Life After Darkness

A Doctor’s Journey Through Severe Depression

Cathy Wield

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781315345093
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Medical Theory, Practice & Reference

Life After Darkness is the remarkable and moving story of a doctor and mother of four who endured seven years of severe depression. Self-harm, attempted suicides and admissions to psychiatric units culminated in her resorting to brain surgery as a final attempt to escape her illness. The story of Cathy Wield covers the horrors of time spent in archaic institutions and the loss of any hope, to a full recovery following surgery. Today she has returned to her career and rediscovered the joys of life and her family. This story is one of hope from an often hidden and stigmatized disease.

CHAPTER 1

A promising future

Seven years lost. Seven years of being a prisoner, not just of my mind but of a rundown healthcare system, to a large degree still in existence. How can I best describe that place to you so that you may know a little of what many people still suffer along with their families, in this first world, educated society?

I admit my life was far from typical. There were many unusual features to it, but none that could predict the onset of this nightmare. Despite the Vulnerability factors’ which the psychotherapists and psychiatrists identified, nothing could account for this. Many people have far more traumatic or difficult upbringings than I had. In fact some would say my childhood was nothing other than advantaged.

I was born in New Delhi, in India, the daughter of a diplomat. My father’s postings took us overseas for much of my early childhood. I had an older brother and two younger sisters and enjoyed being part of a large and interesting family. We lived in Nairobi, Kenya for four years and then after a short time in England we went by ship to Bangkok in Thailand. My education was privileged as a result of my father’s job and just before my tenth birthday I started at Badminton School in Bristol, the first of two boarding schools.

I remember how on the first night I realised that this was not in fact going to be quite like Jo of the Chalet School (a series of books I had read by Elinor Brent-Dyer). Sadly this brought an abrupt end to the excitement and anticipation which I had felt at the prospect of going away to school. Instead, I experienced homesickness and a certain bewilderment, made worse by the matron’s intolerance towards any girl seen weeping. However, there was a camaraderie and I settled in to some extent. But I spent most of my school life counting the days until the end of the term and then most of the holidays dreading the day I would go back. I loved going home for the holidays, but the parting from my parents was always extremely painful. I cried in anticipation and cried for most of the long flight back to England, but once I arrived back at school, life carried on. I never thought of myself as clever. I didn’t work particularly hard and I hadn’t really understood that there was any need to do so. That was until I was about 13.

There was a girl in my class who worked obsessionally hard, to the extent that the staff started to worry about her and finally she had to go home, clearly unwell. I had observed this closely since she sat next to me in our classroom for prep (homework). I decided that working hard might give me an early holiday too, so I started to do my homework diligently and work beyond the prep time. Not surprisingly, since I was not ill, it did not achieve the same result. I suddenly found that my marks went up and I was moved to all the top sets in my year. I was called in to the headmistress, as Jenny had been. Only I was to be congratulated on my success, although she did warn me not to work too hard!

In the meantime, my parents had registered my distress and hoped that moving me to another school would help. They found a school near our English home, so that whenever they were on leave, it would be a convenient three-mile drive away and I would easily be able to see them. I had sisters who would be joining me at school in the future so it was a sound decision.

I started at St George’s School in Ascot just before my fourteenth birthday. However, this was to be a different experience altogether. At that time, unlike Badminton School, it was not a particularly academic institution. I was unusual; my fees were paid by the Foreign Office and I lived abroad. I teamed up with another girl in similar circumstances, but most of my contemporaries’ interests lay in their social lives and the talk revolved around their ‘coming out’ as debutantes. This certainly boosted my confidence academically as I was seen as being particularly clever, but I felt isolated. I was really very miserable at first, but I had learnt to hide my feelings well.

Back in Thailand, we had by then moved up to the North where my father had become the British Consul in Chiang Mai. We lived in the beautiful Consulate residence on the banks of the river Mae Ping. It had a huge garden, tended by several gardeners. The weather was much more temperate than Bangkok; the town was small, traffic-free and fascinating. I spent lovely times with my mother searching through the quaint little shops which sold all sorts of wares, ranging from new local crafts to antiques. My mother had developed an eye for Ming china and we used to browse these shops looking for the genuine amidst the many reproductions. I loved those holidays. We went swimming every day, often travelling to the local pool on the back of my brother’s motorbike without even a helmet – it was here that I learnt to do back dives from a high diving board. The adventurous side of my personality was beginning to develop. There were not many tourists in those days; the foreigners who lived in the North were largely missionaries. I had started expressing a desire to do medicine and was introduced to a surgeon who worked in a leprosy hospital. He allowed me to come and watch operations. It seemed wonderful to me and the seeds of my future career were sown.

I was not in a competitive environment at school and somehow it never occurred to me that entry into medical school would be in any way difficult. In fact the school did not even offer the necessary subjects. Indeed, they had never had a pupil go to medical school and only eight in our year stayed on in the sixth form to study for A levels.

The move to Ascot played a very significant part in my life. For the first time I had contact with my uncle Douglas McBain and his family for exeats, since I was now within reach of Streatham in south-west London, where they lived. On the first weekend that I went to their house, I was rather dismayed that on Sunday morning I had to go to church with them. He was a Baptist minister, which actually meant very little to me. My family were not churchgoers and my only experience of the Christian religion was the occasional necessary Church of England service I had attended at school. Christianity seemed boring and irrelevant. It was certainly not one of my interests. However, I was intrigued by the difference attending this service. More so that my uncle’s preaching was fascinating, entertaining and relevant to me and my circumstances. Even as a young child, I had a sense that I was ‘sinful’, particularly since an incident where I had lied, which almost led to serious trouble. I was eight years old at the time and it had bugged me. But even though eventually I had confessed to my parents, I still felt it keenly. Uncle Douglas preached the Christian message, that Jesus’ death had taken place in order that we could be forgiven. At the end of the service, I prayed the simple prayer silently as invited and surrendered my life to God. It seemed the most natural thing to do and I felt different immediately, as though a weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

I had no notion of being ‘saved’ or ‘born again’, but eventually my cousin teased out of me the reason for my enormous grin as we walked home from church. I was baptised a few weeks later. At school, my new found faith isolated me further. I could not understand why what had seemed like a wonderful experience to me was received with such hostility. I learnt to keep quiet about my faith.

When my parents arrived back in England for a home posting, the trips to my uncle’s stopped and I lost touch with the church and related activities. However, I never lost touch with the reality of what had happened or of my faith in God.

The sixth form was academically challenging. I taught myself 0 level physics and chemistry and I had to cycle to the nearby St Mary’s Convent to do my chemistry A level in order to satisfy the entrance requirements for medical school. I was delighted to be offered a place at St George’s Medical School which was about to move to Tooting, in south-west London. I was a little perturbed by the name being the same as my school, but when I started there, still aged 17, I was overwhelmed with delight. My experience was the complete opposite of starting at St George’s School! I immediately felt at home with students from all sorts of backgrounds and threw myself into student life. I saw my first ‘X’-rated film just a few days before my eighteenth birthday at the medical school, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. With the benefit of hindsight I have to laugh that my first ‘adult’ movie was this; an introduction to mental hospital horror!

I decided to visit the Christian Union and, to my great surprise, there was a reception committee to meet me. I had not bothered to look at the geography of the area. My uncle had obviously heard I was starting there and his church was within easy distance. Students attending Streatham Baptist church were looking out for me. I had not made any efforts to reawaken the spiritual experiences of my earlier teenage years, but I decided to attend the church. However, I lost interest in the Christian Union when some of the students showed their disapproval – I had moved out of halls to share a flat with two of my male friends! I in turn thought they were rather unexciting and rigid in their beliefs. I always was a bit of a rebel, never one to follow the crowd and always ready for a challenge. However, I made good friends at medical school and enjoyed a variety of activities. I loved parties and practical jokes. I even wrote a comedy skit for our annual medical school review. I was not a particularly gifted clarinettist, but I managed to start the first St George’s Medical School orchestra.

I did very well as a student and obtained a grant from the Medical Research Council to do an intercalated BSc. As a result of this I decided to postpone my summer vacation visit to see my parents, who by that time had moved to Brunei. Instead I took a summer job as a mortuary technician!

I continued to attend Streatham Baptist Church on Sundays. On this particular occasion I sat with a group of clinical students who did not go home for the summer. There was a friend of theirs named Phil and we got chatting. We all went out to the proms on that evening. Soon Phil became my first serious boyfriend. I had no intention of getting married young; after all, becoming a surgeon required dedication. But we fell madly in love with each other! Just three weeks after we started going out, we decided to get engaged and planned our wedding for the following summer, August 1980, when my parents would be back in England on leave and I would have completed my BSc degree.

Phil and I travelled out to Brunei at Christmas so that they would meet him before we told them of our good news. We did not anticipate their concerns! Their daughter, happily dedicated to her future profession and only 20 years old, was just about to embark on marriage to this man whom she had known for less than six months! I cannot blame them for their natural parental anxieties. However, Phil was equally committed to my future and though they had no way of knowing it at that time, he was to be dedicated to me in a way that few people could ever be.

I started my clinical studies in September 1980 as a married woman and celebrated my 21st birthday party a month later. However, my parents’ fears that my career aspirations would be jeopardised were well founded, but it was my choice to marry. It’s a funny thing to have choice; it gives the illusion of control over one’s destiny. When I fell pregnant in my penultimate year as a medical student, I had the strength to continue my training, despite being plagued by persistent nausea.

Our wedding day, 2 August 1980, with friends from St George’s Medical School.

Medicine was still very much a male-dominated profession and there were certainly no concessions for me in my pregnant state. The doctors I studied under either ignored it or made derogatory remarks about my lack of commitment to the profession. It seemed that sex was an acceptable hobby for male students to pursue; I, on the other hand had just been careless! Maternity leave was not even spoken of and I continued my studies. The baby was due in October of my final year. The day I went into labour I was finishing a surgical attachment and the first contractions started while I was assisting at an operation – a vasectomy if my memory serves me correctly! I remember timing the labour pains on the operating theatre clock. Of course I did not say a word to those around me. I left there to go and inform my midwife and by early the following morning, 25 September 1982, we had a baby daughter, Rebecca.

The minute I held her, my maternal instinct took over. I was delighted with my new baby and incredibly happy even though I was exhausted from an all-night labour. I felt enormously fulfilled and loved being a mother. I lost my ambition to become a surgeon very soon after Rebecca’s birth, although I wanted to finish my medical training. I had no regrets.

The final year was very hard. The only break in my studies was for a short time during my elective; the Dean of the medical school was a paediatrician and she allowed me to stay at home with my newborn baby, although this was in order to study for exams! Rebecca developed severe eczema, so I was advised to breast feed exclusively until she was six months old. I was having to get up in the middle of the night, not only to feed her (she did not sleep through the night), but also to express enough milk to leave with our kind friend who looked after her during the day. I managed to get through the year and pass my finals in July. How, I do not know!

The next step was pre-registration house jobs. These consist of two six-month hospital posts in the specialities of medicine and surgery. I would be unable to practise as a doctor until these had been completed. There were no opportunities to work part-time. An easy rota was a one in three, which meant being resident in the hospital and on call every third night and weekend. The decision to postpone these jobs and stay at home with Rebecca was not difficult to make.

We had some amazing spiritual experiences in those days. We wanted to buy a flat but had no money for a deposit. Then we found a mortgage broker who was able to offer a 100% mortgage. We saw a run-down maisonette opposite Streatham Common station. It really was in a dreadful state, but we put in an offer for £20 000. It wasn’t until near to the completion date that we started to worry and then pray about the fact that we had no money to pay either the solicitor or the surveyor. At the weekend we visited Phil’s grandparents without warning them first. When we arrived on their doorstep, they were in a very excited state. ‘We have been trying to get hold of you all day and here you are. We have some important news to tell you,’ they said. They had decided to give us £1000. It was totally unexpected. We felt that God was indeed looking after us.

I became a full-time mother and housewife. Phil had trained as a computer programmer and worked first for the NHS and later on for an insurance company. I supplemented our income by doing some child-minding and we also had a lodger. This gave us enough money to pay for the mortgage and we had just about made the maisonette habitable before we moved in!

I had always wanted a large family and it wasn’t long before I fell pregnant once again. I had been very impressed by Caroline Flint, who had lectured during my medical school training on natural childbirth. She had delivered Rebecca and agreed to be my midwife for this planned home delivery. She almost missed the birth as she left the room to ‘spend a penny’. Simon’s speedy arrival was just 21 months after Rebecca (June 1984). Our free time was spent in doing up the maisonette and I loved being at home with our growing family.

Since the property market was booming, we sold the maisonette at a reasonable profit and were able to buy a three-bedroomed terraced house. It also needed quite a lot of renovation but we did not find this daunting. Once again I fell pregnant and planned for a home delivery. I continued to enjoy being at home with my young children and was delighted at the birth of Stephanie in April 1986, also delivered by Caroline Flint. She was a bigger baby at birth than Rebecca and Simon, but by the age of seven months the health visitor was worrying about her small size. We were sent for an urgent outpatient appointment to a paediatrician. Fortunately he confirmed my own opinion, which was that she was a healthy, but tiny little girl. She remained small for her age until she grew as a teenager.

In the meantime both Phil and I had a desire to go and work in the Far East. Phil successfully applied to become country director of a charity known as Christian Outreach, working with the Cambodian refugees on the Thai-Kampuchean border. We left for our base in Bangkok in 1987 with our three children Rebecca, Simon and Stephanie.

It was wonderful to be back in Thailand. I was amazed at how readily I picked up Thai again. Phil took up this new role with remarkable ease. He had never done anything like it before, but the agency made a good choice and he loved the work running the team of engineers, nurses, teachers and an occupational therapist who like us had volunteered themselves for the project. We stayed there for two years. During this time, Rebecca started at the local English school and was very happy initially. Then suddenly her behaviour changed; she became reluctant to go to school and we found out that she was being badly bullied. The head teacher was not in the least bit sympathetic and so we took the decision to remove her from this environment. I had no option but to teach her at home, but the Worldwide Education Service provided good resources and encouragement enabling me to do this successfully.

It was good for all of us. Rebecca soon returned to her normal, happy self. We were friends with other families whose children were also home-schooled and there were also children who lived in the same apartment block, which had a communal swimming pool. So I had no need to be concerned about social interaction with other children. Rebecca and Simon had learnt to swim and they both could dive. Even Stephanie was swimming unaided before her second birthday (mostly underwater!)

We had sold our house in London, but had not realised to what extent property prices would continue to rise. This meant that we would not be able to buy again in the same area. Fortunately we had met a few people connected with a church in Southampton and Phil’s sister who lived there agreed to help us find tenants. That was if we could find somewhere to buy. The property market was moving so fast that we made the decision that I should return to the UK. A couple of days before I left, we remembered that the children w...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 A promising future
• 2 Working mother
• 3 Falling into the pit
• 4 Time is no great healer
• 5 Freely consenting?
• 6 Concerns for everyone
• 7 Torture made perfect
• 8 The therapeutic environment
• 9 Attempt at a slow death
• 10 Last resort
• 11 Winter of discontent
• 12 The new millennium
• 13 Summer, pain and shame
• 14 Dear Diary
• 15 North of the border
• 16 The padded cell
• 17 Impatient and in disgrace
• 18 Interminable battle
• 19 The Health Commissioners’ visit
• 20 Mayflower or high security prisoner
• 21 A date at last
• 22 Never a dull moment
• 23 The end of the road
• 24 Light at the end of the tunnel
• 25 What on earth is email?
• 26 Future considerations
• 27 A taste of the past
• 28 Postscript
• In sickness and in health
• A doctor’s view
• Appendix A: Glossary
• Appendix B: Neurosurgery information sheet
• Appendix C: Directory of organisations