Schizophrenia: until for a moment the shade slips (or should one say the mask of self), and
We stand with no protection staring directly at the sun.
In 2012, and today it is not Friern Barnet but Highgate Mental Health Centre – the word Centre being preferred to that of Hospital. Friern Barnet closed and was sold off to developers of course, who, although I have not been back to see for myself, I expect have made a good job converting the splendid Victorian buildings to high-end residential accommodation, although I cant help thinking that theoccupants are disturbed walking from their front doors to car parks or sleeping at night by presence of so many ghosts of those for whom time stood still during the long 130 year history of the asylum before.
I am visiting my "aunty" at the Highgate Mental health Centre, where she has been detained for the last four months, although she is not mentally ill now – nor has she been for several years, but the word schizophrenia, like the ghosts at Friern Barnet, has had the capacity of stopping time for her. She is now 81, and becoming slightly frail and forgetful with age. She is also an artist. "I am an artist", she says, but adds that she has not painted anything for the last ten years. When she is out walking she likes to pick up things from the street and bring the back inside in order to have them with her to make collages. This can land her in trouble. As can her smoking habit. And sometimes people don’t like her. Why is that I ask her. My Aunty replies that a very nice woman called Gillian told her why. "The reason they don’t like you," she told me that Gillian had said, "is because you look into people’s faces, and you see things, and people don’t like that. But you shouldn’t talk about it because it will only get you into trouble".
It has.
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