Life with Daniel by Julie Anne Armstrong - HTML preview

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THE NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE

 

It was born out of a long-held ideal that good healthcare should be available to all, regardless of wealth – a principle that remains at its core. With the exception of some charges, such as prescriptions and optical and dental services, the NHS in England remains free at the point of use for anyone who is a UK resident.

My brief encounter with therapists in 1994 regarding behavioural management was hopefully the last time I experienced the mental health service, unfortunately that was not the case.

I remember visiting a Dr Bone once, he again was a behaviour specialist, during my primary years at school, he did not think I needed any further support.

It was not until later on in life when I moved out of the family home and into my own house with my partner that I began involving myself with more crime.

I was at a really bad point in life, then my adopted father died suddenly, within four days, we found out he had bone cancer, and then that was it, he was gone.

I remember going to see him at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Gateshead, at first he could talk, he told me little green men were on the floor trying to attack him, I laughed, he was always a comedian, I didn’t realise at the time it was probably the high amount of morphine in his system.

I walked in one night and he was out cold, lying there unable to move or talk. I remember smacking him in the face, one, two, three more times, “Dad, wake up” I kept saying.

I seen his eyelid move, he twitched and breathed a bit more, I said, “Don’t worry, you can go now, I’ll look after mum”. That night he died, on his birthday 18th March 2009.

I gave him the best funeral, cars all lined up in my street, even the young lads were taking their hats off in respect, we drove down to the west road cemetery and he had the best send off we could give.

It was at this time, life really went out of control, I was being targeted heavily by the police. Vehicles would follow me on a daily basis, they would block the roads off and pounce on my vehicle like a cat jumping on a mouse, I remember one time driving along the West End and a riot van, a t5, and a BMW motorway patrol vehicle boxed in my Volvo v70 as I was crossing the roundabout, they then proceeded to take me out of the car and started destroying my engine bay, they even ripped the interior out and the car was in the local scrapyard by the end of the week.

I was constantly being arrested on suspicion of serious crimes, I think it was a mixture of drug abuse, alcohol abuse, and depression that eventually set me off.

I don’t even remember what happened, I just remember waking up in St Beds Mental Hospital in South Tyneside, where I was given a chemical cosh and didn’t leave my room for days. It was coming to New Years Eve and I remember going outside for a smoke, one of the lads in there had a joint and gave me a smoke, it felt great, one of the staff came asking if I wanted some Indian Takeaway, I was well impressed.

I was released from the hospital, with a small dose of psychotropic drugs known as anti psychotics, and was prescribed 50mg of Quetiapine, also known as Seroquel, a major tranquilliser.

Seroquel is not an antidepressant. Let’s get that squared away right now. Seroquel basically means ‘serotonin queller’. Seroquel disrupts both dopamine and serotonin receptor activity in your brain.

Depression is not caused by a serotonin imbalance and schizophrenia is not caused by a dopamine imbalance. Rather, this chemical will cause both a dopamine and serotonin imbalance in your body soon after you take it.

In other words, you will have a chemical imbalance—after you start taking this stuff.

Seroquel is a so-called ‘anti psychotic’. Depression is not a psychotic state. Why on earth would you take an anti psychotic for depression? Where is the causal link that would inform us and make us think, “Hmm, a serotonin and dopamine blocker is exactly what I need for my depression treatment.”?

Anti psychotics are bug killers. That is, anti psychotics are primarily derivatives of phenothiazines which Dow Chemical sells to Big Agriculture as an insecticide and de-worming agent. Their other name, ‘neuroleptic’ which means ‘nerve clamp’ is far more precise and honest of a designation. It clamps down on your nerves and causes artificial Parkinson’s Disease.

This class of chemicals has not been expertly engineered to dampen psychosis. It just scrambles your brain. That is it’s ‘medicinal’ effect.

Anti psychotics hurt you. They make you fat and leave you with dry mouth and muscle twitches. They cause central nervous system damage, diabetes and a host of other problems from impotence and night sweats to memory deficits and brain.

I obviously was unaware at the time what these drugs can do to you, I thought great, more drugs for me to take, and they are prescribed.

My life improved drastically at that time, I had a large group of friends from the west end who I would work out with, and was walking my family to the park, every day I would take my kids to the park, we just bought a little Rottweiler pup, he was like a little chunky bear, and we would walk him, or rather push him in the toddlers pram.

The kids enjoyed it, It was making me physically fit and my life was great again, at that time I had a lot of police involvement, they put markers on me, and an officer would come out to my house every night at 7PM to make sure I was inside, even though I had no curfew or any orders, I’d stick my head out of the window, “what the fuck do you want”, they would just walk away, without saying a thing.

Then one sunny day in 2011 I was leaving the house to take my children to the park, and about six cars all pulled up in a line, big BMW X5’s, loads of flash cars, it was the doctors.

Puzzled at first, I went over to them, “can we have a word inside a minute”, my partner was not happy, she knew something was up, she said let’s keep walking, I didn’t realise what would happen next.

As I am waiting in the house, they are all outside talking amongst each other, all of a sudden armed police come running into the house, whilst my children were playing outside on the trampoline.

These officers sat down next to me and started talking normally, I joked around with them.

They said to the doctors, “if you don’t take him, we will.”

They said right, your coming with us. “What, where to?”, “You’re being sectioned under the mental health act”, they took me by my arms and escorted me outside, in front of everyone, into an ambulance that had just pulled up, restrained me in my seat, and took me to a secure ward.

St Nicholas Hospital is an NHS psychiatric hospital located in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne, England, UK. The entrance is located on Jubilee Road. The buildings range from Victorian-era to modern facilities and occupies 12 hectares of land.

Upon arrival, I await at these glass sliding doors, it’s all locked down, a secure unit called Greentrees. Greentrees is a Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) based at St Nicholas Hospital. It is a 14 bedded unit for both male and female service users from the North of Tyne area and is designed to meet the needs of those in mental health crisis.

The police escorted me into the building, it had a reception desk to the left as you entered one passage, then you had to wait for the doors to shut behind you before they opened the next ones.

At first nobody knew who I was, or why I was there, they didn’t even know I was coming, this was a spur of the moment judgment by the police who for some reason wanted me put in this hospital.

I was greeted by a beautiful nurse who showed me around the hallway, she showed me a seclusion suite, more like a padded jail cell, she said, if you don’t cooperate, this is where you go.

Things were getting a bit worrying, I was still trying to get my bearings, the noise of the children screaming for me still ringing in my ears, the neighbors eyes watching as I was carted away.

I remember being sat down in front of a doctor, she asked me a few questions, and said she will prescribe me some drugs.

The unit is very strange, you’re just dumped in with a range of varying mentally ill people, some would just stare at you, others jump around like animals, one women told me she had 50 different people inside of her.

As you walked along the hallways you would have rooms left and right, one room had a TV, another had a gym, and the rest were all cell like bedrooms, the TV was cased in a large solid wooden box with a plastic front, clearly so we could not break it. All of the chairs were pinned down, and everyone was just silent.

It came closer to bed time and there was a long queue at a window sticking out of the wall, it was medicine dispense time, I thought great, some drugs to help me sleep.

The doctor who I had just met was a junior doctor, I did not know this at the time but she prescribed me 3000% of the Recommended Daily Allowance, I remember taking this drug and being knocked the fuck out, immediately.

The next day came and I was stiff, like a zombie, my speech slurred, I had been lobotomised.

All day we would sit in the TV room in silence, everyone delusional and suddenly you would hear a scream, it was one of the patients randomly coming back to life, it was like a zombie prison.

I remember one night one of the vulnerable females was having a delusion in the quiet area and another male was in their with her trying to get into her knickers, I don’t know if anything happened but it took the staff a while to realise, it was like Bedlam.

Later on it was medicine time again, I thought I had to take the drugs or I would be put in the seclusion cell, I feared they would tie me up, and forcibly jab me with some other drug, and that made me scared.

I took the medication and went to my room, this time, something was strange, I started to dose off, and was listening to my heart beat, and all of a sudden it stopped and my head just swung, as if it came from one part of the room to the other, I quickly jumped up and started punching my chest, it was like I was mortal drunk on rohypnol, everything was blurry, I had to hold onto the wall to move, I managed to get down the hall, shouting “nurse, nurse”, he came running out.

Something was wrong, my chest was pounding so hard, as if a jack hammer was trying to get out, I could not breath. The nurse put me on a machine, heart rate was 180, blood pressure through the roof, the machine beeping alert, alert, alert.

The nurse said it’s just anxiety, calm down and go back to sleep, here is some more medication.

I took the lorazepam with some water, went to bed and woke up the next day.

I spent 10 days on that ward, each day I was given a lethal dose of medication that made me brain dead, unable to function, and I lost all of my strength.

I remember one night one of the male nurses gave me a TV to watch, only for the night shift female nurse to come on and say no that’s my TV and gave it to one of the female patients.

On the 10th day I had a mental health tribunal, they let me out immediately.

Strangely, as soon as I was released, the CPN who got me sectioned in the first place, someone who is suppose to be supportive to you, contacted the police and said “he’s out, he’s a danger to the public”.

The police immediately came to my house, and told me I cannot see my children, and that I may use a table leg, a curtain pole, or my weight lifting equipment to harm my children, that was it, social services were involved and they said I had to live alone.

I was homeless, on the streets, no where to go and ended up at a Salvation Army building speaking to some guy and I really couldn’t understand a thing he said, he gave me a small room, the bedding had burn holes in it, the walls filthy.

I rang my partner and said, I can’t stay here, she said she would take the kids to her mothers. I was pleased to be back home, I had just been ripped away from my family, and nearly killed, yet at least I was back in my own bed.

It came to bed time, and I couldn’t breath, I looked in the mirror, I was all white like a ghost, my eyes had changed, I was confused.

Nothing can prepare you for what happened to me, these drugs are not treatments, they are designed to physically disable you, and eventually kill you.

Time passed and social services completed there assessments, they said the children can come home and I can move on, they said I was not a risk. I was visiting the doctors numerous times, as my health was still degrading, I would have heart palpitations, uncontrollable movements, all kinds of health problems, and the doctors just passed it off as anxiety, and prescribed me more drugs.

Luckily, we got medical grounds to move and left, the doctor stating “a move to a rural area would greatly benefit my health”. It did improve a lot, that year in 2012 was one of the best experiences of my life.

I had a complaint into the National Health Service, regarding the sectioning, and the overdose. It was stated that “I should have never been put on that ward, and that I was not suffering from a mental illness at that time, and that important prescribing information was missed, and that important clinical information was missed”. I think the junior doctor was sacked, the CPN never returned to work, she stayed on the sick for over 3 years, and probably has a job elsewhere now.

It was also upheld that the drug left me with “frightening physical effects” that included massive weight gain, diabetes, metabolic syndrome x, sleep apnea, hair loss, you name it, I’ve had it.

The doctors are still unsure what damage the drug has done, I’ve been diagnosed with heart problems, sinus tachycardia and long qt syndrome, I also have to sleep with a full face mask that constantly blows massive amounts of air into my lungs. This recently caused me to have pneumonia.

I did attempt and try to sue the NHS and Northumbria Police for £50,000. Since then I have been accused of multiple harassment charges against police officers, doctors, and local authority staff. I actually found out where the police officers lived and have since been given numerous PIN notifications, I even received one from the local newspaper.

If there is anyway that the government want to shut you up, it’s by the police. They send the dogs and put you to sleep.

Systems are corrupt, the government is corrupt, we are not a free society, we are under control by a government that takes away our freedoms and causes misery and destruction.

“The battlefield is safer than psychiatry. You understand that? Statistically you are less likely to be shot by an enemy than to be killed by a pharmaceutical drug. That’s the truth about psychiatry.” —Mike Adams “Health Ranger”