I hated being pregnant. And I hated being a mother. But I am so pleased for, but yet also so envy those that enjoyed it.

I never wanted to be a mother. I tried to get sterilized at 19. They said no! They said that I may change my mind later?

My friend Sue with Caja.
I have no photos of me with her when a baby
as few took photos except me

I should have listened to myself later. I did not change my mind.
But I so love Caja yet I should never have had her or any child....
I fucked her up even before she was born.
I should never myself have had a child.

Yet I worked with others children for so many years and indeed I ran many young parents groups.
I was very good at it. Indeed I have qualifications in it and certificates and so much experience. I am an expert...but with others children. I am crap at my own





I am indeed trained in it and there is very little I do not know, academically !!! ..........  about being a parent and how to look after children, from birth to teens  and their health and well being.

But having a child myself ....was a huge mistake!!

I did know this. So from very young. So I did for most of my life spend a lot of energy, trying not ever to be pregnant.

Therefore I had so many years, since about 14, of contraception, some that damaged me, like the pill and the coil.
I was left with damaged fallopian tubes from the coil and hence many years of pain.
The pill I tried off and on from 15. It made me so very ill, mentally and physically.  I just could not take it. It sent me crazy.

So sorry you guys. Once the pill came about, for you men it was brilliant .......FOR YOU, and you all thought that after the pill no consequences for you or us existed? Great for you. But it solved very little for many of us women. In fact I think the pill harmed many of us women. Well it did me.

But it made it so you thought there was no reason anymore not to have sex with you just because you wanted to. Another story!!


But I did accidentally, and very accidentally, first get pregnant, in my early 20s.

I was on the coil, but I had just had a new one fitted, as the last one went through my uterine wall and caused me to hemorrhage and resulted in a hospital stay and operation to remove it. 

So when I got pregnant, I had just had another coil fitted, but I was using the pill as well, until the copper 7 kicked in.
And yet I got pregnant!

It so hurt me that I did . The coil was sold to me as the solution as I could not take the pill for anymore than a couple of months without going totally off my head.
Then the first coil I had, the one with spikes ( cannot remember its name)  went through my uterus and pierced it. It went into my abdominal cavity .  Caused infection and then an operation to have it removed.

But they told me the Copper 7 was safe, and effective. We now know it was not at all safe. And for me it was not even at all effective.

So I had an abortion, I am not ever going to use the nicer term 'termination' as to me it was an abortion. I killed her. My baby.
Do NOT!! get me wrong. I respect every women's right to choose. Our bodies, our choice.
It was my choice.
But do not EVER think that choice is ever easily made, either way. It is not for any of us.


Despite not wanting to have her, she was a her. Once she was a reality, I still loved her and talked to her. When in my tummy

But I so betrayed her. My baby. I kept saying to her I will never kill you. But I did!!!!!!Believe me....In those days I felt I had no option. Well I felt had no option.

I was so alone and mentally....... and not at all that well

My parents were older parents and for me to  have a baby would have been disaster for them and indeed for us all. Yes I was selfish as I could have had her adopted and every day now I wish I had. But then I knew to do that then would have destroyed me. And I was already destroyed.

Having been sectioned at 17 asnd having had Deep Sleep Treatment. I knew I would never then survive having a child adopted. Yes I was so selfish


But that is another long story .........going around to doctor after doctor, with my mum, who did understand. Trying to get two signatures for the abortion. Some who wore a LIFE badge. LIFE was a prominent anti abortion campaign in the UK then. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_(UK_organisation)

But to go to see a gynecologist to try to get a second signature. To be confronted in, I think Winchester Hospital, by a gynecologist and her team wearing LIFE badges!! Yes she was a woman!! Nothing could be worse!!

Well not for me!!

And what I have never got over is she realised my coil was still in place. A copper 7. And I had got pregnant despite it. 
So she just  took it out!! Then and there, with no pain relief, no consultation, she just removed it....it fucking hurt. So much I passed out.
And all she said was 'hopefully this will solve your problem' !!
Disingenuous at best!!

It didn't. Solve my problem. Apparently the IUD was outside the amoebic sac.So my pregnancy carried on
Therefore when the abortion happened it was later than it should/would have been. And while thankfully I did not have to give birth, like some had to. The operation was long and I was very ill for some time.

And the LIFE gynecologist removing it did have the result that when I finally got the two signatures I needed for the abortion and I went in to have it. No one believed that I was using contraceptives when I got pregnant?? That I was not only using a coil but the pill as well!


So I was put into a ward mainly with women trying to save their babies! A ward for women with complications, who were desperately trying to save their babies. I was hated by all.

And lectured at by everyone from the cleaners, the other patients, the nurses and doctors.
Told I was stupid for not using contraception. No one believed I was both on the pill and had a coil in place when I got pregnant??
As there was no coil by then in my uterus!!
And in those days GPs/birth control records did not follow you into hospitals.

But who would have cared if they had?
Everyone there, in that ward wanted someone to blame and I became it.

I was spat at by one woman in to try to save her baby.
I did not blame her. At the time I felt I deserved it.


I did try to put things behind me, trained as a teacher and after teaching I decided youth work was more me and so I became a youth worker.
And when I met Barry and by the time I was 31 and we were relatively secure financially and I knew we were together for the long haul.

I did not exactly change my mind.
As neither of us had children on our agenda.
But that we did have a child is all my fault and all down to me.

As I did not always use the extensive the anti pregnancy defenses that I had had for so many years in the past until then.

I stupidly, actually thought I was so damaged I could not get pregnant anyway and indeed my doctor did confirm this.
To be fair being a father was never on Barrys agenda either.

He loved me and still does and went with what I wanted and still does as I do him. But he had no understanding of pregnancy etc, so he left it to me.
He made a good father.
Well better than I ever did a mother!

What changed was I finally decided to have an operation to remove the scar tissue in my fallopian tubes and that in my uterus etc caused by the coils and my late abortion etc. As I had so much pain from it.

I was settled. The time had come to sort things out for me and that,  for me, included sorting out medical things.

I went into City Hospital Truro to have that done. City  This hospital is long gone but they treated me well.

I guess the first time I ever felt treated well by any NHS hospital.

And about 6 months later I found I was pregnant!!
Not what I planned!!

I was still using contraceptives. Not the coil, I had it taken out a few years before, as it caused me so much pain, infections, and was the reason why I needed the operation. And I was not the pill anymore as that also made me feel so shit, and made me so crazy. I just could not take it anymore.

But I did use the cap and religiously and made him also use condoms.
Yes of course, that did not always work, nor him withdrawing  - which I knew was never going to work, but he did think it would LOL!! But I had confidence, in that I was using the cap.

So I got pregnant at 36.

I hated every moment of it! From the first it felt like and alien had taken over my body. So sorry I know that will upset some, but that was my reality.
I was sooooooooo friggingh sick!!
And in pain and every day.

9 months of utter hell and the birth?? I may write about the birth in more detail in time . But just believe me .........it did not get any better!!

I can hear all those women I so admire who have had more than one saying ...............

"you are wimp,. its part of the course. Being 'uncomfortable' in pregnancy is normal. Birth is painful but you forget it??"

Do you??
I never have!!

And the view is by most that I was selfish??

~No I was in utter pain......... distressed ............ off my tree ....for the whole 9 months.
And it was so amazing I actually carried her for 9 months, to full term!!!

I had have other pregnancies besides this after the abortion, despite my contraception efforts- I may write about that another time. But none stuck more than a month or so.

So I never expected this to stick, none others had since the abortion. But Caja is and was so stubborn.
So against all odds, she stuck!!

Hormones have always done me in. In pregnancy the hormones made me crazy yet again and I was in pain and I was  so sick, sick sick sick...... blood pressure also through the roof.

When I gave birth, I had to be induced, As I had eclampsia............. not pre-eclampsia.  I had eclampsia. I was close to death and my baby too.

But even in labour for 36 hours and with me bleeding and in so much pain, no one recognized things were going so wrong.
We only survived due to a shift change and someone finally noticing, just in time. And my having an emergency cesarean, just in time.

Due to which we both, me and my baby, nearly died. And it took me months to recover physically from that  and my baby.
But I never recovered mentally.


I am not sure that many who found pregnancy and birth good, and not like my experience. Would ever have had  more than one, ever would have, if they had felt like me?

Or am I fooling myself? Is pregnancy that awful and painful as it was for me? But somehow worth it??
That is what I am told? It wasn't for me sadly.
Let me know?

I have never understood if what I went though is 'normal ' and I am a wimp and failure as a woman?
Or that what I experienced is not usual?? Or that I am such a selfish and self centered person that I could not cope with what so many women do all the time??

I have actually met quite a few women in my life that said they liked or enjoyed being pregnant.
And for most, even if they felt sick or ill at times, the result was worth it.
And the years bringing them up?

I must be in a total minority?
I am glad very I gave her life and she is alive and I hope she is living her best life...but!!

But having a baby was horrible for me. The whole thing. From early pregnancy until  she ran away from home at 16. For which I do not blame her. I was a nightmare as a mother.

And it still continues to be
As she has no relationship with me. I cry all the time about that and always will


But once pregnant I had no choice. As no way would I ever abort a life again. And especially not Barrys child. So I had no option. Well in my view I had none.

Barry is the best man/person I have known. He was and still is my rock. If he had said he did not want us to have a child I may not have. But he did not. So I carried on with it.

It was hell. And certainly, the ending was hell too
Barry actually got back, from sea........ Just before the birth.
He did manage to get back, just  hours before I had Caja ............I was so lucky he did. But hadn't seen him for over 3 months, and rarely before. 

He did stay home in the early weeks as i was so sick I could not move. So he had an extended leave as i could not look after the animals.

But after that he went back to sea and had not been there for any of the scans and he had not seemed to have been remotely involved at all?
In any of Cajas pregnancy. I think he came home on leave once in my whole pregnancy, after the 19 weeks when he was at home. After that I think he cam back once when I was about 6 months pregnant. He seemed to take no notice of my pregnancy at all and then went back to sea.

But he got home for the birth,  just in time...................

He had to be flown out of his ship on helicopters, then to the UK. So glad he made it
He even had to push me on the trolley, to the operating theater, when the shit hit the fan.
Having only got there a few hours before.....as no porters at that time of night then, in so such pain. To the operating theater.

I was hemorrhaging. I had eclampsia, I had existing damaged organs, I had Placenta previ. I lost so much blood.
Yet at the time I told them I was hemorrhaging, for some hours, and they, the staff on at the time, told me I was wrong..... despite the blood??


None  of my previous gynecological history was taken  into account. I did try to tell them at the time., But no one listened to me. But I was right

I am lucky.  Caja is lucky
That we both survived!!!!I do not think she has any idea how close we got to death. But then why would she or even care. It is like yesterday to me still. But she is now 32 years old and of course nothing to her. Of course not. She was the baby.

I was in soooo much pain.
We both nearly died, we both, Caja and me ..... Both so lucky to have survived

We, Caja and I,  did have a few good years when she loved me. I should be grateful for that. And I am.

After I got over the birth and then the severe Post natal illness I suffered, when she was around 4. We had a few good years until her own hormones kicked in when she was about 9.

In those years, she seemed to love me? We got on, she talked to me, she seemed to like me?
I had hopes and dreams that we would in the future have a good mother, daughter relationship.
Other mothers even said to me at that time ( unbelievable now but they did) how lucky I was to have such a good relationship with my daughter!!!!!!

But it was not to last.
It all turned tits up starting when she was about 9 and got worse when I had my accident when she was about 12
And NOW? she ......wants nothing to do with me
Did my best.
But my best was not good enough. In fact it was crap.

But we were OK for a short while.  And when we were OK, when life was looking good.  Once I  had got over my post natal illness I formed www.pni,org.uk

As I was then and briefly as it turned out, in a good place and wanted to assist others.
And I think that for a short time I did help others?
That www.pni.org.uk helped others and without me being part of it still continues to>

But now, for me, it is is a different story.

I look back and wonder about how I ever thought I could help anyone else? And how did I have the audacity, given how much being a mother has been so horrible for me.

But at the time I was in a good place. And I truly had hoped and thought it was all behind me.
So sorry, to all, as it was not.

I am so envious of all that having a child was on the whole a positive experience.
And even more envious of those that it was enough to have had had more than one child. And these days so envious of those that have grand-kids that actually want anything to do with them

I feel so diminished compared to them. I wish I had never had a child as then I would not have gone through what I did or had anything to compare it with.
I so feel now an utter failure. I thought I was holding up our right not to have kids if even if it was not your thing??
But having had only one and made a total pit of it,  I now feel a utter failure

I know those that that have had 2,3,4, 5, 6 , even 9 kids ........ and seemed to enjoy it??? Or at least not felt was utter hell??
Most of you I know now, are now grandmothers, even great grandmothers? And so many are much younger than I
~
I am lucky that I am now a great aunt, But I am never probably even ever will be a grandmother and I am now 68.

Being a grandmother seems to rely on you to have kids,. and then your kids then also have kids. And that they all want you in their life. My one child does not want children.
And I cannot blame her as nor did I.

And even if she did she would not and does not want me involved with her life
I am in so awe of you all

But now that makes me feel like shit and so very inadequate. As I only ever had one child and she does not want me in her life.

I am so pleased for you all, yet  .... Yet I envy you all. But still love hearing your stories and am so pleased for you all.

But I feel shit.

Worse Christmas and New Year ever ....................... perhaps!

I know we are all supposed to be cheery over this period and I do try. I do 'usually' try to make the most of it and make it good for any that join us for the period. But this time I failed. Except for Christmas day. When between me and Barry we managed to cook a Christms lunch and make it Ok for our guests. But other wise I failed this year.

It has always been a difficult time for me, and for my dad. Which is one of the reasons it has always been difficult for me. But also the Christmases on the streets or in squats, or once I'd sorted myself the years when I had no where to go on Christmas and even had a boiled egg one time for my Christmas lunch - but actually that was not too bad as I spent the time making a cupboard for the flat to hide my emersion heater and succeeded all on my own, So that one was not to bad really.  Then the so many years when Barry was at sea at Christmas, especially when I had my daughter and she wanted Christmas to be special, But it was just me and her and while I tried I could not seem to make it special enough.

But that is the past and in later years I have tried to make it good, or good enough.

But anyway this year.
Mentally and physically so ill. Mentally on full meltdown.
And then to do it publicly on Facebook!!
Facebook in one way is a lifesaver. As it is the only way I have to keep in touch with so many old friends and relatives. And indeed those I know now, even the village community I live in as I so rarely see anyone.

But on the other hand Facebook is the reason I have so few friends especially local. As due to my using it to rant when in meltdown,

No ones fault but my own. But we both went down with a nasty bug on about the 21st and neither of us are over it yet. Started as a nasty cold but then nausea and me vomiting and neither of us with any appetite at all, still haven't. 
I freak out if I vomit as I am emectophobic and drink brandy to try to blot it out, a terrible combination.
Then I got a letter from an old friend. Who meant well and said some lovely things like how she misses and thinks of me. But for me it dragged up the past, my accident, her illness later and especially the dire mistakes I made with my own and only birth daughter, that I will regret for the rest of my life. I just did not need to be reminded although I know she meant so well.

I found this picture of the Elgin Avenue squats and by total pure coincidence, it is of the one I lived in!!!

I was on the top floor, middle house, front left window. I used to try to grow herbs (no, not weed, just herbs like rosemary, thyme etc to cook with) in that window box

I lived in Elgin Avenue in the squats in the early 70s. I have no idea of time and dates then as I was such a huge mess then.

But it must have been before 1975. As in 1975 I went to the Henderson, a theraputic community, https://www.bpc.org.uk/magazine/Henderson for a year, until late 76. And got myself together and I never lived like that again.

I was young then, I am now 66.

But as a homeless then young woman then living on the streets, it saved my life......... pretty much.

Those squats saved a whole lot of us.

And thanks to Piers Corbyn. Jeremy Corbyn's brother who then was a housing activist and was the brain behind it all and organized and ran the Elgin Avenue and many other squats .

I cannot remember which number exactly I lived at exactly but I was on the top floor flat of that house, in the picture.

And I remember the phone box was almost just outside my building, it was just out of the picture to the right.

And if I kept my window open I could hear it ring. And arranged my family and friends to ring it at designated times. No mobile phones then!!

My house/flat mate was Joe. He seemed to think he owned that top floor flat,?

He did not of course as it was a frigging squat, but it seemed, he thought he did??

The top floors were a premium place to be in as then you were well out of the smell from the drains and the rubbish that was pilled 6ft+ high in the back gardens.

As no one took our rubbish then so we had no option and just threw it out of the windows into the back garden. Or threw it on the other rubbish in the street, as I did.

Sorry it is so dire but that was how it then was.

He only let me in to stay in 'his' flat as he wanted to get into my knickers, which he did as I could not care less then as all I wanted is to not be sleeping on on the streets.

But he soon got bored with me, thankfully.................

But the guy actually had notches he scratched on his head board of his bed!!!! in fours i.e III III III III etc, etc and then crossed out - I think I was about number 30? or so.

I was so very relived when he got tired of me

The daft thing is he actually had a very nice and very posh and pretty rich girlfriend at the time? He probably married her......... Hi Joe

She even had a car that she would arrive in and park outside. Pretty unknown for women to have their own car then.

Such a very well dressed, posh and very gentile and a lovely young woman. But how could she not know what a predator he was??

But she had to have seen his notches? How could she not??

She slept in his bed too when visiting him??

Yet she continued to be so nice to me?? She had to have known?? She had to know what an utter predator he was??

So I stole her ring, her gold ring that he gave her. She left it in the kitchen when washing up, so I took it ....................

Then I threw it into a bin,.............it was during a dustbin strike, one of many at that time LOL!! So I knew it would never be found and it never was.

I did not want it for any money, just to get my own back.

They spent so many hours looking for it. With me enjoying and so laughing to myself.

Surprisingly they never suspected me.?? As they knew I would never be interested in selling it for money.~~

But I was so mad and so took it, and then dumped it??

Not me at all I do not do and have never since done this sort of stuff. I am very honest and do not and never did steal, well never from any individual.

I would rather starve and I have starved rather than do that

BUT, this was different! This was frigging revenge!!!

They never got it back or realised I could have taken it?

As they knew well I was honest............... and actually I was, very.

But I wanted to hurt him for what he was doing and had done to me. And they thought me harmless?

It represented for me that he treated her with such real respect and even bought her expensive stuff, the ring was only a small thing he bought for her

But me, he did not respect me, not one frigging iota.

I was just something to wank into.

For a few months he used to fuck me whenever he got the urge, any time of the day or night and I let him as anything was better than going back on the streets.

Had I been more together I would have realized I could have taken it to the squatting community and got another flat to stay in.

And he may have even been chucked out as he never needed to be there?? Joe was working full time. I think in banking or similar would you believe??? And he had, comparatively to the rest of us then, lots of money!!

But he was a chancer. He did anything to save money and have more to put in his bank, including living in a squat when he could have afforded to rent.

He also had a side line buying drugs in bulk as he had the money to do that and then selling the drugs, that he himself did not take. He did smoke weed but nothing else. So he bought that and other much harder drugs. coke ,morphine, Heroin and also LSD in bulk and sold to other poor squatters, in very small packets at extortionate prices.

A very nasty man that was only living here for what he could gain for himself!!

Well at first he used me for sex, but gradually thankfully he soon got tired of that.

As I just turned my head and showed no interest,

Even he got sick of that.

I had done it for money elsewhere, but on my own terms. I learned that at least

We as young and homeless, women were so then so very vulnerable.~

But then it was us,

But now its women from all over the world are now targeted. All vulnerable are now at risk.~

OK not me now......thankfully not now?? And not for many years.

And who would ever want an old boiler like me now LOL?? Thankfully not and I have long turned my life around. And partly thanks to being able to get off the streets and into that squat

People like Piers and Jeremy Corbyn had their hearts right. In the right place.

Not sure about Piers Corbyn now as he seems to be off on one these days. But he sure did then.

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/photography/new-photography-exhibition-shows-the-tough-reality-of-the-now-barely-legal-squatting-movement-a6695946.html

DST- Deep Sleep Treatment/Therapy or Narcosis Therapy

We all have our stories to tell and I do not ever judge.
But this is mine, Well not all of it as I am not dead yet. But where it began for me and still impacts my life and hugely.
So if anyone is at all interested as to why I so struggle and why I am still so traumatized. Despite years of 'therapy' and working on myself. Trying to make it and myself 'right'.

Is because I too went through this. When I was 17. In around 1970/71.

Don't expect me to remember the exact year. It was 70 or 71 and it was 'only' about 2 months of my life. But it changed me, and forever.


And I am lucky, or very unlucky, that I remember anything.

A side effect of this is it wipes your memory. When I was finally woken up I could not even remember my name, my parents, my then boyfriend Tell, or anything much at all.
Took me years and with horrific flashbacks to get it right and to begin to tell my story
I was too young to give permission, so my parents did. They were told it was 'in my best interests'
They loved me, they just wanted me well, and I was not well.
But this almost destroyed me.

And not at the Royal London where the instigator, William Sargant was based.But for me at Park Prewett, Basingstoke. An NHS Hospital.

As while little is known anyway,  what is even less known is it did not just only happen at the Royal London under Sargant . It happened all over the country. I have been told right up to 1976??
Abet in a smaller way with a smaller number in each unit than in Sargants sleep unit..
But it still happened to me and so many. All over the country
And many of us have so tried to speak out. Indeed I tried so hard. Only to find, like all, my records have been 'lost' so there is no proof.

We are all aging and we are the last who can testify as to what happened to us.
And soon we will no longer be here. Which is what is hoped for.
I am NOT a conspiracy theorist. Never have been and never will be. So I make no judgement or opinion on any links in the article to the military or the CIA or whatever.
In fact I personally doubt this.
I think it was a psychiatric treatment theory, instigated by a very flawed psychiatrist that sadly was allowed to get out of hand and was taken up by others. That went so very wrong and was so abusive to those that had it.
But I do know what happened to me. I have written about it myself but this account of the reality of it tells it better than I ever could
https://ectstatistics.wordpress.com/…/william-sargent-deep…/
________________________________________
DST- Deep Sleep Treatment/Therapy or Narcosis Therapy
( It was known under different names depending where you had it)


1965 - 1975 - London’s Royal Waterloo Hospital .
How 'depressed' women were put to sleep for months in an NHS hospital room - leaving mental scars that remain 40 years on.
There are many horrors that Elizabeth Reed (below) recalls from her time at London’s Royal Waterloo Hospital, but one in particular lingers in her mind. She describes a small, windowless room at the top of the red-brick Edwardian building, just lit by a night lamp on a nurse’s desk.
Six beds are jammed together. The deep breathing of women in a drug-induced sleep. The fetid stench of unwashed bodies.
‘It was like being buried alive,’ she says. ‘I was lying there in the dark, hour after hour, and couldn’t move. I wasn’t aware of my body, just my head in this darkness. You could hear people moving around and other people breathing and moaning.’
Recalling footage of a patient having narcosis treatment
While Elizabeth is one of only a handful of women prepared to speak out, her story is not unique. Up to 500 women, suffering from conditions such as postnatal depression and anorexia, passed through the Royal Waterloo’s infamous Ward 5 before it shut 40 years ago.
Heavily drugged and subjected to horrendous levels of electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) and even lobotomies, the unluckiest were taken to the 'Narcosis Room', where they were put to sleep for weeks at a time.
Almost all teenage girls and women in their early 20s, they were treated as little more than guinea pigs by controversial psychiatrist William Sargant as he conducted a bizarre experiment to ‘repattern’ their brains and cure them of depression.
If all this sounds like the stuff of science-fiction horror, it is no coincidence a new psychological thriller, The Sleep Room, by clinical psychologist-turned-novelist F. R. Tallis, draws heavily on Sargant’s scandalous treatments.
But behind the fiction, questions remain about why the women of Ward 5 were subjected to such cruelty at an NHS hospital. Two of them, now in their 60s, spoke about their experiences to Femail this week.
Survivor: Elizabeth Reed is one of only a handful of women prepared to speak out
‘It’s so easy to dismiss us,’ says Elizabeth, a 63-year-old grandmother and former marketing director from London. ‘It was a long time ago and we were psychiatric patients. Many of us were left with pieces of our memory missing.
‘We were not drooling maniacs, but if you’ve been put in a sleep room, then your memories are not going to be clear. I lost huge chunk of my past.’
Officially, the Department of Health says it no longer has records of Sargant’s work at the Royal Waterloo, affiliated to London’s St Thomas’s Hospital. However, Elizabeth has a copy of her referral letter from January 1973, stamped with the ominous words: ‘Admit to Ward 5.’ Notes reveal she was given a ‘course of narcosis’.
She had been diagnosed with ‘obsessional neurosis’ and, by her own admission, was very ill — depression compounded by a difficult childhood.
‘But many other women I have spoken to say they were suffering from milder forms of depression and anxiety,’ she says. ‘The treatment was completely out of proportion.’
She was admitted to the Royal Waterloo in spring 1973 when she was 22 and engaged to be married. After arriving on the 22-bed Ward 5, she was sedated and underwent ECT — sometimes every other day.
‘I can remember the sound of the ECT machine being wheeled down the corridor and it being switched on and off in other rooms,’ she says.
‘It was so frightening. First of all, they injected you and you had an awful feeling of falling backwards into yourself. After ECT, you didn’t know who you were.’
Eventually, Elizabeth was moved into the Narcosis Room beside Ward 5 and put into a drug-induced sleep.
'I was awake, but couldn’t move or speak. It was torture, lying there for hours in the darkness'
Women there were occasionally woken to be taken to the toilet or to be fed. ‘We were like zombies,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I couldn’t walk. I had to be lifted. Afterwards, they put you back to sleep again.
‘The worst time was when I started not to be asleep. I was awake, but couldn’t move or speak. It was torture, lying there for hours in the darkness.’
Sargant, a founding member of St Thomas’s department of psychological medicine, who advocated the use of drugs to treat mental illness, operated his ‘sleep room’ for ten years until 1973.
Four patients are known to have died there and yet no one stepped in to stop him.
A Cambridge medical graduate, obsessed with making a name for himself, he used high doses of tranquillisers and administered ECT up to twice a week on Ward 5 and every other day in the Narcosis Room.
At the heart of his treatment was his belief that the brain could be ‘repatterned’ to erase bad memories.
His fame - due to TV and radio interviews and best-selling books - ensured a steady stream of patients. He was friends with authors Aldous Huxley and Robert Graves.
Actress Celia Imrie was 14 when she was treated by Sargant on Ward 5 and given huge doses of drugs and ECT.
In her 2011 autobiography, The Happy Hoofer, she recalls sneaking out of bed to peer into the sleep room. She describes ‘dead-looking women lying on the floor on grey mattresses, silent in a kind of electrically induced twilight’.
But to this day, she is unsure if she had treatment in the sleep room because patients were drugged on the ward before being carried there.
Up to 500 women, suffering from conditions such as postnatal depression and anorexia, passed through the Royal Waterloo's infamous Ward 5 before it shut 40 years ago
Up to 500 women, suffering from conditions such as postnatal depression and anorexia, passed through the Royal Waterloo's infamous Ward 5 before it shut 40 years ago
‘You went in asleep and you came out asleep. So maybe I was in the Narcosis Room. I could not possibly know,’ she says.
The secrecy surrounding Dr Sargant’s work has even led to claims he was being bankrolled by British intelligence and the CIA. He certainly had links to the military in World War II, working at Porton Down, the Ministry of Defence biological and chemical weapons research base.
But long before he died in 1988, Sargant destroyed all his records, which might have shed light on his sinister treatments.
'It was impossible to rebel because you were constantly drugged. It was an unreal world and I was frightened and disorientated'
According to Hilary Jameson, who arrived at the Royal Waterloo in 1970, being admitted to Ward 5 was ‘like falling into the jaws of hell’.
As a 17-year-old A-level student in Oxford, she stopped eating after her parents’ divorce, though she insists she was far from anorexic.
‘People were talking about this marvellous man in London who could work miracles,’ says the 61-year-old, now a psychotherapist.
‘He was stern, a tall, cold man with very dark eyes. He didn’t speak to me. He just told my mother that if I wasn’t admitted then I’d die.’
Within half an hour of arriving, Hilary was injected with largactil - a powerful anti-psychotic drug.
‘It was impossible to rebel because you were constantly drugged,’ she says. ‘It was an unreal world and I was frightened and disorientated.’
Forced to eat huge amounts of carbohydrates so that she put on weight, Hilary had an ever-present threat of ‘narcosis’ hanging over her if she did not show signs of improvement. ‘We used to see the women in the sleep room being taken to the bathroom or to be fed and they were like ghosts. It made you feel very worried. I couldn’t make sense of what was going on around us.’
Hilary was forced to undergo ECT and displayed to medical students by Sargant as he taught them ‘how to deal with anorexic girls’.
Actress Celia Imrie was 14 when she was treated by Sargant on Ward 5 and given huge doses of drugs and ECT
Actress Celia Imrie was 14 when she was treated by Sargant on Ward 5 and given huge doses of drugs and ECT
‘He came across as highly respectable and authoritative,’ says Hilary. ‘But most patients in Ward 5 were just young girls who had problems with their families. It was barbaric.’
A leading psychiatric expert, Professor Malcolm Lader of King’s College, London, recalls how, as a junior doctor, Sargant showed him his sleep room several times in 1966.
‘To be frank, I was horrified by what I saw,’ he says.
‘The women were really cramped together. It was dark. It was like twilight. There was a terrible smell of unwashed bodies.
‘It was a fraught procedure to be sedated for that amount of time. Most importantly, there was no evidence that narcosis had any effect.
‘He was doling out drugs in large doses that were way above the recommended maximum dose. I resolved never to send anyone there.’
Professor Lader also sheds light on why no one stopped Sargant.
‘He was an over-powering, imperious figure. He spoke to me as if I must approve and I’m afraid I was too junior and too cowardly to say I thought the whole thing needed properly investigating.
‘They wouldn’t get away with it now because the law has changed. You have to show there is some logic and rationale to what you are doing.
‘But back then, he would not brook any opposition. He built up an empire filled with his acolytes.’
There were also rumours, says Professor Lader, that Sargant was untouchable because he was supported by British intelligence or the CIA. He was a frequent traveller to the U.S. and wrote in his autobiography of being entertained at the White House during one of his trips.
‘He was interested in brainwashing and so was the CIA. He may have been protected by his contacts.’
Perhaps it is no coincidence that Ward 5 and Sargant’s sleep room closed when he retired in 1973 — the same year the CIA officially ended its top-secret mind-control experiments, codenamed Project MKUltra.
Whatever the truth, the young women from troubled families made perfect patients for Sargant’s experiments. F. R Tallis, who researched Sargant for his novel, says: ‘He cherry-picked them. They were easy targets — alienated from their families and unable to challenge his authority.’
'There was no way back to my old life. I am angry about what I feel I missed out on. I've lost chunks of my memory'
Stephanie Simons, a 78-year-old Sussex artist, visited Sargant’s private rooms in London’s Harley Street in 1967 suffering from depression. She sheds a more sinister light on the bias towards women, recalling how he asked her to strip to the waist so he could examine her before administering anti-depressants.
‘He didn’t ask me to get dressed again,’ she says. ‘He told me to sit in a chair, naked to the waist, and talked to me for nearly an hour like that.
‘He was stern and professional, so I didn’t dare say anything.’
Today, Sargant’s reputation as a serious psychiatrist is in tatters, but there is still interest in his mind-control books.
Experiences: Behind the fiction, questions remain about why the women of Ward 5 were subjected to such cruelty at an NHS hospital
A copy of his brainwashing title Battle Of The Mind is said to have been found at an Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan.
As for the Royal Waterloo, it closed as a hospital in 1976 and is now owned by an American university. Sargant’s sleep room is a student bedsit.
But for the women who fell into his hands, his legacy lives on. ‘He damaged us,’ says Elizabeth. ‘He destroyed our potential.’
After being discharged from Ward 5, she was unable to cope with her career in marketing and took jobs as a supermarket shelf-stacker and a cleaning lady.
‘It changed me. I lost interest in things,’ she says. ‘There was no way back to my old life. I am angry about what I feel I missed out on. I’ve lost chunks of my memory. And I can’t lay down new memories.’
Hilary adds: ‘It dulled me an awful lot. It knocked the spirit out of me. Taking so many drugs had a bad effect - by the time I was 26 I had ovarian cysts.’
In Australia and Canada, where Sargant’s methods were disastrously emulated, dozens of narcosis patients died. Those who survived were eventually compensated.
Survivors of the Royal Waterloo Hospital have been told by lawyers that the lack of paperwork and the amount of time that has passed makes it unlikely they will ever be similarly compensated.
But above all, women like Elizabeth and Hilary want to be acknowledged. They want to know how Sargant can have been allowed to get away with such monstrous behaviour.
‘People talk about the sleep room as if it was something from another world,’ says Elizabeth.
‘But we’re still alive. We’re still here. We’re still suffering from what he and his colleagues did to us.’

Christmas 2018

The worse Christmas ever. In terms of my husband and  my family.

But my friends that came were great though and I/we are so lucky to have them.

But.

I went into meltdown about three weeks before. Sadly just after we went to see my daughter. Drinking too much, having meltdowns.
But
I may have survived this, I may have survived this and got it together.
But
Then a friend wrote me a letter. Saying how much she thinks of me even dreams of me and the smallholding I live on.
I think of her too, often. But while I know her reasons and objectively I forgive her and get it.

But

She was the friend that I had to call for help. When she had a complete bi-polar meltdown in my house and the first part of it when driving my daughter and her son home . I was so scared for my daughter firstly but also her son and her. 
Then it continued and she was sooooo manic, basically on a huge episode.

There was nothing I could do to talk her down. I have before talked people down off of a manic episode. But I talked to her all day and night for 3 days.  I so did try. But I failed

So I  had no option but to call what I knew would be those that would commit her to a psychiatric unit. i.e the GP in the first instance and then social services etc to get the signatures needed to do that to her.

But
If anyone actually knows or understands my own history they will know how hard that was for me to do?
As I first went into a psychiatric hospital at 17. And a Therapeutic Community at 26. I would not wish any of that on anyone. And while she had been in somewhere before for addiction I think, not ever a psychiatric unit and if you do that has consequences. And I knew my actions would result in those for her.

Since then I have tried to keep off 'their' radar. Their being those that can have that complete power  over me and my life. And I succeeded.
But now, since HIV, in a way I wish I had help, any help at all!!


But I guess I could never accept it? As while some of it saved me it is also part of what also destroyed me.

So for me to contact anyone when my friend was having such a huge bi-polar episode was so hard for me.

But I felt I had no choice. What else could I do? She had to have treatment. If not for her but for her son?
And sadly, from my house she went into a psychiatric unit and I looked after her son. At that time I could not even walk without pain due to the accident.

But
I do not have any issue with her about that. I loved her and I had to do my best for her and I did do my best at the time for her. And her son.

But

She was the friend. But one that later, when I was myself totally frantic, because my daughter walked out after one of many arguments. And did not come back. And I did not know where she was for at least 3 months and did not know she was even safe for a month.

She knew where my daughter was and did not tell me?? Despite it was her I turned to when it happened for help and support., She knew where my daughter was!!!

In fact she had arranged it, where she eventually stayed! But she sat and told me that I was frantic was all in my head!! As I was mentally ill!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Yes I was and so had she been.

And I had supported her and all the way.

But I never disrespected her like that! She always knew exactly where her son was when she had that bi-polar meltdown. She knew he was safe and exactly where he was.

And I will always remember we had this huge bust up when she was in the unit!! Because I had to get her to sign over her child benefit to me? I did because contrary to what most felt at the time, I was struggling financially to make ends meet . Another story.

But
While my husband had a good wage. I only then had what I earned,  Once from youth work and by then from web design. And he was at sea. I could not use his money, only he could. I had by then got him to do a joint account since my daughter was 11. I only then ever used it for emergencies and I was very careful not to use it except for emergencies and the bills I could not cover.

( Another story that one day I will write about. No he is not like this now. In fact i do not even think he cares anything much about money. I think all he cares about now is living his life and that I am OK. But sadly I am not, not OK. But having him do that to me, examine every thing |I spent, of my own money as well as his, for many years, while he was away...................... Did not do me me favors.,

Buit another part of my story and yet to be told)

Basically I still do the same. But then. I could not use it at all? So I had no money to keep her son. So I had to ask her to hand over her child benefit.

Which as what social services told me to do. So I had to ask her. It so did not go down well!!

I guess then everyone I knew thought I had no money issues., After all I lived and stil live in this big house with a man earning??

But
I was struggling financially every day to keep and feed us

But

I guess no one knew? Certainly not my husband.


But

I may not have done a great job of looking after him but I kept him safe and fed, despite I was so struggling myself. And I informed her every single inch of the way.

Even though at times she was so manic, even in the unit, she could not understand me

But

When My daughter ran way she was not the only one actually that I trusted that knew where Caja was and did not tell me?

Some parents of her friends who I saw as friends did too.!!!

As my daughter sofa surfed for a week or so. Therefore some of her other friends parents knew where she was too? And did not tell me either.

OK I know that she was not going to come back.
I know I was a mess and she found me unbearable and I was totally unbearable.

But to know where she was and not even tell me she was safe ???????????????

I cannot forgive that.
I have not trusted anyone as a friend since and that was when my daughter was 16.

But

I am sure she felt, just as I had.
That she had no choice. What else could she do? My daughter needed to get away from me?
So very sad for the both of us, but that was how it was


So for her but for my daughters sake? She did what she had to do

But

I honestly think if my daughter had had a different personality it would not have been necessary?
I do not think in the great scheme of things I am that bad??
There are far worse parents than I.

I do know that. through my job once but also in my life

And so may children still love and respect their parents. Even so.

But

Not mine

But

If she had ever shown the slightest respect, compassion or love or understanding towards me. Got and understood I was so struggling Tried to help me in any way at all? Cleaning up after herself may have helped. Helping me with the animals she professed to want and love may have helped. But also understanding I was a struggling and broken person who was only by then trying for her.

It may have helped and us both.~
But it was not to be.

She despised me and made sure I knew it and did her best to show that.


But

I guess she helped me survive?
As the only reason I do not or have not taken my own life then or now is because I love her.

That I cannot and will not do that to her.
Even before my own bother took his life - sadly we are all flawed in our family and all of us have to struggle in this life and often it gets too much . I knew I could not do it because of her.

My brother was not the first person I have loved who has committed suicide, by far. Someone who has been in asylums and theraputic communities and finds it hard to relate to anyone that has not known this pain will always know those that did and succeeded. So I am and always have been very well aware of how it affects those that are left behind.

I so know and I wont do that to my daughter and in fact I won't to my husband either or my sister.
My other brother? Right now i do not care as he has never loved or respected me although I have him and big time

But

If my daughter above all some respect or love,  then or now, for me, this would have done.
If I had ever had that from her at all, all of this may not have happened?

But
OK that may seem harsh. I was the parent and she was the child. It was my job and L failed.  I totally get that.

But
I loved her so much

That were arguments on my side because I was really disabled at the time - physically due to the accident, not mentally although by then I was mentally in a complete mess as well - did not do a thing to help me. Did not even do anything to care for her cats she professed to so love, certainly did nothing whatsoever to help look after the dogs or the chickens or any of the many rescue animals we had then. Not a fucking thing!!
I guess she did not ask to be born?
She did not buy into all the animals. Bu she did some. Some I only had due to her and she did noting of their care

But
I was not asking her to look after me?
Although sadly many children become carers to their parents when they are as physically disabled as I was then.
But I NEVER, EVER asked that of her.

All I ever asked was for her to look after herself.......... i.e her room, her personal hygiene, get herself to school or collage. Honestly that is all I ever asked of her

And perhaps help with the house, garden and the animals

But

Ok not all but some of the animals were only with us  because she wanted me to have them.
And they had to be looked after. Barry was at sea. I was a complete mess. Due to the accident mainly and the fact my husband would not leave the sea, even though I was so plainly going under and by then I was drinking
And I could not cope

She was happy to work and for long hours as long as she was paid. And be hospitable
But she had a mother at home, who was not coping at all and needed her time and help.
And she would not help.

I would have even paid her what she was getting working if she had done a single thing, even just cleaned her room so I did not have to. But no that was not on her agenda

But

Even so?

Why was going to see our beautiful daughter if so traumatic? It should not have been. I so love that she has a life and seems relatively happy, despite me. I am so glad she has a life and an interest that is not chefing. As I know how hard that is. As actually I did it myself for a while. Not as long as she did and not working with famous chefs as she did

But

Now her life revolves around her rescue animals. Which is wonderful and I so support everything she does re that.

But
In that case

But

We now only see her about once a year, if that?  As with all the rescue animals she has she cannot leave them for a night. And we live too far to come here and to travel back in a day.

That I so do understand.

As we still have rescue animals, we always have had rescue animals and have so few now, compared to the past

As we once had goats.............. chickens............so many chickens, has to be over a few thousand over the years,  Ginnie fowl, ducks, Muscovies, ponies, horses  .

But we still have 3 cats, 4 dogs, and 2 ponies

But

So for us to leave ours for a night we now have to pay £30 for each single  night, and we do. When we can. And  I  so get ....................my daughter can no ever run to this.
But it is not easy for us either

To just visit my daughter costs us at least £150 or more and that is before any of our other expenses

But

Barry had seen her more recently but that was only because he made a chicken run for her for her birthday last May

And despite being not at all well and about to embark on Radiotherapy for prostate cancer, that he has suffered 9 years now, he still made it. And it was a beautiful chicken run.

But

He was not able to deliver it for a while as was not well and had to go for daily Radiotherapy for

 But

As despite not helping or seeming to care one iota for the many rescue chickens, or dogs or cats or anything ( rescue snakes was another, that I ended up caring for., And I am not  good with snakes)  when she was a child, that some I got only for her.  That she mostly ignored and did nothing at all for? I think in all her life with me she only ever took any dog out for a walk once!! She certainly never changed any cat litter box, or if she did it was because I made her, or helped me feed  her rabbits ................... they died so I failed too,

Yet her life now seems to be rescue dogs, cats and chickens!!!
So ironic to me!!!!

But
That we see her at all is only because we go to where she lives. To the city she lives.
Usually we get a hotel. We have once stayed there when I just could not go any further nd thought it dangerous for Barry to drive the 4 hours home on no sleep, for one night when we landed at her local airport. And once we stayed for one night before the hotel room was ready. But that is all.

So what with our animal care costs and the hotel and the petrol to get there and food etc just to see her for a couple of days at all costs us over £600 

And never before have we stayed with her for the whole 3/4 nights we are there

But

This time we decided to stay with her. Why not?
We only go there now to see her.
Yes I like the Spa and the Christmas market but that is for me, just an excuse to get to see her
But we are broke too at the moment and paying for a hotel as well as animal care to go, is out of our range . So we decided to stay there. They have a spare room, with now a bed ( they only had a mattress last time but thankfully they now have a bed in the spare room)

But

If anyone comes to stay with me I at least get in food for them, or at least nibbles, always make sure coming to my home is as special as I can make it. That at least they all have a comfortable bed ( well her partner did try to do that at least)  make sure they , all visitors are at least, warm

Yes her partner so tried and he did a huge and good job

He cleaned the house. From top to bottom, He tried to make our room, OK. And the rest of the house. But my daughter???????????????

But my daughter? Did nothing .................nothing whatsoever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why not?? She is so lucky to have him.

She is a qualified chef and runs a pub now as a part time job to get her through Uni at her late age to do a degree. And in her job she is so hospitable. To all her customers. She so has that skill.

Pity she never uses any of her skills on us. But we are her parents and not customers.
I see a repeat of what went wrong between us all those years ago here??

She is happy to work and for long hours as long as she was paid.
But she is not willing to do anything in her own home? He partner gets it and I get that he does and loves her anyway

But

OK at least she let us stay.

But

It seems she could not even do warm!!!

I was so cold

But more.,

I had to watch Barry freeze. So much so he sat on their sofa with his hat around his feet as everything was so cold . Who never complains. He is ill with cancer and I am not. . As he was so suffering. He was so very cold.

So cold he was sat in her front room.

Freezing's his fucking balls off!

In her home

I get it. you are broke~

I have so been there so I do get it

Yet if you had ever even said?

I am about to put what I can right now
On to your card