Guilty as Charged

“GUILTY”

As I hear the foreman of the jury deliver this one chilling word I start to slump forward in the dock.

The Judge speaks, I don’t hear every word he says, my head is reeling, I feel sick and my legs wont support me, I hear his final words “… for life… take him down” and I’m roughly seized by the arm and led down the stairs behind the dock, unheeding, into a twilight word of wakefulness, I come round, I’m sweating, the pillow no longer gives me comfort as I realise that although this was a dream, the familiar dream, it is all true, I am guilty and  and will serve a life sentence for it regardless of what I think, what others think or say. Nothing will change that…. Sure I’ll come round, yes, I’ll carry on but I will always carry that feeling. For me that dream will never stop being true, will never leave me.

What have I done that deserves such a punishment? I just don’t know, but I know it’s just. What am I guilty of? I have lost my wife to a living hell of dementia and am now about to commit her to the anonymous twilight of a residential nursing home. God please let me get this decision right if I’ve got nothing else right in my life, because if I get this wrong I don’t think I can live myself any longer.

Yes, I am culpable in my wife’s condition.. I could have made better provision to stop us running up the debts we had, I could have protected her more when she should have been grieving, I could have been more understanding and supportive at the times I got angry or frustrated, I could have seen the signs sooner and dealt with the illness quicker, I could have fought the authorities harder for help when she needed it, whatever I did I could and should have done more… I don’t know what I could have done more, but the fact it didn’t work shows I could have done more.

I knew how much she hated been in a psychiatric unit in 2004, but in 2009 I fought to have her re-admitted… I had to, I couldn’t cope any longer with her at home, she needed round the clock nursing care, but I just couldn’t deal with it. I asked, indeed fought, for her to be readmitted… if I hadn’t done that I wouldn’t have seen that look… the medics asked if they should admit her, I said “yes” and after a couple of phone calls the nurse said “come on then, lets get you to hospital”.

She looked up at me, first time she looked my in the eye since she’d started to deteriorate and with the unshed tears gleaming in her blank eyes said “Now?” very quiet… she couldn’t have reacted more dramatically if I’d ordered her to be executed. That look cut me to the heart, like poisoned darts penetrating my being. It’s a look I see in every waking hour, a look I will never forget as long as I live, and something I will never forgive my self for. I had always promised and vowed to protect her, I was now rejecting her and condemning her to her own hell. I know I had to do it… there was really no choice… I know that… but Christ that look hurts me so much to this day.

That look, that fear and my guilt are key factors in my passion to reform the mental health service.. the treatment she and I got under the Adult Mental Health Service was frankly disgraceful from day 1, and I will continue to fight for improvement as long as I have the strength to do so.

I feel at least partly responsible for her illness and dementia… people will tell me I shouldn’t but it’s not that easy to switch it off…

Since she has been ill we have been blessed with a second grandchild, I love both grandchildren to bits, and talk to her often about them… but I feel awful doing so because I know how much she would love them if she were well, how proud she’d be, how thrilled everytime he said “grandma”… but she has none of that… she doesn’t see much of them… stuck in a psychiatric unit it is difficult… she is missing them growing up. I am loving seeing them… one hug, one kiss, one “love you grandpa” transports me to heaven despite everything, but then I feel guilty because having condemned her to hospital and being unable to have that pleasure.

Simply by being close to mental illness the stigma that the ignorant feel has cost me most of my friends… my real friends have been so supportive and understanding throughout despite their own difficulties… these are real friends I am proud to have. I have now as a result of my campaigning work met many more people, have many more friends, new friends, and I feel so guilty about having a new life that she doesn’t even know about, cannot be a part of, and I feel guilty about that.

I have myself suffered with depression during this period, the guilt I feel has brought me down, the exhaustion of the worry that she wasn’t actually safe on the psychiatric ward has drained me, the fighting with the AMHS tog et them to acknowledge their shortcomings and improve things has exhausted me.

Put that together with continually travelling to hospital to visit, eating ready meals late at irregular times, has affected my physical health. I feel now so permanently tired, exhausted that my social life has all but died. I have been made redundant and diagnosed with diabetes2… how much either of those situations can be laid at my own mental state is impossible to say… but I have my beliefs on it.

My moods and spirits have been a roller coaster, mainly down, I go through periods when I can’t look after myself, let alone my wife… it’s not like me to wear the same underwear and clothes for several days, to go days without a shower, without even combing my hair let alone washing it… but it is where I am now.

I have recently started to read again, I had barely read a book for three years, but I’m now able to concentrate enough to read, and am reading avidly again, I am enjoying the books, but the thought is always there… she would enjoy them as well, some she had chosen, but will never read them now. Cannot read anything.

The illness has robbed her of everything that makes life worthwhile except life itself. Her life now consists of sitting, eating, sleeping. How much she hears she understands, we don’t know. We don’t know if she hears.. she can’t communicate anything, cant speak, even in hospital they have to guess if she is in any pain, and give painkillers if they think she is… they have to get her up, to wash her, to dress her, to get her food and encourage her to eat, they have to take her to the toilet, what chance would I have at home, alone, to give her the care she needs and deserves if the hospital staff can’t do it? None.. but that doesn’t stop me feeling guilty  because my whole being cries out to me to do just that… I can’t look after myself, let alone her… but still I feel guilty about it.

This is the reality of depression for many people, many families, don’t EVER tell me you are depressed because you have broken a finger nail before going out for a diner, don’t EVER tell me you have a lot of work to do so you are depressed. In the past I have gritted my teeth and ignored it… next person to do it won’t be so lucky because feeling so guilty, so shamed of what you’ve done, that you can’t look after your wife (whether those feeling are justified or not) makes you angry, bloody angry, and to have people belittling the illness like that is insulting to every one of the wonderful people out there who suffer depression and depressive illnesses.

So, with those thoughts in my mind, I go back to bed, settle down with the duvet in the half empty bed, and before long I am back in a small room, surrounded by police officers and court officials before being told “it is time” and being led up a short flight of stairs into a wooden pen and looking across at a stern faced judged and a jury, and hearing the woirds “You are charged that….”