I found a quiet
spot in a hedge next to a building, changed my clothes, jumped into my sleeping bag (which thankfully had
not get wet) and tried to get some rest.

The next day I spent drinking bitter in a pub in the high street. My memory fails me a bit here. Eventually I
went into the Yate’s bar late in the evening. Before I could buy a beer an old man asked me what I was
doing with a backpack. I told him I was homeless, and he offered to put me up. I accepted and he took me
into a large ten storey building – he was on the sixth floor. I basically spent about three days there, still not
being able to sleep, and hallucinating badly. This chap it turned out was a mental health veteran himself.
He had piles of Olanzipine lying around, and in retrospect I should have taken a couple and got some sleep
– but I was too proud. Actually I persuaded him to flush them all down the toilet!

This guy was mad enough (eg. he believed that having folded up tin foil under his baseball cap prevented
‘them’ from monitoring him) without me being in the throes of a Clozaril detox. I was hallucinating all over
the place, this guy’s pictures on the walls kept turning into TV screens that were projecting from the future
and so on. After about three days I had had enough of this nutter, he lent me some clothes and I walked off
into the nighttime of Poole.

After a while I got out of the town centre and ended up walking down some kind of industrial estate. After
unsuccessfully finding a decent place to pitch my tent in an allotment, I came up to a high security fence.
For some reason which presently escapes me I threw me backpack over its eight foot height. I then
scrambled over it, nearly breaking my ankle. I had no idea where I was.

I wandered around this place for a while. It had lots of buildings and at the time I thought it was some kind
of educational college. Well anyway I pitched my tent and tried, again unsuccessfully, to get some sleep.

I must have stayed in this tent for at least two days without sleep, food or water. Eventually I started to die
and for hours on end I could feel my spirit starting to rise. I was so weak I could not even turn over easily.
It was raining and cold. I got out my Tarot cards and found that they were ‘speaking to me’; not just each
card had a story to tell, but every detail of each card. I was dying of thirst – the only thing I had to consume
was a few tins of tuna, but the salt they contained made me even more dehydrated.

Eventually I started to hallucinate in the worst possible sense of the word. I could see a figure above me, in
a black suit, a young and ruthless man towering over me. The rain was starting to seep through the gauze of
the tent and I was drinking it a drop at a time. But I was hallucinating that the rain was in fact urine that this
suited man was slowly pissing on to my tent – onto me! It was horrible.

Sometimes I thought people, or spirits, were outside the tent tormenting me. I would stab my knife at the
entrance of the tent, hoping to catch one of them unawares. I felt like I was being intangibly assaulted from

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all angles.

And the smell was so bad. Not only did I have the stench of alcohol on my, but my damp clothes from a
few days previous, my dirty body was exuding toxins from four years of taking Clozaril – I was having
olfactory hallucinations that magnified the pong ten fold. It was actually the power of this stink that made
me do something rather stupid: burn down my tent and all my possessions.

I had a ‘zippo’ style lighter that someone had given me and with it I started a small flame on the plastic
fabric of the tent, which eventually became a fully fledged plastic bonfire! I must have Wicca in my blood
because all I was wearing was a black, ceremonial type, ‘tau’ robe. I got into the moment, flung my arms
out, and recited the tenth Enochian Key:

THE Thunders of Judgement and Wrath are numbered and are harboured in the 8orth, in the likeness of an
Oak whose branches are 22 nests of lamentation and weeping laid up for the earth: which burn night and
day, and vomit out the heads of scorpions, and live sulphur mingled with poison. These be the thunders
that, 5678 times in the twenty-fourth part of a moment, roar with a hundred mighty earthquakes and a
thousand times as many surges, which rest not, neither know any* time here. One rock bringeth forth a
thousand, even as the heart of man doth his thoughts. Woe! Woe! Woe! Woe! Woe! Woe! Yea, Woe be to
the Earth, for her iniquity is, was, and shall be great. Come away! but not your mighty sounds!

After this I was quite mad, and ventured into the mysterious night of the industrial estate. After trying to
smash my way into different buildings – all I was really after was something to drink, I was terribly
dehydrated – I found a door that was naturally weak, and I busted it open. Within were loads of wooden
work benches, and most importantly a tap. The water tasted very metallic but I didn’t complain one iota. I
tried to smash anther door open with a large fire extinguisher, but to no avail. I spent the night walking
around this estate in circles, talking to myself whilst pretending people were in fact listening.

It seemed like forever, but eventually the sun rose. I was reduced to a shivering, starving and insane heap,
talking and cursing to myself in a corner. I was scared for people to see me in my robe, but eventually
found a way out the estate (most of its perimeter backed onto peoples’ back gardens) down a muddy track
and over a small rusty iron fence. A lady noticed my plight and asked me if I wanted to use her mobile
phone. I phoned my mum. She found out what was up and told me to get to the closest train station and she
would get my dad to buy a ticket for me in Weymouth.

Sooner or later, I was on a coach home. That little stunt cost me a good ten weeks in Forston. The
excessive sleep deprivation took months to recover from.

HALLUCI%ATIO%S I% THE ‘CUSTODY SUITE’

I don’t think I have ever been in the police cells whilst sober. One thing about the Custody Suite is that they
keep the lights on all night, you only have a blanket, and sleep is quite impossible. I have seen several
things come through the floor and walls.

Once I scratched the words ‘DO WHAT THOU WILT’ on an otherwise pristine cell door. I done this with
a purple octahedral fluorite (a crystal). About an hour after doing that I saw Crowley coming through the
floor. He was looking at me with a mixture of admonishment and intrigue. He was old and haggard, with a
long goatee beard, a wrinkled face. This face was the astral embodiment of the word ‘wizened’. I never got
in trouble over either the graffiti or the hallucinating.

Years later, in a different cell but the same building, I saw Crowley again. However, this time he was much
younger (despite projecting back from further in the future) and he just waved at me. I could tell this time
he considered me more a ‘friend’ of than a ‘nuisance’ to the Great Work.

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LORAZEPAM OVERDOSE Because Lorazepam is very cheap it is often prescribed (especially in

the clinical environment), and consequently abused a great deal. Although I have taken large doses on
several occasions, one evening stands out in my mind. Although there were contributing factors of
insomnia, alcohol, exhaustion and starvation it was the ‘little blue pills’ that swung the balance I think.

I was in my flat, and had taken a large dose. Perhaps the first weird thing to happen was a picture of one of
my ex girlfriends with her sister that was the background on my laptop started to move. I knew it couldn’t
have been the comp but the drugs. It was as though my ex and her sister were gesturing at me to jump into
the computer screen! This went on for ages, and strangely changed my attitude towards these persons quite
a lot.

And then my Charlotte Church calendar started to shift and move in a similar way. I laid in bed for hours
watching it writhing around. I concentrated on it and Charlotte Church transformed into a genie! It was as
though this entity had been stuck in a parallel dimension for an eternity. It was looking around my flat with
an expression of wonderment and awe. It was as though it was going to make its home in my flat! For
months later I thought this calendar had unique magical properties.

And that same day my mirror was playing tricks on me; not only did it appear to move up and down the
wall, but it changed my reflection. I knew it had to be my reflection but I hallucinated my own image into
something quite elf like with exaggerated check bones. And behind that I saw other versions of myself, all
differing in some slight quality, stretching backwards into infinity. At the time I had all kinds of mystical,
magical and Qabalistic theories as to why this was happening; but now I just put it down to being a trip.

%EARBY U%EXPLAI%ED BU%KERS Just north of the Forston Clinic complex, about two
minutes walk away, is an unexplained bunker. It is reached by jumping a cow fence and taking a little path
round a corner. It is barely hidden by some trees. The whole thing is a grey-green metal structure,
surrounded by a fence. It has aerials protruding from its roof. There is an obvious entrance near the roof.
Nobody has ever explained to me what it actually is! I have asked doctors, nurses, patients and even taxi
drivers, but they only make vague suggestions, and never a proper answer. The whole thing is about the
size of a large electrical generator, and it is marked out as a building on Ordinance Survey maps. I hope
one day I find out, and don’t regret it!

OLA%IZPI%E WITHDRAWAL This particular session of ‘dancing with the Devil’ occurred
early in my career. At the time I was two weeks into studying for my ‘A’ levels (Maths, English, Business
Studies and General Studies), and people had probably by then had noticed I was ‘not normal’.

I was only on a small amount of Olanzipine at the time. I went a little mad and donned a cheap black suit,
complete with black tie and sunglasses. I just remember being more than a little crazy and deciding to walk
as far as I could. I had no money but that will not deter someone in the depths of psychosis.

Nothing of note occurred to begin with; I ended up walking to Southampton from Weymouth, with a taxi
journey for free (God bless whoever that was!) for some of the journey. The really ‘supernatural’ stuff
occurred when I was on a main road that led through the New Forest…

I had been walking for two days, it was night, and I was making my way through the Forest, using the most
expeditious route of the road, as my poor navigation skills dictated. For some reason I screamed at the top
of my lungs, “BELPHEGOR!! BELPHEGOR!!”. Straight away I heard what was either a whistle, or a hoot,
in the distance. After as I walked down the road I would hear rustlings in the woods on either side, but I
couldn’t see anything. I was also hallucinating due to insomnia. In the moonlight the various pieces of
foliage appeared to me as monsters, unknown and uncategorized creatures of all kinds and hideous hybrids.

Up to now on either side the forest was open, but then on my right hand side I eventually, as I walked on,
noticed a fence, about five or six feet high, and made of metal square mesh. And then I heard an inhuman
grunt coming from behind it; it was too dark to see anything. This noise was neither human nor animal, it

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was really scary. It only sounded once. I jumped over the fence – in a sense you could say I was ‘looking
for a fight’. I was convinced I had heard a demon. I wandered around the woods, and was still
hallucinating, but I saw things like trees shaking (with no wind at all), heard hisses in the distance, and
could also make out the sound of rustling leaves all around me.

What must have been about ten minutes later I had a ‘concrete’ hallucination. I could see a corpse, almost
black with putrefaction, with its head against a tree. A wand fashioned like a gnarled hand was sticking out
of the corpse’s mouth. It seemed whoever it was had been there for some time. The closer I got to this, the
more ‘real’ it appeared. But when I touched it, it turned into a mound of earth.

All about this time I was seeing dead bodies lying around everywhere. And in the distance I could make out
a large building, like a kind of demonic fortress, but the closer I got the farther it was. Eventually it fled
down the forest like a kind of spaceship. At this point I saw a twenty foot or so version of myself (a kind of
higher self, or as Crowley would say a ‘Holy Guardian Angel’) pointing the way out of the forest. I should
add that at this point I was lost in the forest completely. But guess what! I followed the direction in which
this phantasm was pointing and I made it back to the road! There are probably quite a few things about that
night that I have forgotten, but never mind.

PROCYCLIDI%E OVERDOSE WITH ALCOHOL As explained elsewhere Procyclidine is

a side effect medication often prescribed alongside Clopixol. The thing is that my GP had taken
responsibility for my prescription rather than the shrinks; over the course of a few months I gradually
persuaded them to give me the highest permitted dose (six tablets, or 30mg a day). So one day I went to the
pharmacy with my prescription and they handed over 168 tablets! Without hesitation or delay I went to a
pub about four hundred yards away, ordered a pint of Stella, went to the toilet, counted out 25 tablets,
swallowed them and proceeded to get my drink. And from there on I remember very little.

I have some vague recollection of the Procyclidine kicking in; I was chatting to a group of locals. Then I
remember going off into a kind of void. I could see people not vanishing as such, but retreating into the
distance, as though they were on invisible roller skates. I called out to them, but they seemed oblivious to
my existence. I was as high as a kite.

And then I am sitting on a bus – I do not remember getting on or getting off – chatting to a very strange
individual indeed. He was a young lad of maybe ten years old, with brown freckly skin, and blue, creepy
looking, veins that were not only visible through his skin, but strangely prominent. I do not remember what
he said, but he was constantly smiling with a kind of preternatural happiness. To this day I believe he was a
manifestation of Hadith (as covered in The Book of the Law), and that he had appeared to me because I had
worshipped him through ‘drink and strange drugs’.

I woke up in my bedroom at my parents’ house, with no physical signs of distress at all, my parents said I
was fine, indeed they exhibited no suspicion – but I had lost many hours of consciousness.

(A while later I tried to get a beer at this same pub and was told I was barred! Well you can’t blame them
now can you! Even when the management of this drinking establishment went to another pub I was still
banned!)

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TRIBU%ALS
Of all the psychiatric ordeals one will probably endure the Mental Health Review Tribunal ranks amongst
the worst. They are a kind of second chance at proving to the professionals that you don’t need to be in
hospital. If you are under Section 2 of the Mental Health Act, which is an ‘assessment order’ you can
expect to get a tribunal after a fortnight (that’s only if you decide to appeal however), but if you are on
Section 3, the ‘treatment order’, it can take months. You are allowed on tribunal every six months in this
case, for the first year, but after that Section 3 only has to renewed every year, which basically means you
get a chance to prove your sanity, officially, on an annual basis.

I forget how many tribunals I have had, but it is at least four. I have only succeeded once where I was
awarded a two week ‘deferred discharge’, in other words the tribunal committee ordered that the doctors
had to let me go after a fortnight. I think this was done to establish a new medication regime, and to give
me a little more time off the booze.

A tribunal committee typically consists of three people: a doctor, a lawyer and a priest (only joking!
Actually not a priest but a lay person who ideally has been in business). These people are not allowed to
come from the Care Trust that oversees your treatment plan. For the first part of the tribunal one is not
allowed to speak, but instead sit down and listen to the evidence that is presented by the psychiatric team in
the form of answering questions the committee puts to them. In some of my tribunals about a dozen people
have been present. They are not done in courtroom style fashion, and are relatively informal. Most of what
happens is written down at a furious pace by one or more of the committee members. Before you go in you
are typically allowed to read the ‘evidence’ (mud slinging) that your psychiatric team has written about you.
You are given a lawyer to represent your best interests as determined by yourself. I had a choice of two
different ladies that had been working for the Minterne patients for years.

On an emotional level it is very difficult to hear all these professional people drag up your past. They
mention things out of your notes that you may have forgotten about years ago. It is extremely embarrassing
sometimes, and it can make your blood boil when you are slandered and you can’t even retaliate straight
away. My tribunals have been as quick as twenty minutes or as long as two hours. One of them even gave
me a splitting headache.

Basically if you win it is great, but in my experience even people with minor complaints don’t as a rule
come out trumps. Most people, say 95%, that I now of do not win their tribunals. This has lead many
people to call it a ‘kangaroo court’. And remember that if you fail you then do not only have three
professionals insisting on your treatment, but six! I have heard that in the new Mental Health Bill the
tribunal process will take a more important role in treatment, but I am not aware of the specifics.

Enclosed is a painstaking reproduction of one of my Tribunal case decisions:

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Form D S3;37
(& equivalent)

MENTAL HEALTH ACT 1983

MENTAL HEALTH REVIEW TRIBUNAL RULES 1983

__________Southern__________________Region

DECISIO% OF ME%TAL HEALTH

REVIEW TRIBU%AL
Sitting at the Forston Clinic, Dorchester
On the 28th November 2006

In respect of an application/reference dated by

and concerning ****

a patient liable to be detained under section __________3_____ Mental Health Act 1983

MEMBERS OF THE TRIBUNAL:

Legal _________ *****____________________________________(President)

Medical Dr. *****

Lay Mrs. ****

DECISIO% OF THE TRIBU%AL

`a) The patient SHALL BE DISCHARGED from liability to be detained with immediate effect

Or

b) The patient SHALL BE DISCHARGED from liability to be detained with effect from
at (time)

Or

b) The patient SHALL NOT BE DISCHARGED

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1) THE LEGAL GROU%DS FOR THE TRIBU%AL’S DECISIO%

(a) The Tribunal is satisfied that the patient is suffering from a mental illness, psychopathic disorder,
severe mental impairment or mental impairment or from any of those forms of disorder of a nature
or degree which makes it appropriate for him to be liable to be detained in a hospital for medical
treatment.

(b) The Tribunal is satisfied that it is necessary for the health or safety of the patient or for the
protection of other persons that he should receive such treatment.

(c) The Tribunal considers that it is not appropriate to discharge the patient under its discretionary
powers.

1) RECLASSIFICATIO%
(a) The Tribunal does not reclassify

OR

(b) The Tribunal is satisfied that the patient is now suffering from a form of mental disorder other than
the form specified in the application/order relating to him/her and it therefore reclassifies the
patient’s mental disorder

from _________________________________________

to ___________________________________________

1) RECOMME%DATIO%
(a) The Tribunal makes no recommendation

OR

(b) With a view to facilitating discharge on a future date, the Tribunal recommends that:

· the patient be granted leave of absence

· the patient be transferred to another hospital

· the patient be transferred into guardianship

· the responsible medical officer consider whether to make a supervision application in

respect of the patient

In the event of any such recommendation not being complied with by ………………………. the
Tribunal will decide to reconvene. In coming to its decision, the Tribunal will take into account
any representations made by the parties on or before that date.

1) EVIDE%CE
The Tribunal considered the following:

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(a) Written evidence from

Dr. **** Consultant Psychiatrist dated the 22nd of November 2006

Mr. **** Approved Social Worker dated November 22, 2006

Nursing report – undated –

(b) Oral evidence from

Dr. ****

Miss **** -- community nurse

Mr. **** -- social worker

Miss **** -- nurse

Mr. **** -- nearest relative

Mr. **** -- the patient

(c) Other material (e.g. Statement of R.A., medical notes)

The Part A statement

the admission papers
a list of section 17 leaves

1) REPRESE%TATIO%
The parties were represented as follows: -

Patient Ms ****

Responsible Authority

Other

2) THE REASO%S FOR THE TRIBU%AL’S DECISIO%

Mr ****(who asked to be referred to as ****) is an intelligent articulate 29-year-old man who
acknowledges that he suffers from a mental illness which is exacerbated by drug and alcohol misuse.
He has an undisputed history of admissions to hospital, mainly under the Mental Health Act, since

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1997.

**** acknowledged the risk of relapse, and the pressures that he still suffers from alcohol.
Nevertheless, he asked the tribunal to discharge him from detention, which he felt oppressive. He said
that he could arrange a safe environment, staying partly with his girlfriend, and partly with his parents.
If necessary he would also spend a day or two in hospital voluntarily. If he could not be discharged
immediately, he asked that he be discharged on a future date, i.e. that the discharge be deferred.

On his behalf, it was also suggested that his case be adjourned to obtain more information relating to a
proposed care plan to place **** in a “dry house” to assist him with his alcohol problems.

Mental illness

The diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia was not disputed, and was evidenced by ****’s acknowledged
beliefs that he could hear voices in his head, and that he believed that an electronic chip had been
inserted into his brain. Whilst he continued to hear these voices and to have this belief at the tribunal,
he acknowledged that the effect to them upon him was diminished. It is the view of the tribunal, having
heard and read the evidence given by the professionals, that this reduction arose from the fact that
psychotropic medication had a beneficial effect.

%ature and/or degree

It was clear, given the undisputed past history, that the nature of the disorder is that it is chronic and
relapsing in nature. Adam acknowledged that it was complicated by excessive alcohol and abuse of
prescription and non-prescription drugs.

Dr. **** indicated that as of today the illness is not of a degree, but it is of a nature which makes it
appropriate for **** to be detained, in a hospital for medical treatment.

The evidence received was that **** was at a critical stage, and the tribunal accepted that evidence.
Despite having been in hospital under section since the 29th of September 2005, the nature of the
disorder was one which relapsed quickly upon release from hospital, even on section. Dr. ***** said in
his report “he is given increasing amounts of leave and unfortunately this has invariably led, during the
current admission, to a rapid relapse of harmful use of alcohol, which in turn is followed by a
deterioration in his mental state.” He has had to return to hospital on each occasion.

Dr. **** expected a further relapse, as **** had been on leave for two weeks, but felt that the
possibility that **** would remain well should continue to be explored, given that there had been a
change of medication to Pipothiazine, and that **** had recently acknowledged the detrimental effect
that he felt by remaining in his flat.

Dr. **** believed that it would be worthwhile assessing **** in the light of the change of medication
and the, albeit temporary, change of accommodation because he was spending a few nights with his
girlfriend, and a few nights with his parents.

Treatment

****, whilst well, is happy to receive his Pipothiazine depot, and is also receiving substantial amounts
of Lorazepam on a daily basis. However, **** indicated to the tribunal that he was still ambivalent
about compliance with oral medication in accordance with medical advice. He indicated that he
disagreed with Dr. ****’s suggestion that the lorazepam should be reduced gradually, and suggested
that he might discontinue in one go.

Detention in a hospital

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**** recognizes that alcohol exacerbates his mental illness and has recently been tempted to drink
alcohol. Alcohol interferes with the treatment of ****’s mental illness, and having heard the evidence
given by the professionals, the tribunal found that **** needs the boundaries of a section to assist him
in maintaining alcohol abstinence whilst he is properly assessed and his care plan is formulated.

The team’s view is that **** has not been sufficiently tested either in relation to the environmental
pressures of life in the community or the correct level of medication. Since, historically, he has rapidly
deteriorated within two to three weeks of discharge from hospital, it would not be appropriate to
discharge him until these issues have been properly assessed.

Is treatment necessary?

When acutely unwell, **** presents with uncontrolled behaviour, which has resulted in damage to
property and verbal aggression. **** also acknowledges that there is a cycle in which **** starts
drinking, stops medication, becomes insomniac, and deteriorates mentally.

When well, as now, **** acknowledges that treatment is necessary for his mental health, but he loses
the willingness to accept that medication or to accept informal admission when unwell.

The tribunal finds therefore that treatment is necessary for ****’s mental health, and recognizes that
there are also benefits to him in terms of his physical health, and that his behaviour following admission
to hospital have given cause for concern.

Conclusion

The tribunal finds that **** suffers from a mental illness of a nature but not of a degree which makes it
appropriate for him to be liable to be detained in a hospital for medical treatment. Such treatment is
necessary for his mental health.

Other issues

The tribunal has a discretion to discharge, even if the mandatory criteria are met. **** has done very
well, and he gave a good account of himself at the tribunal, showing considerable insight. He is keen to
move to more suitable accommodation, and to overcome his alcohol problems.

However, the tribunal finds that it is too soon to discharge ****, given the following:

· The Pipothiazine is not fully tested and may need adjustment.

· The Lorazepam will need gradual reduction.

· It was only yesterday that **** disclosed to his care team that he was unhappy with his
accommodation, and neither his girlfriend nor his parents can accommodate him on
anything more than a temporary basis.

· The care team have not yet been able to develop a care plan in the light of this change.

There is a real risk that an opportunity to move **** back into the community within six weeks or so,
according to Dr. ****, will be lost if the support and boundaries provided by the section are removed at
this stage.

The tribunal was not asked to make any recommendation whether in respect of leave or a transfer, nor
did it believe it appropriate to do so.

There was no request for reclassification.

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The tribunal was asked to consider adjourning this matter until a proper plan had been prepared for Mr.
**** to move to a “dry house” for his alcohol problems, or to enable discussions to take place with Mr.
**** as to how he could be accommodated elsewhere than at his flat.

The tribunal did not believe that is was appropriate to adjourn the matter in those circumstances. The
issues set out above remained to be resolved notwithstanding the recent changes in attitude by ****.

Finally, the tribunal also considered whether ****’s application could be dealt with by way of a
deferred discharge. The tribunal accepted the evidence of Dr. **** that there could be no way of
knowing whether **** would be well in six weeks time or so. This was not a case where **** was well
enough to be discharged if community resources were in place to enable him to manage in the absence
of a section.

1) A%%OU%CEME%T OF THE TRIBU%AL’S DECISIO%

(a) The decision was not announced.

OR (b) The decision was announced at 1.40 pm in the presence of :-

Mr. ****
Mrs. ****
Mr. **** senior
****

Signed (President)

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E%DI%G REMARKS
After going over this little book I was reassured to notice that it reflected, in general, what I have suspected
all along about modern psychiatry. This is basically that it is dangerous to be either zealous in support of
psychiatry (like a drug company might be) or in opposition to it (like an Operating Thetan Level 3
Scientologist). I think that it is far better to ‘sit on the fence’ and take a long hard look at the facts.

Those in support of psychiatry include the most eminent doctors of all (psychiatrists), the courts and
judiciary, the pharmaceutical companies, the police, the Customs and Excise, educational bodies, the media,
the patient’s family, the public in general and most importantly quite a lot of the actual patients.

Those against it include many of the patients, cults like Scientology and some Thelemic orders, herbalists,
dope smokers, animal rights activists and so on. One frequent accusation leveled at psychiatrists is that they
practice a ‘pseudo science’. After having read quite a lot of psychiatric journals, documents and statistical
trials of different meds I would conclude that it may be a ‘pseudo science’ but that the institution is dealing
with hypotheses not readily amenable to rational criticism. It is not the fault of the doctors that there is still
a lot unknown about human behaviour and its aberrations. The publications dealing with the clinical trials
of various drugs are scientific, even though they deal with parameters that are not easy to describe, pin
down or learn from. Most psychiatrists strive to obtain observable and repeatable results, and it is just
because they don’t understand the how and whiy someone’s mental state/behaviour improves that they are
labeled as quacks.

Is medication worthwhile? Well to start off I could say that one is more likely to be inappropriately
imprisoned than inappropriately medicated. I have been taking neuroleptics for about eleven years and
although there are side effects (see above) I remember how unwell I was before beginning a regime. Some
of the side effects are literally unbearable, but there are so many different types of antipsychotics and
antidepressants that one should, albeit over times, find a medication to suit them. You should be able to tell
from this book that I am not seriously mentally impaired.

I think the biggest problem facing modern psychiatry is the greed of the pharmaceutical companies. I do
not believe that a perfect medication will be found, simply because it is not profitable to develop drugs
without side effects. Every five years or so you can expect different drugs to roll into the market. This is
good in the sense that people get a variety of meds to chose from, but bad when someone is taken off a med
to simply see if there will be, say, a 5% improvement – but there may be a risk of an 80% return of
symptoms and rebound psychosis etc. There is also the risk of people being used as ‘guinea pigs’, that is
being put on a different drug to compile more statistical research about the mechanics of the human brain,
rather than to be kept stable.

You see psychiatry has traditionally pursued two roles: a) the treatment of mental disorders, and b) the
understanding of mental disorders. It does not take a genius to work out that b) could be followed up
without much care about a). And one does not have to look far back in the history books to find countless
examples of ‘psychiatrists’ working for the Nazis, then through the infamous Operation Paperclip into
serfdom for the C.I.A. and N.S.A.. Let’s just say that it is a historical fact that the Hippocratic Oath has
been thrown out the window in the quest to understand the human mind. You only have to mention the
word ‘lobotomy’, or perhaps ‘insulin shock’, or even better ‘electro shock therapy’ etc. But in my
experience I have been treated quite fairly, even though at times with an ‘iron glove’.

I personally think it is a shame that the modern mental health system is called ‘psychiatry’ because of all the
negative connotations that this word conjures up. But at the same time I would be loathe to try and coin a
term! I’ll leave it to the New Age movement!

What have I learned over the last eleven years? First and foremost that mental patients frequently have a

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great deal to offer society. I believe this to the point of failure – I believe that sometimes the good of the
one outweighs the good of the many. History has countless examples of ‘unusual’ people that changed the
world simply by merit of what they had created. Quite often these books, paintings, poems, sculptures,
songs and so on where only discovered posthumously – yet they still had dynamic properties that could not
be ignored. A lot of these geniuses would have been labeled as ‘mentally ill’, ‘communists’, ‘witches’,
‘traitors’ etc. but if they had been utterly thwarted in their efforts the world would be a poorer place. There
is fine line between madness and genius, and that fine line is something more than eccentricity; it is the
overwhelming forces of the abyss systematically tempered into the creative world, into books and
masterpieces. You could go so far as to say: ‘the poet (madman) is the unacknowledged legislator of
humanity’ and antiquity would be on your side. Probably the most derogatory term for the mental home is
the ‘loony bin’, I always refer to Minterne and Linden as ‘the puzzle factory’. Because life is a puzzle, and
those not content to acquiesce in this ‘puzzle’, those who, with great philosophical pride for the Truth, try to
piece things together, are labeled as ‘schizophrenic’. Most doctors may refer to this as a defect in one’s
‘perceptual filter’, I would go further and say that the schizophrenic is actually more aware than most – he
or she sees the ‘in between spaces’, the interstices that connect different realities. We are, in fact, living not
in a ‘universe’ but a whole sequence of ‘multiverses’. Reality itself is only a matter of opinion. We use
words as transformative relays to create dogma and reality. Every bible is a slave’s manual, a ‘how to’
book, the Mental Health Act is no exception to this. But when one jumps beyond words, into a
consciousness that depends on the unity of number, letter and sound, as the Qabalist, mathematician,
composer or artist does, one transcends the transitory universe and has direct experience, or Gnosis.

In my opinion the majority of schizophrenics are people who opened the door into a possibility of infinite
choices (the magical universe) too soon, too quickly and encountered too much. If one survives the onset of
this premature initiation one will be much improved.

On a metaphysical level, we can say that God decided to create infinite consciousnesses. He done this in an
effort to recreate his only Son, the Messiah. Those who investigate the darker regions of mind are actually
speeding up God’s work. They are on the way to finding the Perfect Powder of Projection, the Medicine of
Metals, the Stone of the Wise, the Summum Bonum, True Wisdom and Perfect Happiness!

So mote it be!

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THE CULPRIT

This man is obviously fat and ugly, but does he look crazy?

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