Christopher Crook who wrote the extract in the previous post answers my questions
How did you come to write the novel?
It was about being my own boss more than anything, being in full control of something without risk of interruption or distraction. I knew I had lots of points I wanted to make and the only way to put them all together was to write a book. Also, I’d been dabbling rather half-heartedly with journalism but I knew this was something i could do whole-heartedly.
The novel appears to have a lot of autobiographical content. Do you feel able to tell us a bit about your experiences?
At the start one of my main motives for writing the book was so that I could finally draw a line under some difficult and painful experiences – and most importantly – a feeling of injustice. Nothing keeps you awake at night more than that, I find. I begin the novel with an alternative glossary of psychological medicine in which I describe what all the drugs really do rather than what they are supposed to do. I wanted the whole novel to work like that. I wanted it to be a complete re-writing of an accepted version of events: what really happened. So, no, I don’t really want to talk about my experiences – read the book instead!
What made you decide to write a novel, rather than say a biographical piece?
The more I wrote the more I realised I could remain true to what I wanted to say without necessarily describing real events. This became very liberating. However, I had a problem in that I wanted the reader to see that truth is stranger than fiction so it was important the reader realised most of the events I described actually happened. Now I just call it an unreliable memoir. I’ve learnt no memory is accurate. Why we remember or think we remember certain events became more important than the accuracy of the memory.
Do you think writing fiction is a good way to come to terms with difficult things from the past?
If you mean writing fiction about things in the past you want to move on from, then yes and no. I want to be able to communicate my thoughts and ideas. I think it would be hugely gratifying for me to know that I have been able to do that. That is why I write. But I have chosen to write about a subject that risks dragging me back to my past. Whilst I have done this because I think I can write confidently and, hopefully, well about it, I’m not sure I can say I have truly come to terms with anything as that to me means moving on from it which I cannot say I’ve done or benefited from. It feels like the opposite sometimes – like I’ve been poisoned by my writing. But now I might as well be talking about the process of trying to get a book published… It’s emotionally destabilising whatever you’re writing about.
What do you think that the themes of the novel are?
It’s about interference and specifically interference posing as concern. I think it’s one of the first things that makes anyone truly livid – when a teacher you despise, and you know wants to undermine you, tells you they are concerned about you. I think a lot of teachers fear their pupils being more intelligent that they are and so learn to use certain tricks to avoid ever dropping their guard or giving too much of themselves away. These are tricks I have seen displayed by senior psychiatrists trying to keep their wards in order. Basically we are taking about bullies working in institutions where their behaviour is not challenged because people have become desensitised to it. Bullies who say it’s all for your own good and prescribe drugs that give you parkinsonian side effects. It’s a nightmare scenario: concern from the source of the problem. An abusive teacher who no-one recognises as being abusive. It makes you question your sanity.
And they have the language, the jargon, to back up their claims when all they are really doing is a pretty lame impression of a cult leader – telling the relatives of a concerned patient to forget all they know and listen to him instead because he has the answers. It’s totally implausible and it’s actually why there is this huge stigma attached to mental illness. It’s not because Joe Public is unsympathetic to people having a hard time. It’s because most people are naturally suspicious of a psychiatrist with a never-ending list of made up mental illnessess telling the relatives of a loved one that they’ve been ill all along and they have to take drugs that are like slow death, leaving you unable to function as normal, robbing you of your self esteem and then taking ten years off your life.
You relate what appear to be very difficult experiences with psychiatrists in the book. What’s your attitude to mental health services now? What do you think we are getting wrong?
I find that difficult to answer. They are getting nothing right. I speak as a victim of torture. I’m not exaggerating. I was locked up and told to ’sit still’ then given a poison that made it impossible to sit still.
How do you feel about your mental health now? Do you still have any contact with psychiatrists?
Sometimes I diagnose myself as miserable, sometimes happy.
I think for as long as psychiatirsts dispense neuroleptic drugs – and many do nothing but - I don’t want to know. We’re talking about drugs that turn people into desperate individuals who lose control of their bodies and then their grip on reality. It’s the same horror story written by psychiatrists over and over again. And they are supported by a bunch of people and charities who do nothing to change the system becasue nobody really knows what they are doing. There are no experts working in psychiatry because it is not a science. It’s just guess work and a branch of medicine that’s open to massive abuses.
How would you tackle the problem of mental illness in our communities? Do you think that it’s ever reasonable to treat someone against their will?
It doesn’t invalidate my criticisms of the current system if I can’t come up with an alternative that can be implemented straight away. It took centuries to get rid of the death penalty in this country. I think it will take a similar length of time to change psychiatry. However when the death penalty was finally gotten rid people stopped getting put to death. The positive effects were instant. That could happen in psychiatry. Abandon the medical model, cut ties with the drug companies, start again, re-define so-called mental illness.
There’s always prison if someone has committed a crime and they need to be treated against their will.
If someone’s only crime is self-neglect, and they have come to the attention of the services, and it’s decided they need treatment against their will, then one would hope all other options have been explored first.
