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. My Mental History .
The first appointment made for me with Armond was (it seems) Thursday 21 August 1980 at 10.30 am. I was first sectioned (and incarcerated in Barnsley Hall Hospital Worcestershire) on a Tuesday in November 1980 - I think it was Tuesday 11 November 1980.
Letters from Mum
Tues Dec. 9th 1980.
Dear Colin,
I do hope you are feeling well today. I have promised once or twice to go to visit Mrs. Snow, so I am going today and staying to tea, so I will not be coming to the hospital. Dad is coming and will bring clean washing etc.
I have done a lot of shopping early this morning and then went to your house and tidied garden and greenhouse.
I will just have time to see to my dinner and then go to Mrs. Snow’s.
I wonder whether you happened to see Pebble Mill at One on Monday. They had some ski-ing on at the time I put it on while eating my dinner. Also a lady was showing fancy dolls that had been made from clothes pegs and pipe cleaners. Rather lovely they were with marvellous dresses on them.
See you on Wednesday evening - hoping the roads are not frozen.
Love from Mum
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Tues Jan 6th 1980 [sic]
Dear Colin,
You really must try to be less anxious about everything and stop worrying about things.
Everything comes right in time, so have patience and try to see Life from the other person’s point of view.
Think how kind people are to you, and how hard they are working to help you in every way that they can.
I have moved the wardrobe into small bedroom this morning so that is another little job accomplished.
Cheer up and face Life with a smile.
You will find it works wonders.
Love from Mum + Dad.
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I have a record of a further appointment with Armond for Wednesday 11 February 1981 (again 10.30 am), which was just after I was discharged, I think on Monday 2 February 1981.
A document from E W Kirby, secretary to Armond, dated 12 January1983, purports that I wrote a letter to Armond dated 11 January 1983 which had been received. It also mentions an earlier letter from me which Kirby acknowledged on 1 November 1982. It is said Armond saw me personally on 2 December 1982. The only reply I received from Armond was the following:
BROMSGROVE & REDDITCH HEALTH AUTHORITY
BARNSLEY HALL HOSPITAL
BROMSGROVE
WORCESTERSHIRE
B61 0EX
Telephone: BROMSGROVE (0527) 75252
Our Ref: ADA/EWC
14 January 1983
Mr C Brough 129 Ridge Road Kingswinford West Midlands
Dear Colin
Thank you for your letter of 11 January 1983.
I would like to feel that you are able to live alone in a flat but, like your father, I am worried that it might prove to much for you to do so. While I do not like to interfere in other people’s lives except in giving firm advice where treatment is needed, I would be glad to meet you and one, or both, of your parents to discuss your letter. This could be done either at your next outpatient appointment or you may arrange with the receptionist at the clinic an additional appointment with me.
By the way, I assure you that my secretary did give me your letter of 28 October which I received when I returned to England in December.
Yours sincerely
A D ARMOND
Consultant Psychiatrist
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A letter dated 14 February 1983 from W G Tedstone, Unit Administrator at Barnsley Hall Hospital, purports my dates of leave from my first period of incarceration were:
1980 Dec 13-14 19-21 24-28 31-4th Jan
1981 Jan 9-11 15-18 21-25 27-1st Feb
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I give below a copy of a letter Armond wrote to me in April 1983, in reply to one from me explaining the evidence I was not mentally ill:
Barnsley Hall Hospital
BROMSGROVE WORCS. B61 OEX
Telephone: Bromsgrove (0527) 75252
OUR REF: ADA/EWK
DATE: 20 April 1983
Dear Mr Brough
Further to your letter dated 10 April, the Mental Health Act was passing through its parliamentary stages in 1982 and the modification of the 1959 Act is coming into effect this autumn. Professor Bluglass, who is on the parliamentary committee, will publish a book about it in July.
I am not prepared to list medication as there is scarcely time to answer your letter, but temporary impotence can be caused by a large number of psychiatric and non-psychiatric drugs. The condition usually resolves when the patient’s condition improves and dosage lowered.
There is no mathematical relationship between the frequency of symptoms and dosage required - the dosage has to be tailored to the individual, just as insulin is regulated in diabetics.
Retrospective hallucination is not widely regarded as a specific psychiatric term, but genuine memories sometimes take on a special meaning in schizophrenia. Probably your turkey and ptarmigan memories are genuine ones, and speculate association of memories of two birds whose names sound as if beginning with “T”.
We do arrange haircuts in hospital, quite cheaply, and we do have nurses accompanying patients into Bromsgrove (but not for haircuts).
Section 26 was used because your health was deteriorating. The doctor cannot ethically withhold medication if the patient’s health would deteriorate, and Section 25 and Section 29 provide legality to insist on medication when the patient refuses what is thought essential to help him.
Your puzzlement about hallucinating to only 2 radio channels suggests you are still not thinking completely clearly. I am prepared to accept your mathematical assessment of the coincidence of a C Brough winning the competition.
Possibly the doctor who wore an overcoat and took no notes was the one signing the MHA second medical recommendation form. I cannot give the time to search the records to date your comment about Panorama as it would not materially help your health.
Auditory hallucinations are common in untreated schizophrenics, but visual hallucinations are uncommon. Schizophrenics retain their intelligence and there is no reason why they should not use such machines as ZX80. Untreated, an intelligent schizophrenic may fail to use his gifts constructively.
I hope your questions are satisfactorily answered. I reserve the right not to answer future time consuming questions unless I regard doing so as the proper use of National Health Service time.
With all good wishes.
Yours sincerely
A D ARMOND
Consultant Psychiatrist
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This is the letter to which the above replies:
10th April 1983.
A D Armond
Barnsley Hall Hospital
BROMSGROVE
Worcs. B61 0EX.
[RECEIVED 14 APRIL 1983 BARNSLEY HALL]
Dear Armond
I have a number of questions which I hope you will answer.
Was there a new Mental Health Act in 1982? What is its title and any other reference I might need to obtain a copy?
Can you list all the medication I have been administered and prescribed since July 1980? I should like to identify which drug caused my temporary impotence.
Also, if it should ever be suggested again that I receive medication, I might be more willing to accept it if I had evidence of the presumable correlation between the dosage and the frequency of symptoms.
It appears that one symptom of my “illness” was what you might call retrospective hallucination - I do not mean remembered hallucinations but memories of events which never happened, hallucinated or otherwise. I have never read about this in the literature. For example I have a recollection that my mother gave me Yorkshire Pudding to eat with my turkey on Christmas Day in 1980. About that time my father mentioned aloud the answer to a clue in a crossword he was doing - ptarmigan; and I was under the impression that I had had a dream recently involving this word.
For this reason, can you tell me if the following were actual events or are they false recollections?
While I was in hospital, I had my hair cut once. I believe it cost 10p. I and another patient were accompanied into Bromsgrove by a black nurse whose name I do not know.
Different people uttered the name of your assistant differently, some as “Crockett”, others as “Cockett”. What was his name?
Sometime before Christmas 1980 I encountered (in the first instance upstairs where the pottery was) at the “day centre” a girl called Sally made up to look like Kate Bush.
In the library at Barnsley Hall there was a jigsaw identical to one I had as a child, making up a map of the British Isles with the names of towns on elongated elliptical pieces of card which one was supposed to put in the right place.
What was the justification for detaining me under Section 26 of the 1953 Act? Was I considered dangerous or was it purely for the sake of my own health?
Was I obliged to accept medication under Sections 25 and 23?
I am not satisfied with the way you dismissed my attempts to understand what you say were hallucinations of known radio voices speaking between records coherently. I think it is much more likely that there were coincidences which I misinterpreted. There was, for example, a coincidence as recently as September 1982 when one of the winners of the only radio competition I have ever entered turned out to be another C. Brough. This was not an hallucination as whenever I listen to my recording of the announcement of the result I hear the same thing. The probability of this event is of the order of 0.00017.
I do not agree that to wonder why I hallucinated while listening to two radio channels and no others is a sign of thought disorder.
When I was in D Ward I reported to a doctor who wore an overcoat and took no notes and to a medical student who asked me if I would like to have a girlfriend that I (believed I) had seen in the end titles of “Panorama” a multitude of semicolons and colons. What date did I report this?
What in your experience is the frequency of schizophrenics hallucinating but never in a way which was physically impossible (i.e. many hallucinations are auditory where no-one could be speaking or visual but impossible, such as objects falling out of the television screen)?
What is the frequency of schizophrenics in hospital writing programs in Z80 (or any other) machine code?
Yours faithfully,
C. E. Brough.
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Second period of imprisonment
(The Deputy Administrator at Barnsley Hall in January 1984 was called Crookes.)
I was again under section
(‘liable to be detained’) from
Transcription of Appointment Card
Modecate (fluphenazine decanoate)
These eight fields are blank:
Patient No., Name of issuing hospital, Surname, First names, Address, Telephone No., In case of emergency notify, Telephone No.
|
Date and Time of next Appointment |
Quantity of injection given |
Date given |
|
28.5.86 |
L Mod 100gm 3/52 |
28.5.86 |
|
18.6.86 |
R Mod 100gm 3/52 |
18.6.86 |
|
9.7.86 |
L Mod 100gm 3/52 |
9.7.86 |
|
30.7.86 |
R Mod 100gm 3/52 |
|
On the back page these four fields are blank:
General Practitioner, Specialist, Other treatments, Essential Medicines.
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Third period of imprisonment
I was sectioned again on 25 August 1987, and again confined in Barnsley Hall Hospital. On 26 February 1988, the date my section was revoked, Armond wrote to me recommending I continue to attend D Ward (Barnsley Hall Hospital) weekly as a day patient and to receive injections (I believe of Piportil) fortnightly.
In October 1991 I was attending Burton Road Hospital in Dudley as a day patient. I had bought a house in Keighley, West Yorkshire hoping to escape from the medication, but a letter ‘dictated but not signed’ from Armond dated 9 October 1991 advised against any escape:
BURTON ROAD HOSPITAL
DY1 3BX
Telephone:
Extension: 1357
Chairman: Dr. R. J. H. Guy
Our Ref: ADA/CLW
Your Ref:
9 October 1991
Department of Psychiatry
IN CONFIDENCE
Mr C Brough 129 Ridge Road Kingswinford
Dear Colin
Thank you for your letter.
I agree it would be satisfying to feel independent, and I could arrange through your new General Practitioner for injections to be continued.
Do you not think the long term effect would be that you would become totally isolated in Yorkshire, becoming eventually unwilling to meet anyone except your parents and whoever gives the injections and that this might lead to a deterioration in your health? Wouldn’t local people point out your house as being occupied by a hermit?
A compromise would be to live
independently in
My recommendation is that you think through the financial consequences of living alone, and then if you so decide to try it out in such a way that your parents can tell you are making a success of it, thereby reducing their anxiety and enquiries about you.
With good wishes.
Yours sincerely
Dictated but not signed.
Dr A D Armond
Consultant Psychiatrist
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In September 1994, just after being switched from the anti-side-effect drug procyclidine to what I was told was an older drug, benztropine, or purportedly switched, I was invited to have an ECG. This was at the time I first complained of palpitations.
In the summer of 1995 I was attending Bushey Fields psychiatric unit at the rear of Russells Hall Hospital in Dudley as a day patient:
9th July 1995.
Dear Dr Armond,
I should like you carefully and seriously to weigh up the benefits you estimate I derive from attending Kinver Ward each week, set against the immensely unpleasant sensations I experience when I see vehicles reversing at the hospital. If I did not come I would not have these unpleasant experiences. Do you think it is vital I continue to attend?
Yours sincerely,
Colin Brough.
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Armond replied as follows:
DUDLEY PRIORITY HEALTH NHS TRUST
Bushey Fields Hospital
Bushey Fields Road - Russells Hall – Dudley - West Midlands - DY1 2LZ
Tel: 01384 457373 Ext: 1955 Fax: 01384 244903
Ref ADA/CLW/
13th July 1995
IN CONFIDENCE
Dear Colin
Whilst I am sorry that reversing vehicles cause distress, I genuinely believe that attendance at the hospital is something that can go some way in preventing a worse problem - namely, that of becoming a total recluse and unable to face the outside world in years to come.
Kind Regards
Yours sincerely
Consultant Psychiatrist
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I transcribe the following
document dated
With Compliments from Rachael Hale (Mental Health Act Administrator)
Telephone No. 01384 457373 Ex 1330
Name...COLIN BROUGH DOB...12.4.1956
Address...
KINGSWINFORD DY6 9RG Tel No...01384-287634
Ethnic Origin...CAUCASIAN
Next of Kin...Mr. BROUGH FATHER Tel No
Address...S/A As above
GP...Dr. SKILBECK Consultant...Dr. Kurian Ward...KINVER
Admission Date...26.6.00 Discharge Date...26.6.00
Patient Subject to S117 YES/NO Name on Supervision Register NO
Supervised Discharge NO
1. O.P.D. Appt 6 months Actioned by B. Jaumbocus
BENZTROPINE 2mg
Ward Manager
Key Worker
GP Dr A Skilbeck, K/ford H/C.
Patient’s Notes
Form CPA1
[Stamped
RECEIVED
Notes on antipsychotic depot injections
From the British National Formulary Number 12 (1986):
Zuclopenthixol Decanoate (Clopixol)
Indications: maintenance in schizophrenia and related psychoses, particularly with aggression and agitation.
Cautions; Contra-indications; Side-effects: see under Chlorpromazine Hydrochloride and notes, but it is less sedating.
Dose: by deep intramuscular injection into the gluteal muscle, test dose 100mg, then after 7-28 days 100-200mg or more, followed by 200-400mg repeated at intervals of 2-4 weeks, adjusted according to the response; max. 600mg weekly.
This prescription only medicine is made by Lundbeck:
Lundbeck House
LU1 5BE
01582 416565
Advice is given in the case of oily based depot injections not to administer more than 2ml at one site. Early in my treatment this advice was ignored. Later I was given two 2ml injections one after the other, for example when the prescribed amount was 400mg Clopixol (every three weeks). I was surprised to be told that the dose I was being given was a small dose, as two injections had to be given at one time and the vials of Clopixol were 200mg maximum. The concentration was 100mg/ml. For quite a while also I was being given more than the manufacturer’s recommended maximum every two weeks. I was told exceeding this maximum was common, which seems absurd.