Ad Gridley writes about his psychosis and his use of mental health services from the late nineties with warmth and humanity. I wanted to read this memoir because Ad spoke to my cohort of mental health nurses in our final year of study.
Gridley says plainly that some of the nurses he met saved his life, and he is equally clear about the difficulties he found in services. His account of in-patient wards is brutally honest. He identifies cannabis use, which began during a gap year in Canada, as a key factor in the development of his schizophrenia. He also recognises the indispensable role of antipsychotic medication in keeping his psychosis at bay and keeping him out of hospital. He survived a serious suicide attempt in which he injured himself jumping onto a railway line, and notes that a last-minute decision to fall feet first almost certainly saved his life.
The narrative runs from the gap year to his first hospitalisation. It gives the reader an uncomfortable insight into the terror of what he calls a “descent into madness”.
The book is written in many short sections with sub-headers. This breaks the story into themes and episodes and keeps the reader engaged. Some scenes, such as smoking rooms on wards, will be unfamiliar to a newly qualified nurse, but most of the central ideas remain as relevant as ever. It is hard to name a single message, because the memoir neither vilifies nor extols mental health services.
Gridley writes in the afterword:
For the mental health professional, the book builds empathy by showing the wards and the psychotic mind from the inside. I hope we can use that in helping our patients and service users climb and ultimately conquer their own personal mountains.
The Geographer by Ad Gridley is available from Amazon.
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