up where we don't belong. none of us.
"Of what value is a civilization that can't toast a piece of bread as ordered?"
Murakami, After Dark
Today was oddly inspiring, in a way.
I finally got to see the medium-security mental health "prison", procured after 3 weeks of security clearance, following the chaplain in.
It is where those with mental illness who have committed crimes are incarcerated. Some for a few months while they are being assessed by a horde of psychiatrists.
Some, for the past 45 years.
He has never left the building ever since he was committed there in his teens for what was probably a simple flight of fancy.
Funnily enough, it feels...normal, almost unexciting, being there. They are by and large well-behaved and smartly attired, pottering around the wards watching telly or playing pool. It is when you talk to them, and stories begin tumbling out like an unexpected shower, that you suddenly realise how much collective hurt there is bottled in one building.
Some have murdered. Some are child abusers. Many were arsonists.
None of them run around the building with pickaxes or scream violently at hapless staff, just in case any of us have formed our impressions of mental health prisons from The Silence of the Lambs and whatever Hollywood feeds our impressionable young minds.
In fact, in the words of a mental health nurse, "I feel so much safer here in the medium security unit than on the streets of Middlesbrough."
I have to agree with her on that.
Murakami, After Dark
Today was oddly inspiring, in a way.
I finally got to see the medium-security mental health "prison", procured after 3 weeks of security clearance, following the chaplain in.
It is where those with mental illness who have committed crimes are incarcerated. Some for a few months while they are being assessed by a horde of psychiatrists.
Some, for the past 45 years.
He has never left the building ever since he was committed there in his teens for what was probably a simple flight of fancy.
Funnily enough, it feels...normal, almost unexciting, being there. They are by and large well-behaved and smartly attired, pottering around the wards watching telly or playing pool. It is when you talk to them, and stories begin tumbling out like an unexpected shower, that you suddenly realise how much collective hurt there is bottled in one building.
Some have murdered. Some are child abusers. Many were arsonists.
None of them run around the building with pickaxes or scream violently at hapless staff, just in case any of us have formed our impressions of mental health prisons from The Silence of the Lambs and whatever Hollywood feeds our impressionable young minds.
In fact, in the words of a mental health nurse, "I feel so much safer here in the medium security unit than on the streets of Middlesbrough."
I have to agree with her on that.