I was admitted as an in-patient to St. David’s Hospital near Carmarthen in May 1983 because I was hearing vicious and abusive voices. I lived with my parents on a farm in Robeston West near Milford Haven, about 35 miles from St. David’s Hospital. I needed help.
Initially in the hospital I slept in a private room on an all-male ward. The name of the ward was Cothi Ward. I was very frightened and did not speak to barely anybody in the first two weeks of my three-month stay. I received heavy and overwhelming psychiatric medication that made me very tired and overweight. My parents used to visit me from time to time in hospital. They sometimes would take me out during my three=month stay to such places as Castell Carreg Cennyn, Pontargothi for a meal and to The Forge Restaurant near St. Clears. I was a disgrace to my family, friends and colleagues – unemployed, friendless, loveless and frightened.
Eventually, after two weeks in hospital I was placed in the main part of the all-male ward. I made friends with three fellow-patients. Together we would walk the grounds of the hospital. Once I went for a pint of beer with a member of staff to The Friends Arms pub near the hospital in Johnstown.
One Friday night I went home and on the Saturday afternoon at St. Brides near Dale I went into physical painful spasms first down my left-hand side and then down the right-hand side of my body. I thought that I was dying. The spasms were the results of the psychiatric medication that I was being given. I was driven back by my parents to St. David’s Hospital near Carmarthen.
The grounds of the hospital were large, green, open-spaced and pleasant. A church stood on the site of the hospital.
The happiest memories of St. David’s Hospital included walking with three fellow-patients in the grounds of the hospital, talking faith on a bench overlooking a valley with the chaplain of the hospital. I think that his name was the Reverend Glyndwr Walker of St. Clears. He was an excellent and kind person. One turning point for me was being with my parents at The Forge Restaurant near St. Clears where we were having an evening meal. I saw a member of the ancillary staff of the hospital having a meal with her family. She used to serve meals to patients at the hospital. In The Forge Restaurant she nodded at me. I was so happy that she nodded at me because I felt at the time that no-one would want to know me again.
Dr. Fernando was my consultant psychiatrist at St. David’s Hospital. He was a good psychiatrist of his type. He told my mother that I had “a bio-chemical imbalance of the brain”. He also told my mother that I had “schizophrenia” and that a cure for “schizophrenia” would be found within seven years. He did not inform me of these things. HE later immigrated to New Zealand and offered to keep in contact with me. I said “No”. I do not know why I said “No.”
A few months after I left St. David’s, my mother gave me a book to read about “schizophrenia”. I did not read the book because I did not believe that I had “schizophrenia”. I was later admitted as an in=patient for three months to a psychiatric unit of a general hospital in North Devon in late 1985 and early 1986.
My memories of St. David’s Hospital are mixed. The physical side effects of the psychiatric medication that I received were atrocious. I was fortunate not to receive electro convulsive therapy (ECT). I made friends among some of the fellow- patients. The staff was generally kind and attentive. My parents used to visit me from time to time in hospital. The open spaces of the hospital were pleasant and green.
However the hospital was a well intentioned resource of its time. Now in the early twenty-first century more is known about mental health and society. There is a link between trauma and psychosis.