done to me when I was a young child – memories that my brain had locked away when I was in my early teens, leaving me with an inexplicable sense of guilt and unhappiness that had underscored every aspect of my life for years.
I’d been desperately unhappy as a teenager; I’d hated my life and I’d hated myself, for reasons I’d never understood. I’d lived with a constant, inexplicable sense of self-disgust and a sometimes overpowering anger that would cause me to lash out and want to hurt people. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, and there was no one I could turn to for help. So I’d tried to hide my self-loathing and the turmoil of my emotions beneath a façade of bravado and bad behaviour.
Then, for some reason, the birth of my child had triggered the unlocking of some of those previously repressed memories. At first, they were just flashes of unfocused images; but, gradually, they became complete pictures that I didn’t want to look at but that I could no longer ignore. And, eventually, my brain had blown a fuse and I’d become so mentally disorientated and so uncertain of what was real and what I was imagining that my mind had been unable to process any thoughts or function on any level at all, which was when I’d ended up in hospital.
Luckily, though, I had a wonderful psychiatrist. Dr Hendriks was the first person I’d ever talked to about the things I was remembering, and I was reluctant to talk about them at all to begin with, not least because it was almost impossible to find the words to describe the images I was seeing. But Dr Hendriks always listened without judging me and, perhaps most importantly of all, he made it clear that not only did he believe what I was telling him, but that he didn’t blame me for what had happened to me as a child. Because, as well as beginning to remember what my father used to do to me, and what he allowed and encouraged his friends to do too, I remembered that he had always told me that all of it was my fault – and the responsibility of that belief was a burden I’d carried throughout my life.
I’d been at the hospital for just a few days when I walked out of the day room one morning and heard a commotion at the end of the corridor. There were often quarrels and scuffles of one sort or another – patients fighting amongst themselves or arguing with the nurses – and I’d quickly learned to be wary and alert to the signs that indicated something was kicking off. So, without looking overtly in the direction from which the noise was coming, I stopped and listened.
In every door along the corridor there was a small window, but it was only the one in the door at the end that looked out on to the normal, unlocked world outside. I glanced quickly towards it and could see part of what appeared to be an enormous bunch of flowers. On my side of the door – the locked, crazy side – there were two nurses. The smaller one of the two was on tiptoes, looking out through the window, while the other one stood at right-angles to her, glancing back down the corridor in my direction.
As soon as the second nurse saw me standing nervously in the doorway of the day room, she scurried towards me.
‘Go back, Katie,’ she said, looking directly into my face and nodding a couple of times, as if to encourage me to do what she was asking. ‘Go back in the day room. Please. It’s just for a moment.’
There was an urgency in her voice that made the muscles of my stomach contract, and I stepped quickly back into the room. The nurse closed the door behind me and I stood for a moment, my whole body shaking violently, and tried to breathe. Then I turned to look through the little window in the door. But all I could see were the neat brown curls at the back of the nurse’s head. So, instead of looking, I listened, one ear pressed against the wired glass.
I could hear the subdued murmur of a woman’s voice, which was interrupted periodically by a man saying something loud and
I’d been desperately unhappy as a teenager; I’d hated my life and I’d hated myself, for reasons I’d never understood. I’d lived with a constant, inexplicable sense of self-disgust and a sometimes overpowering anger that would cause me to lash out and want to hurt people. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, and there was no one I could turn to for help. So I’d tried to hide my self-loathing and the turmoil of my emotions beneath a façade of bravado and bad behaviour.
Then, for some reason, the birth of my child had triggered the unlocking of some of those previously repressed memories. At first, they were just flashes of unfocused images; but, gradually, they became complete pictures that I didn’t want to look at but that I could no longer ignore. And, eventually, my brain had blown a fuse and I’d become so mentally disorientated and so uncertain of what was real and what I was imagining that my mind had been unable to process any thoughts or function on any level at all, which was when I’d ended up in hospital.
Luckily, though, I had a wonderful psychiatrist. Dr Hendriks was the first person I’d ever talked to about the things I was remembering, and I was reluctant to talk about them at all to begin with, not least because it was almost impossible to find the words to describe the images I was seeing. But Dr Hendriks always listened without judging me and, perhaps most importantly of all, he made it clear that not only did he believe what I was telling him, but that he didn’t blame me for what had happened to me as a child. Because, as well as beginning to remember what my father used to do to me, and what he allowed and encouraged his friends to do too, I remembered that he had always told me that all of it was my fault – and the responsibility of that belief was a burden I’d carried throughout my life.
I’d been at the hospital for just a few days when I walked out of the day room one morning and heard a commotion at the end of the corridor. There were often quarrels and scuffles of one sort or another – patients fighting amongst themselves or arguing with the nurses – and I’d quickly learned to be wary and alert to the signs that indicated something was kicking off. So, without looking overtly in the direction from which the noise was coming, I stopped and listened.
In every door along the corridor there was a small window, but it was only the one in the door at the end that looked out on to the normal, unlocked world outside. I glanced quickly towards it and could see part of what appeared to be an enormous bunch of flowers. On my side of the door – the locked, crazy side – there were two nurses. The smaller one of the two was on tiptoes, looking out through the window, while the other one stood at right-angles to her, glancing back down the corridor in my direction.
As soon as the second nurse saw me standing nervously in the doorway of the day room, she scurried towards me.
‘Go back, Katie,’ she said, looking directly into my face and nodding a couple of times, as if to encourage me to do what she was asking. ‘Go back in the day room. Please. It’s just for a moment.’
There was an urgency in her voice that made the muscles of my stomach contract, and I stepped quickly back into the room. The nurse closed the door behind me and I stood for a moment, my whole body shaking violently, and tried to breathe. Then I turned to look through the little window in the door. But all I could see were the neat brown curls at the back of the nurse’s head. So, instead of looking, I listened, one ear pressed against the wired glass.
I could hear the subdued murmur of a woman’s voice, which was interrupted periodically by a man saying something loud and
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