Delirium (London Psychic) (26 page)
Read Delirium (London Psychic) Online
Authors: J.F. Penn
History of mental illness
The Tranquilizer chair used as a method of murder in the Prologue is a real device. The person's head was encased in the padded box to block out light and sound, the legs and arms were pinioned and then hot and cold water applied to the head and feet. The other treatments mentioned are also historically accurate, although the story is, of course, fictionalized.
Bedlam, as Bethlem Hospital was known, moved to different locations over time. It was once at the site of the Imperial War Museum as described and is now in Beckenham, South East London. I visited the museum at the current hospital, and it's a lovely, leafy campus with an art gallery as well as a cafe for visitors. The
Labyrinth
painting in the gallery scene is based on William Kurelek's
The Maze
, which I saw in the museum:
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/258605203576785283/
Three generations of the Monro family ran Bedlam, during which time it acquired its reputation as a kind of hell. For more, read
Undertaker of the Mind: John Monro and mad-doctoring in eighteenth-century England
, by Jonathan Andrews and Andrew Scull (2001). Bryan Crowther was a surgeon at Bedlam in the eighteenth century, rumored to have dissected the brains of dead inmates and to have donated their bodies to the resurrectionists, whose anatomy work I covered in
Desecration
.
I wanted to have a scene in Broadmoor because it's as well known in Britain as Bedlam once was. The men incarcerated there are extreme cases and in fact, very few people with mental health issues actually harm other people. They are far more likely to harm themselves, or commit suicide, than hurt others. You can learn more about Broadmoor through the NHS videos here:
http://www.wlmht.nhs.uk/bm/broadmoor-hospital/about-broadmoor-hospital-video/
Research into Advanced Intelligence Network (RAIN) is based on the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency (IARPA)
http://www.iarpa.gov/
This real American agency "invests in high-risk, high-payoff research programs that have the potential to provide the United States with an overwhelming intelligence advantage over future adversaries." I'm sure the British must have an equivalent!
Personal note
I have the utmost respect for people who are on the diagnosed spectrum of mental illness, and for those who care for them, and so this book is more about the exploitation that has dominated the history of psychiatry. Whenever we consider people to be 'the Other,' there will always be abuse.
I also believe there is a spectrum of madness in all of us, it's just a matter of degree. We all have moments of craziness, inspired by life situations or through the influence of drugs, illegal or prescribed. Like many of us, I have caught glimpses of what some would call mental illness in my own life. I share these thoughts honestly, as a mentally well person living happily in society. I hope to demonstrate that the continuum is a slide we all move up and down, and perhaps help you reflect on where you sit. Here are some of my experiences:
If I drive at night, I want to steer into oncoming headlights. I have an almost overwhelming attraction, perhaps a compulsion, to smash into them. I have to tighten my hands on the steering wheel to stop my desire to turn into the path of death. For this reason, I don't drive at night unless I really have to.
When my first husband left me, my anger and grief caused me to want to self-harm. I wanted to hurt myself so badly that he would be driven back to me out of guilt. (That was years ago and I am now happily married again!)
I sometimes feel untethered from the world, as if my physical body is nothing and I could just leave it behind. I have moments of detachment where I don't care for anyone. I feel like an alien put on this planet and nothing matters. I look around and it could all disappear and I wouldn't care.
When I write, I sometimes read my words later and I can't remember writing it. I didn't even know I thought those things and I don't know how they arrived on the page.
I have experienced religious conversion, spoken in tongues and I once believed the world to be teeming with angels and demons. Perhaps I still do.
All these moments have passed over me in waves. They are seconds in a life of nearly forty years as I write this, and
UK statistics show that one in four people will experience some kind of mental health problem in the space of a year
. I'm not on any medication and I don't think I'm 'crazy,' whatever that means. I move up and down the spectrum and I expect to continue doing so during my allotted span.
My biggest fear in terms of mental health is to become demented and for my brain to die before my body does. Fantasy author Terry Pratchett's descent into early-onset Alzheimer's started my investigation into the choice to die. It is a writer's responsibility to think about the hard issues and suicide is certainly a contentious one. I support the charity Dignity In Dying, campaigning to change the law to allow the choice of an assisted death for terminally ill, mentally competent adults, within upfront safeguards. You can read more about it here:
http://www.dignityindying.org.uk/
If you want to read more on the themes of this book
Bedlam: London and its mad
– Catharine Arnold
The Locked Ward: Memoirs of a psychiatric orderly
– Dennis O'Donnell
What is Madness?
– Darian Leader
Mad, Bad and Sad: A history of women and the mind doctors from 1800 to the present
– Lisa Appignanesi
Failed by the NHS
– BBC documentary with Jonny Benjamin
Touched with Fire: Manic-depressive illness and the artistic temperament – Kay Redfield Jamison
(Life:) Razorblades Included
– Dan Holloway
Poetry by Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton
Joanna Penn is the
New York Times
and
USA Today
bestselling author of thrillers on the edge. Joanna has a Master's degree in Theology from the University of Oxford, Mansfield College and a Graduate Diploma in Psychology from the University of Auckland, New Zealand.
She lives in London, England but spent eleven years in Australia and New Zealand. Joanna worked for thirteen years as an international business consultant within the IT industry, but is now a full-time author-entrepreneur. She is the author of the ARKANE series as well as other thrillers, crime and horror.
Joanna is a PADI Divemaster and enjoys traveling as often as possible. She is obsessed with religion and psychology and loves to read, drink Pinot Noir and soak up European culture through art, architecture and food.
You can sign up for Joanna's newsletter, with giveaways and the latest releases, here:
Connect with Joanna online:
(f)
http://www.facebook.com/JFPennAuthor
Joanna Penn also writes non-fiction. Available in print and ebook formats.
Career Change
: Stop hating your job, discover what you really want to do, and start doing it!
Public speaking for authors, creatives and other introverts
For writers:
Joanna's site
http://www.TheCreativePenn.com
helps people write, publish and market their books through articles, audio, video and online products as well as live workshops. Joanna is available internationally for speaking events aimed at writers, authors and entrepreneurs. Joanna also has a popular podcast for writers on iTunes,
The Creative Penn
.
For Jonathan, who accepts the crazy part of me. And for my readers, for whom I put these dark thoughts on the page.
Thanks to
Dan Holloway
, for writing so eloquently on aspects of mental illness, for answering my questions and for being a superb beta-reader and helping me improve the story. And to Garry Rodgers, ex-coroner, for checking my death scenes.
Thanks to
Jen Blood
, my editor, for her fantastic work in improving the text, and to
Wendy Janes
for excellent proof-reading.
Thanks, as always, to Derek Murphy from
Creativindie
for the fantastic book cover design.
