Not What The Good Fairy Promised

Joanna Petersfield

Description

Twenty-four-year-old Joanna's life flipped upside down at the taking of a phone call. News of her sister's near-death in a fire triggered the onset of bipolar disorder, a mental health condition that Joanna would have to manage for the rest of her life.A scholarship to Cambridge, with three years to get her degree, had ended in this. Joanna's high hopes, and her father's fierce ambitions for her, now lay in tatters. A glowing future of any description lay beyond her grasp as she struggled to get to grips with her new and utterly foreign reality. Where was she going in life now?Not What the Good Fairy Promised is the heart-warming story of a young woman's experience of terrifying breakdown, psychiatric hospital, and the stigma of mental illness. There is the battle with everyday life, with its frightening demand that she re-discover her identity - her selfhood - while struggling to survive and earn a living, yearning for something worthwhile to fill the hours of nine to five. This is a tale of experiencing, and overcoming, serious mental illness, of driving ahead to forge a new and unlooked for future - and what the Good Fairy did deliver.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Memoir

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
• Date de parution: 30 novembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528994644
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

N ot W hat T he G ood F airy P romised
Joanna Petersfield
Austin Macauley Publishers
2022-11-30
Not What The Good Fairy Promised About the Author Dedication Copyright Information © Acknowledgement Chapter 1: The Interview The Interview November 1968 --> Chapter 2: The Result The Result --> Chapter 3: First Days at Cambridge First Days at Cambridge --> Chapter 4: The Highland Ball The Highland Ball --> Chapter 5: Cambridge Continued Cambridge Continued --> Chapter 6: Section Section June 1975 --> Chapter 7: An Unexpected Turn of Events An Unexpected Turn of Events July 1975 --> Chapter 8: ECT ECT --> Chapter 9: Independence Independence October 1975 --> Chapter 10: Secretarial Skills Secretarial Skills --> Chapter 11: On the Ward On the Ward --> Chapter 12: Church of England Church of England --> Chapter 13: The Final Straw The Final Straw --> Chapter 14: My Best Secretarial Job My Best Secretarial Job --> Chapter 15: Cambridge and Depression! Cambridge and Depression! --> Chapter 16: Poacher Turned Gamekeeper Poacher Turned Gamekeeper 1988 --> Chapter 17: Psychotherapy Training Psychotherapy Training September 2003 --> Chapter 18: Marriage Marriage --> Chapter 19: Afterword Afterword -->
About the Author
At 18, the author was thrilled to win an Open Scholarship to Girton College, Cambridge. If you look up the records of Girton College alumnae, you will not find Joanna, as this is a pen name. Joanna emerged from Cambridge with high hopes for a career. Her book is the story of her experience, following university, of the serious mental health condition, Bipolar Affective Disorder. Joanna Petersfield will keep the details of her life thereafter hidden for the moment, so as not to spoil her readers’ enjoyment of learning how she dealt with this seeming disaster!
Dedication
For my husband.
For “Dr Shepherd”, the other doctors, nurses, GP’s and psychotherapists who have treated and cared for me. Without you all, I simply could not have done it.
Copyright Information ©
Joanna Petersfield 2022
The right of Joanna Petersfield to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
All of the events in this memoir are true to the best of author’s memory. The views expressed in this memoir are solely those of the author.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528994620 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528994637 (Hardback)
ISBN 9781528994644 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published 2022
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd ®
1 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5AA
Acknowledgement
I could not have written this book without the input of Dr Roberta Dewa, author and lecturer, who acted as my mentor under the auspices of the Nottingham Writers’ Studio. Robbie’s guidance, help and support were invaluable to me.
I should also like to extend my warmest thanks and appreciation to Jean Chapman and all my fellow members of Peatling Magna Writers for their constructive feedback. Jean’s contribution and support have been particularly valued and endlessly encouraging.
Author’s Note
This is a true story of my life, but I have fictionalised most details of people and places. I have taken particular care with my descriptions of fellow patients at “St Oswalds”, and those based on patients and clients I later treated during my professional career. Details, such as age, profession and even gender have been changed or completely invented by me. In writing about my professional career, I have described my work with patients. These vignettes of “patients”, based as they are on real professional experience, are in fact fictitious composite descriptions.
In describing my time at Cambridge, I have used the real name of my College, Girton, and I have also named the Mistress of Girton and my Director of Studies at that time. These people are, sadly, now deceased. I have referred, too, to His Majesty King Charles III, as I was at Cambridge when he was there as Prince of Wales. If you were to look in Girton’s records of its students, you would not find Joanna’s name there, for I have used a pen name.
Chapter 1

The Interview

November 1968
The butterflies in my stomach threatened to start turning somersaults as the train pulled slowly into the long platform of Cambridge station. It was my first sizeable solo trip away from home, and it was terribly important. I was going to Girton College, Cambridge, for an interview for a place at the university to read natural sciences. I had sat the entrance examinations a few months previously at the suggestion of my optimistic chemistry teacher, and, to my surprise, had been called to Girton for an interview. I clutched my little bright red suitcase, with my few overnight things and smart outfit for the interview. I would wear a mustard yellow mini skirt, my handknitted long, brown cardigan, with cable design that I had worked carefully over, and a jaunty little yellow scarf. Silk would have been desirable, but my budget ran only to nylon. Also in my little suitcase were my sixth-form laboratory books, as we had been asked to take examples of our schoolwork to the interview.
I was still far from Girton, as the railway station was at one distant end of the city, and Girton College was on the edge of Girton village, three miles out on the other side of town. I did not know then that Castle Hill, the one hill in Cambridge, lay on the road out to the village and was the curse of Girtonians, cycling home from lectures. Taxis were completely unfamiliar to me, so I sought out the local buses, first, into the city centre, passing the tall spire of the Roman Catholic church, a local landmark, on my way to Market Street. Then I took a second bus from the market square out to Girton village. When I applied to the College, I had no idea that it lay three miles from the city centre. Indeed, I had heard of none of the three women’s colleges, Girton, Newnham and New Hall. I simply picked mine because I liked the name! Nervously, I checked that I was getting on the right bus; it would be a disaster to take the wrong one and end up in some unknown part of Cambridge, with no idea of how to find my way to the college. The bus driver dropped me off at Girton Corner, the terminus of his route, and I was struggling to negotiate my suitcase through the little kissing gate at the boundary of the college grounds, when I met another young woman, who had just got off the same bus.
“Hello,” she greeted me with a warm smile. “I guess you’re here for the same reason as I am.”
“Yes” – I smiled back – “the terrifying interview.”
“I know, I’m dreading it!”
“Me too! Shall we go inside and pluck up our courage to face it?”
We walked, chatting, along the winding path towards the main entrance of Girton. The main door to the college, lay through a gateway beneath the tall tower of the imposing Victorian redbrick building. In spring, I supposed there would be flowers, but, in November, everywhere grass was bleak, and the earth of the path was hard with sharp, white frost. We were both glad that we had worn boots. It was a very cold day. We approached the austere buildings of the College.
Eileen, I learned, had come by train from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, too, though I did not know her, as she attended the Roman Catholic girls’ school. She, also, had applied for natural sciences. We guessed that they were seeing all of us on the same day. We were both glad to find ourselves safely at our alarming destination. Once inside the Porters’ Lodge, we heard the hubbub of nervously excited voices of other interview candidates and wondered whether all of these girls were our competitors. One young woman stood out. Elfin petite, with curly black hair and a dark complexion that testified to her Italian heritage, she was dressed immaculately in a camel suit that breathed expense and elegance. Her name was Magda, and, like Eileen and me, she was a potential Natural Scientist. She had come from Geneva. The Head Porter told us where our rooms were for that night, and Eileen and I agreed to meet up again soon, once we had unpacked our belongings.
I found my way to my room – or rooms. It was a rather imposing ‘set’ of rooms, as such pairs were known, and clearly, they did not belong to an undergraduate. I put down my little red suitcase in the sitting room. A cream half-moon rug edged the brick fireplace with its ancient gas fire, with cream firebrick panels. Some considerate soul had left a box of matches next to a tiny gas ring with an ancient aluminium kettle. I looked nervously at the long shelves of books over and around the fireplace – the owner was not a scientist, but a theologian. I felt distinctly intimidated. Would I have to read as much if I were lucky enough to get a place at Girton? Then my eye was drawn to a poem propped up against the mantelpiece. It was the long, witty, tale of a sleepless older woman, tossing and turning in her bed. She counted sheep; she thought of many things that she hoped would induce sleep, but without success. Then her mind turned to the Revd Dr James Pritchard’s interminably soporific lectures. Gradually, sleep began to overtake her.
At last, she thought as she drifted into sleep, thirty years later, I found some benefit from having taken the course.
Realising that the customary occupant of this room possessed a sense of humour, I felt a little reassured and unpacked my nightie, dressing gown and toilet bag. I had taken the precaution of packing a couple of s