Life Inside The World's Oldest Psychiatric Institution | Our Life

basically i wanted money for an iphone off my mum and she gave my brothers all a lot of money because she's got a pension now so she's got a lot of money and i literally asked for 600 pound and i said i'll give it back to her this thursday and the rest on tuesday with extra money on top and it just got into a big argument and i told her i'm gonna kill her and i said if you if i stay in this house i'm gonna smother you in your sleep and i'm stronger than you so i'll win and she smacked me in my face and i grabbed her face and i was like don't ever touch me again because i love you but i will hurt you and then she called the police and the ambulance came and then i had to come here [Music] this is the world's oldest psychiatric institution it used to be known as bedlam a place we hid those we called mad you need some medication now known as the south london and maudslay i need to speak to you treats 50 000 patients a year any sign that you [ __ ] yourself i don't think so and numbers are rising the staff and patients open their doors sit down to show us what bedlam is like today this is a place most of us will hopefully never set foot in when she is downstairs in the ambulance could you just give us a ring just so we'll come down with a sheet or well a couple of sheets to cover up with yeah an a e ward for mentally ill patients in [Music] crisis [Music] 56 year old emanuel pulled a rail off the wall of a 99p shop and started to hit staff with it twenty-year-old gemma regularly threatens to jump off london bridge she was admitted after taking an overdose most of these people have reached a point where they've become so ill they're considered a danger to themselves or to others come in so this is your room this is the sleeping area katrina is studying for a degree at one of the uk's leading drama schools at 22 this is her third admission to hospital she has schizoaffective disorder characterized by mood swings and delusions so that's my bear in bed i don't want to bring too much the last time i came into hospital i practically moved in so i've decided just a few outfits some underwear my handbag food you want a traffic cake or some cheesy things i'm all right i'll have a jaffa cake then there you go baby love you what do you think of your room i love it you get so much support and help from family friends and the nurses and the doctors you've got this big open space to yourself if you want to lock yourself away it's just like having your own little apartment like what are they called studio flats that's what it's like the trust pioneered the use of short stay awards like this one known as triage katrina and patients like her are assessed and either go on to a longer stay ward or back home to be looked after in the [Music] community on his neck with um at a premium triage is like a sorting office determining who really needs to stay in hospital but the decisions carry risks here there is a particularly high level of decision making you know we've got 18 beds there's a fast turnover we might be making 1500 important decisions a week and they affect people's liberty they affect people's safety they affect public safety nobody wants somebody to leave the ward and to take their own life nobody wants anybody to leave the ward and take somebody else's life 51 year old rupert has spent much of his adult life on psychiatric wards [Music] i'm making a movie about well about the people that come onto triage and the people that treat people in triage he came here from jamaica as a young boy but struggled to settle should we go out by the age of 17 he was diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder [Music] rupert came onto the ward voluntarily after an argument with a neighbor but he can't leave until the doctors say so so we're here to listen to your your side of the events and what's been happening for you can you say a bit about why you've come into hospital and you know how you've been feeling in recent days are coming girls i'm the consultant that runs the award here in lambeth triage ward so i remember well what do you think would happen if you were to return home now for instance do you think there might be any problem there with your neighbors that's good to know the last thing to say before we finish is just with your medication we've noticed that your the dose of the sodium evaporates it's just it's on the low side at the moment so that's what i was suggesting maybe just staying staying here on the water for the moment well i think we will try and get you to speak to the home treatment team tomorrow i'd like to think that you'll be able to go home reasonably soon depending upon the factors that we've done no problem well we'll see okay let's finish that thanks very much no problem okay you're over [Music] like rupert half the patients on the ward are here voluntarily [Music] the other half have been sectioned brought in against their will under the powers of the mental health act mental health that means you effectively detain people you effectively imprison them that's obviously quite a power and you have to sort of consider that quite carefully because you're depriving somebody of liberty this is not prison they'll be declared fit by a psychiatrist you're not policeman here in lambeth the rate of serious mental illness is three times the national average is she lushing out is she hitting people social deprivation and drug abuse play a part but mental illness can affect anyone if you speak to the chef i'm not sure if i understood him correctly but he seemed to be saying that he was going to murder me if i ever went to tottenham when we first met dominic on the ward he seemed perfectly sane just stop singing i'm not singing you want me to start singing what would you like me to sing [Music] [Music] jesus christ a little child when i saw my wife and two daughters off unusually i always kissed them goodbye in the morning i actually walked even though it was a rainy morning to the end of the path in my dressing gown and as i used to when they were really small i was blowing kisses at the girls waving them goodbye i got dressed i went to the shop to buy the paper like i always do if i'm not working and i don't know if it was something online or something on the radio i really can't remember but i can remember with great clarity i i made a decision i'm going to kill myself today in terms of thinking about why i'm here and the circumstances of the overdose still in a state of some confusion i still don't understand why i did that you should stay here for the moment and for tonight and we'll have a look at things again tomorrow in terms of how you feel take it on a day by day basis perhaps at the moment [Music] mental health hi mum i'm just writing this letter to you to apologize for my bad behavior that i started towards you i did not mean any of the things i said i know i know they hurt you i hope you can realize how much you mean to me and at times you make me want to hit you but you're my best friend and if i killed you i would then have to kill myself so that i could be be a freestyle i hope you understand love you always kiss kiss finish i just feel guilty about the way i've treated her and it's not me it's the bipolar and she understands that two days ago katrina threatened to kill her mum following an argument over an iphone her family admitted her to lambeth triage a short stay psychiatric ward where she's being assessed she's still quite manic i had a dream that my friends got on the train and there's a terrorist bomb so i don't want her to go to work this week i believe in a greater force i believe in reincarnation right it's okay maybe i was a bird when i was alive before i want to fly it's not really going to work [Music] having your belt taken your razor taken off you when you arrive quite a lot of metal everywhere locks that can only be operated by the staff and not by the inmates it feels quite like a prison and i can see there's a reason for that as well there are some seriously disturbed people here and you know and i can't classify myself as saying having uh made a violent attempt on my own life dominic the creative director of an i.t company this one came onto the ward yesterday this one his wife and children found him collapsed in the kitchen after overdosing on pills and alcohol this is my wife rachel hi have you had thoughts about what you want to do at this stage i want to go home i want to set about that healing process with my children and with my wife obviously there are things i i need to tend to matters of work and there are some life changes that i'm keen to get started on you also know your husband better than i do yeah do you trust him would you believe what he says i mean do you think he's spinning us along obviously because i have a sort of duty of care yeah it's my responsibility but if i let you go and you know you jump on a train you know that's my fault no i do believe that yeah i i i believe that he he would be safe assessing risk is not an exact science triage is a kind of halfway house [Music] thank you very much for the patience life is put on hold on [Music] decisions are made for them and about them most want to get back to a world where they're free you know it's not the first time he's expressed suicidal thoughts it's the first time he's ever put them into play um he has been a very up and down person he always suffered really badly from winter depression he always had great highs and lows dominic has been married to rachel for 20 years they have four children after suffering years of dramatic mood swings he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder two years ago i'd love him to be as happy and cheerful and lively as he was when we first met but uh i also accept that perhaps some of that liveliness and wildness in his character um was perhaps a symptom of of his condition but you can get away with it when you're 20 and you can't when you're 45. thanks very much after weighing up the risks with colleagues dr bagley has made a call on dominic my judgment is that it's a fairly alien environment for him so the better option was to allow him home can't spend your whole life uncertain sooner or later you're going to have to make a decision and you don't always get it wrong and you have to trust people because if you've never trusted people you'd never let them out and we haven't got space for them besides which i mean ultimately people you know the other thing what i always say is that if you really want to kill yourself you will kill it yourself what are you looking forward to about getting home uh hugging my children i think sleeping in the same bed as my wife getting up in the morning waking my children up and all take a deep breath and hold hands and say okay now where were we the enormity of the decisions being made here was starting to become clear dominic would be going home in two days time would tell if dr bagley had got it [Music] right rupert wanted his freedom too but the risk he posed was more to others than himself you happy with your room this room no no but is it is it comfortable no can i ask you what do you think this this ward provides for you nurturing nothing he's certainly got a history um of underlying anti-social personality uh disorder we think with a history of juvenile offending and violent offending he's been in prison previously excuse me sir on the way so it's kind of on the cusp for me the additional problem now is that obviously he's asking for leave and sort of asking to go home i suppose really what i was thinking was probably for today would be maybe for him to have a bit of leave to see how that goes on an informal basis just you know for an hour or so off the wall um and to gauge you know how well that goes and then maybe that might help help us to decide on whether home treatment team might be more respectable yeah absolutely leave from the ward is down to the discretion of the doctors [Music] it's won or lost on the basis of trust what are you doing i'm going to go shopping no no drugs oh obviously no i want to know no drugs no alcohol okay right i know you you're not going to spend too much time no i've given myself a budget of 100 pound out of my two grand that i own and have you got access to the two grand yes but i won't spend it you sure yeah because i regret it every time i do do it sure 100 okay if i come back with more than 10 shopping bags i've gone over yeah i swear i won't i'm literally just buying a few bits for myself and how reliable are you in such circumstances i'm very reliable was it anxious don't be you're going to cause me to have anxiety attack in a minute you're being anxious you're making me all hot i'm bothered well it's just because i i have experienced people i know and you spend a lot of money i do i for christmas i spent a grand in one day and had to get cabs everywhere because i had so much shopping but i swear the most i'll spend if i do go a bit too early it'll be 150 it will never be more than 200. let's get let's let's give it a try yeah thank you doctor so i can leave yes you can leave thank you hallelujah i'm going shopping [Music] yeah and the birds still sing outside these windows where we set together katrina's passion is the theater she just started a degree in set design when she suffered a first manic episode and had to drop out seems everything around here most of her friends have since graduated [Music] after six days on the ward dominic is home good to be back yeah delighted to be home it's been tough being away so it's good to be home and it's good to know that you know things are going to change so hi i'm a nurse phoning from lumber triage ward at london hospital um we had a patient go out on leave early and he hasn't returned what's happening well he's gone out on leave having said that he would come back at 12 o'clock he was seen shortly after this in the outpatient department being quite verbally abusive what was he doing i'm not entirely clear i think he's sort of banging on the window and shouting at them but not in a friendly way he may have missed medication yet um but he is very intimidating there has been some issues with his neighbors recently he's not in the hospital grounds we haven't done a search now i guess i'll just have a quick look around i think it's pretty safe to say that he's not here [Music] eight hours after he was due back rupert returns to the ward [Music] [Applause] for the staff trust has been broken had he come back yesterday after an hour or so and continued to be relatively polite we could have continued that today and he could have gone out again for an hour or two but you know he's stayed there for eight hours he's been drinking he's come back with a large wooden stick he's been very rude and abusive to people through the night chase one of the female patients with a plastic knife so it's just not acceptable to behave like that more surprisingly dominic is also back he's readmitted himself six days after leaving the ward sort of seemed in a manic mood and then which when he said do you think i should go back to the hospital i was like yeah i think you probably should manic cow how was he uh he was sort of saying how he was sort of wandering around singing loudly sort of marching around you know purposelessly but sort of just behaving in a weird way shouting at the top of his voice in public not the stuff you'd expect from someone who's completely in control of themselves it made the decision i would readmit myself which i think was probably an overreaction dominic wants to get out but this is his second stay on triage in a week there's growing concern about whether he's still a suicide risk we we put in place a sort of a leave plan with home treatment team which obviously didn't work out as well as we'd hoped because you had to be recalled no i didn't have to be recalled i said i think i should go back in retrospect an overreaction what i should have done is gone lying down done some meditation make sure i wasn't alone okay it's been a mistake and this is still a mistake i shouldn't be here we will talk to the home treatment team about this tomorrow morning and we'll see where we can where we can go and as i say i think it would be useful to have that meeting as soon as possible okay as i say no i don't think it's okay but i'm in your hands okay well i mean it's a difficult situation i mean i i'm not prepared to discharge you at this point we're gonna have to use a section five too just to just to say that you know you have to stay on the ward at the moment i'm not trying to escape am i but you're you're saying you don't wish to be here so yeah but i'm not i'm not trying to escape i'm not banging on doors we're having a civilized conversation absolutely dominic but i have to be doing things from a medical legal perspective which is correct and you know you're clearly saying you don't wish to be here you've said that now over a couple of days i'm clearly saying i'm taking your advice as a professional well no you haven't you haven't said okay for the record this is a qualified medical professional whose opinion i i submit to there's nothing i can do about that okay there's never been any question of me trying to escape but with all due respect in this interview for the last 15 minutes that's the first time you've said that and you've only just said that on the back of what i just said so you have not said that you're willing to take my advice i am willing to take your advice i'm sorry i thought that was assumed i'm not a doctor okay thanks no i'm very hungry [Music] do you want some water now i like the taste thank you what am i taking now i don't tell a lot to know any of that no michael the one i'm getting given now stops me from being really high like when i first met you guys i was really hyper i'm still hyper but just under control and then they give me another um sedative and then at night time they'll give me all of that plus a landspin which is at 50 milligrams which is an antipsychotic and lamotrigine which is [ __ ] that doesn't work which i'm 125 of okay bye [Music] many of those who end up on lambeth triage ward have relapsed because they've stopped taking their medication this is dustin nine what's that a good product that's your respiration so why don't we just take that one tablet no it's no this isn't german nine okay angelica has just been admitted to the ward in a confused state so giving this to the methods earlier in the week she flew to london from germany to meet her fiance i come to london i i i know he loves me and i loves him and why did he know you were coming to visit him did he know you were coming to visit him no it was a surprise a fiancee that she's come over to england for as far as we know and as far as we've looked into it doesn't actually exist and it's part of her her illness that she thinks that a fiancee is here waiting for her where is he oh i think he's in india fighting the prison what's he doing in india business she's been refusing her respiratory medication um for some time so what we want to do is offer that again we've got it here and she doesn't take it i guess we need to make a plan to give her the injections so when people present in crisis very often the one thing that makes the greatest difference is medication is anyone going to volunteer to take an arm yeah do legs excellent okay we spent a lot of time trying to encourage people to agree to take medication but there are times when you have to do it against their will so would you be happy to take the injection or would you take the target lifts i i i not this and not this okay the thing is that we're going to have to give you one of them so the fact that you're refusing means that we're gonna have to give you the injections okay the situation is that you need some medication you need to take something and i say no no no no nine andrew i need to speak to you i need to speak to you [Music] actually this is last chance we can't go [Music] do it this way [Music] if we didn't have medication you'd be back to how bedlam used to be you know because there would be no effective treatment and you'd have people having to be detained for very long periods of time against their will and so if you like one of the reasons we've been able to shut hundreds of thousands of beds since 1950s is because of medication [Music] it's never nice to have to restrain someone but i think that that went quite well really because she wasn't too distressed afterwards and it'd be very cruel to leave her just thinking that she's waiting for this fiance to come and the sponsor doesn't actually exist [Music] what they're giving you can i ask the professionals just do what i'm told dominic admitted himself onto the ward five days ago but now feels it was a mistake [Music] he wants to go home the doctors don't agree i had that dream about being trapped in here indefinitely at which point i woke up okay i'm sort of gripping the blanket sweating and shaking and it's weird being controlled it's all about control there are only two ways out of triage home for those judged well enough [Music] or further into the system having breached his leave rupert shows no sign of calming down so he didn't come back till about seven o'clock yesterday evening um he came back with a very large stick a stereo some random pieces of fruit and vegetables what are you eating today [Music] one minute is absolutely horrible to you and then the next minute he's trying to be your best friend um very changeable what market do you go to ruth oh nice [Music] rupert's been battling mental illness for the last 35 years [Music] his condition is worse when he uses drugs and alcohol [Music] i think we've got evidence now that he's still unwell shouldn't have any further lead i think we're gonna we're gonna end up looking probably going down the mental health factory together and probably resectioning [Music] so what do you do from here then when the time comes they're going to review him or get a team to either go in or be outside because when he's i mean it would be likely that he's going to get quite angry when he's told that he's being put on the section i wanted to talk to you about about being in hospital and what your thoughts were about staying here and also not just that but also not to have leave for the next few days because they should be on the road sorry i'm not unlucky well i can't get all of them i'll give you what i do if you're well to agree to this plan and of course but we need to get your agreement really so that's part of the plan you wouldn't be able to have leave over over the next few days the next few days okay and if all that goes well then of course we want you to remain informal as a volunteer patient yes exactly okay did you want to ask us anything today anything else what's caught your attention rupert [Music] the painting psychiatric hospital has become a revolving door for rupert he knows the routine today he goes quietly moving on to a longer stay ward thank you the doctors have decided dominic can leave too by the front door thank you nice one thank you for having me all right thank you very much i'll see you again the doctor said we're very aware that you're not happy here and you feel it's having negative impact on on your state of mind so i'm glad they picked up on that i thought they might have missed it on that basis she said you know we are happy to discharge you you're good to go thanks [Music] i like to know where he is and you know if if i'm not with him i want to make sure that he's okay and stuff like i'll just always be sort of checking up on him which maybe he finds annoying or irritating but it's sort of my peace of mind i want to know that you know he's all right and you know i don't want to be thinking all the time you know is he okay and constantly be worrying but it's just sort of what's happened like i can't i can't stop myself doing it so i'm just trying to sort of calm myself and think it's going to be alright i need to stop having sort of you know assuming the worst is going to happen because it is going to be alright [Music] three weeks have now passed since dominic returned home yeah it's my husband that's right has he been taken to a e thank you very much indeed he basically tweeted a suicide note rosa then found the tweet so i reported him missing he's overdosed a second time after dropping his son at university again it was pills and alcohol it's all right here's a lie they had you know all search parties out for him dogs apparently in helicopter and everything and then he rang at just after nine this morning from the phone box in tears in great distress he said you can't love me i'm such an awful human being i mean yesterday morning i felt i felt really pleased that he'd been you know he'd give me a big cuddle in bed and i thought oh that's the first time you've done that for months and then now i'm thinking maybe he was just saying goodbye a week after taking a second larger overdose dominic has been moved back to triage ward dominic collier risks our suicidal ongoing suicidal thoughts this a.m he spent the whole time in his bedroom at midnight actually he was busy doing some typing on his laptop and also at a point in time was observed crying when staff approached him actually he said that he's feeling suicidal he knew the consequences of what he was doing he said you children will grow up without a father and he knew that that that's what he that's what would happen if he did succeed in killing himself but something didn't didn't stop him trying to do it where do you want him to be right now i want him to be in hospital and i feel really guilty when i say that because i know how much he hates it there but you know i can't tell myself different i know exactly what i think and that's the only place that he's really safe at the moment is evidently in a hospital so there's clearly some part of me that is not not happy being alive you know i think there's more going on in my mind than i'm letting myself know you know there is it feels as though there's a murderer in my head that's trying to kill me [Music] though suicidal dominic is still able to function get up each day and get on with life his behavior doesn't seem to sit with the original diagnosis of bipolar disorder this psychiatrist has begun to reassess what might be wrong with him i suppose we've always had in mind some aspects of his behavior may relate to a more sort of deep-seated problem as part of his personality development you know personality disorder [Music] personality disorder describes a condition which is long-standing present from childhood whereby a person's normal personality development i.e behavior reaction to events relationships is abnormal it's a problem that's more an integral part of his sort of makeup [Music] he had a fairly damaged upbringing [Music] he was abandoned by his biological parents there's a pattern of impulsivity which has been present for a long time running through the course of his development which has been manifested through excessive use of alcohol and drugs and and suicidality my old friend rupert is down there [Music] i would love to i'd love to come and do a due out with you man i used to sing all my children to sleep with that when they were babies it's one of my favorite songs redemption songs [Music] the new diagnosis means drugs and time in hospital and no longer the best treatments for domino i don't want him out yet rosa my opinion is not going to change no matter what you say i do not want him out yet rosa i think you've got to be able to trust him i can't trust him mommy what if he starts acting weird again when he's out well then we will we'll pull the emergency cord i can promise you darling come here after three weeks on triage dominic returns home thanks he'll begin twice weekly therapy to try and manage his mood swings [Music] it's a massive privilege being a parent so please zita bathing in the love of my family again [Music] so glad i'm six months on the therapy is helping dominic deal with his emotions and he's trying to win back the trust of his family [Music] hi rupert how are you can we come in yeah rupert's back home too after three months treatment in hospital [Music] is it nice being back in the area that you live in you've got lots of friends here um well again this was a different rupert six foot four 24 stone he was no longer the man you'd cross the street to avoid this is where you come to see is it rupert yeah about 23 years now 22 years do you think you'll need to go into hospital again well you know i'm never going to starve for it why'd you call it why'd you call him teddy bear because he's lovely and he's big and cuddly yeah and he's kind i love people yeah or you wouldn't you couldn't walk in upright shoes you'd love to walk in your purse shoes angelica had returned to germany she was taking regular antipsychotic drugs and the delusions about her fiancee had gone [Music] katrina's stay in hospital seemed to have worked as well she was back living with her mum and had signed up for an arts course so have you been really good really good touch wood find some wood somewhere and why is that because they've got the right dose of medication in the right medication that's in my system now so it's working correctly and it's helping with the highs and lows so i'm not really getting them so how does it make you feel then linda well if i'm honest i never thought i'd see the day i thought oh she's always going to be suffering like this and now she's okay it's lovely so i'm glad i've been diagnosed young i'm glad i've got the right mix of medication at a young age so i can go back to university if i choose to get a job if i choose to so yeah it's good find a cure find a cure for my life find a cure find a cure for my life find a cure find a cure for my life find a cure for a cure for my life

Channel: Our Life

Views: 1,027,786

Rating: 4.8926587 out of 5

Keywords: our life, documentary, world documentary, documentary channel, award winning, life stories, best documentaries, daily life, real world, point of view, story, full documentary, history, mental health

Id: GLYpBnE21iI

Length: 46min 20sec (2780 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 08 2021