Thirty four years ago I first went to a psychiatrist as a young adult of eighteen. They gave me the label of, ‘Borderline Personality Disorder.’

Last year, 2004, I received my medical notes under the Freedom of Information Act. (Republic of Ireland). This made hugely illuminating reading. In these notes, right up until I left the Mental Health system (officially in 2004, but unofficially, four years prior to this), they have written, repeatedly, that I had a retarded personality and an inadequate personality. They stated that I had no insight into my condition and they, periodically, labelled me as having an ‘hysterical personality disorder,’ so the label changed from time to time, as if they really were very undecided as to which category to slot me into.

Absent from the notes was any mention of family of origin, which was the very reason I presented at the services in the first place. More of this later. Of the sexual abuse I suffered at the hands of a brother, ten years my senior, they stated, “She says she was sexually abused as a child.” This gives me no reason to believe, now, that they ever took this seriously. Also absent from the file was the fact that I was an identical twin and severely deaf, (as was my twin). These two factors being crucial to the dilemma I found myself in at eighteen.

Their course of action, from the onset, was to medicate this ‘personality disorder,’ and I was loaded down with minor tranquillizers, major tranquillizers, (anti-psychotics, although I was never psychotic in all the years I attended the psychiatric services). I was also prescribed many, many different anti-depressants, each one being as unsuccessful as the previous one. I was hounded, daily, for four months whilst an inpatient) to agree to ECT, which, of course, I repeatedly refused.

During all the years I was attending the Mental Health Services, I was self-mutilating, practically on a daily basis. If I slashed myself up with blades and had to go to A & E, they treated me contemptuously, sometimes stitching my wounds without any anaesthetics and on other occasions not stitching me at all and those wounds left horrific scars.

I was deemed an ‘attention seeker’ and the self-injuring was an indicator of this, in their eyes. I considered, over the years, that the tools I used during self injury were indeed my ‘best friends.’ Admittedly, self-mutilation is a maladaptive coping strategy but a coping strategy none the less.

When the mental and emotional pain became unbearable and intolerable, when I thought my whole mind would explode, I resorted to slashing or burning. This formed a sort of ‘release’ mechanism. The tension in my head would ease and the pain converted into physical pain, which was infinitely easier to deal with. Then followed a period of self-care, which I knew well how to do in these cases. It provided me with a reason for self-nurturing and gave me space and allowed me to be kind to myself when others were not and I, certainly was most unkind to myself before and after the period of initial self nurturing.

Then it would all build up again and the need to cut again, to cut out the pain, always returned. It was a continuous cycle.

For 28 years the self -injury was a mystery to me. I never analysed it, but I knew I had to do it. In the absence of experts who could help me choose a better coping strategy, I self-injured and was wrongly labelled an ‘attention seeker.’

Self-injury is neither attention seeking nor an attempted suicide, possibly the exact opposite. It enabled me to continue on in life and I was a fighter.

The psychiatrist did not speak to me of the self-injury, never referred to it as if, by ignoring it, I would see that my attention seeking was in vain. So I burnt or slashed away for 28 years. Coming up to my 50th birthday, the self injury took on alarming proportions and appalled at the prospect of ending up a geriatric self-injurer, going down to A & E on my zimmer frame, I took action and sought out a psychotherapist. I sold a very valuable heirloom for EUR7,000 which paid for therapy. Within six months I ceased all self-injury and never resumed it, for at last I found a woman who truly understood the nature and origins of such a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder, (BPD).

Judith Herman, in her book, “Trauma and Recovery,” states that the label of BPD is pejorative and nothing more than a sophisticated insult. She also states, I quote, “As one psychiatrist candidly confesses, “As a resident, I recalled asking my supervisor how to treat patients with BPD, and he answered, sardonically, “You refer them.” The psychiatrist Irvin Yalom describes the term “borderline,” as “the word that strikes terror into the heart of the middle aged, comfort seeking psychiatrist.” Unquote. She also states that some clinicians have argued that the term “Borderline” has become so prejudicial that it should be abandoned altogether.

A new label now slowly coming to the fore and favoured as an alternative is “Complex’ Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.” This is a term I prefer and is more correct, but how soon will this too, become a label heavily loaded and prejudicial as BPD has become? How soon will people with this label become the hated sector among service users.

When I was 50 and getting nowhere fast, I became extremely ill physically. I had been diagnosed as having Crohn’s Disease some years previously and I now was facing into major surgery. I underwent surgery but there were complications and all did not go to plan, but I recovered only to be told nine weeks later that the Crohn’s had returned. This was my wake-up call.

I desperately wanted a life. I wanted a way out of the constant terror, fears, depression and hopelessness and most importantly, a way out of self-injury, so I chose, carefully, a psychotherapist.

Here I began a whole new awakening, a journey of true self discovery and a real understanding as to why I behaved like I did, why I perceived the world and my peers as dangerous and why I perceived myself as worthless, stupid, of no consequence, totally irrelevant in the scheme of things and learnt that the basis of my dilemma and turmoil stemmed from childhood trauma and abuse, not helped by the fact that I was severely deaf and an identical twin.

As recently as 2003, a psychiatrist said he could not help me and that I was ‘stuck with it,’ but I had begun a re-education and had learnt this was totally untrue.

Under a psychotherapist I gained insight and an understanding. I became empowered with huge personal mental strength, which enabled me to challenge the psychiatrists’ findings that I had a retarded and inadequate personality. I now believe what they saw was a broken, beaten down, disempowered personality from years of living in a dysfunctional family of origin which was tyrannical and littered with bullies and people who had a distorted view of the world, very suspect sexual ideas and where I was literally, emotionally and psychologically tortured daily.

I was also perceived to be dim-witted and stupid as I was performing very badly in mainstream education but here I did not have the use of hearing aids, only getting them in my mid 20’s when I fought to do something about my deafness.

I saw my siblings shine academically, and yet I could not read until I was about 11 years old and then, badly and insufficiently to undertake the many educational tasks within a school programme.

As a member of this family, my twin and I were not allowed venture far from the family home and when we did at the age of 14, we came to traffic lights and we were confused, not knowing how to negotiate them. We nearly got killed. Green, amber and red were colours we recognised, but in the setting of traffic lights, we did not know their meaning.

So the psychiatric services did not take this family of origin into consideration when diagnosing me as having a retarded personality.

I believe in cause and effect and I believe I know why I presented with certain traits in my personality and maladaptive coping behaviours and the root causes for any dis-order was based in a distorted learning process, coupled with disability and imprisonment, sexual abuse and distorted sexual teaching within the family of origin.

The psychiatric services pronounced me the ‘sick’ one, the retard, they dampened my emotions with heavy medication, offered no re-education or hope and for 28 years they kept me ‘sick,’ maintained me as a victim. Indeed, I was so taken in by my label and my defects, that I lived it for 28 years, all the while, believing as they told me “you are stuck with it and will have to live with it for the rest of your life.”

How wrong they were. I gained a new life under psychotherapy. I challenged the label using my skills as an artist when I received an Arts Council Bursary. I worked for a year on a visual arts project to ‘visualise and express what it means to be labelled as someone with BPD.’ Here I challenged psychiatrists on the nature of trauma and abuse. (This series of paintings went on show recently, at a mainstream gallery). When the project was over, I asked for a meeting with the Director of the psychiatric services I was attending. Here I pointed out where they went so very wrong and finally I received an apology from her, where she agreed the services had not served me well and agreed they were an inappropriate agency to deal with the problems I presented with all those years ago. She apologised for not delivering adequate help and admitted the failures of the psychiatric system.

So, today, I am living a life that is satisfying and understandable. I have renewed vigour and determination and am fighting to find a place in society. It may have come late but no one can take away the sense of empowerment I now feel and the strength I possess to move forward.

It is my belief that no one is a retard, even those who are unfortunate enough to have physical brain damage. They, too, possess gifts and strengths, if only people were open and accepting of every person and open to the huge potential of a human being, no matter what their starting point. The world would be a better place if there was compassion and a willingness to understand. I, now, have true compassion for the person I am and was. I treat her tenderly and I have huge understanding, an insight into the damaged person I was, from a childhood of tyranny and abuse.

I will not allow myself to continue to be the victim and I reclaim myself as the survivor and also, most importantly, a survivor of a psychiatric system which failed me so utterly.

Under Irish law, my medical notes can be held for 20 years. This means I will be 72 before they are shredded. In the meantime, under Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act, I am fighting to have certain notes amended by deletion and I will fight until I win through.

Also, I have written a submission to the Expert Group on Mental Health Policy, who are presently drafting new policies for progress. I ask for a recognition of the true causes of personality disorder and an adequate process where dis-order, when presented, can be addressed through re-education and by the appropriate agencies. I have stressed that psychiatry is not a suitable agency and request the recognition of psychotherapy and ask for funding be made available for the most vulnerable and damaged members of society.

Referring back to an earlier paragraph where I state that no mention was made in my medical files of my very successful artistic path and the inference that I had a ‘retarded’ personality, I would like to expand on here, the positive in my life that ran alongside the chaos, despair and confusion and how my skills as an Artist and a Writer of published Children’s books must debunk the theory that I was someone so inadequate that I could not function out in the world. For in my striving for artistic and literary excellence, I see a personality that was not completely fractured or inept, it was not completely crushed.

I studied Design and Communications at Art College. Indeed, after four years study I was the only student in my year to come out with a distinction. During this time I was heavily medicated and lived in terror but so determined was I to learn my craft, I engaged, effectively, with my various tutors and had a sharp, inquiring mind, not afraid to question, in pursuit of knowledge.

Soon after, my first children’s book was published, which I wrote and illustrated. This and a subsequent book won Irish Book Design awards. I went on to write and illustrate and publish four more. I also illustrated five more children’s books written by other authors.

I gained scholarship work at the National Gallery of Ireland, where I worked under the watchful eye of a conservator. Along with other scholarship students I helped restore a copy of a Raphael Cartoon, presented to the Gallery by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Here, amidst my personal and emotional distress, I worked with high proficiency. The conservator recommended that I study Restoration in Florence but we both realised that being severely deaf I would have difficulty mastering the Italian language, through which all study would be conducted.

I worked for one and a half years on the making of the animated film ‘Watership Down’ in 1976, in London. I was the most skilled employer in my department and though my behaviour was chaotic and I landed in hospital over and over, the film’s producer held me in such high regard that he always took me back, stating, “We can’t do without you.”

I pursued a freelance career in Design and Illustration, mainly working on Greeting Card Illustration. My work being bought by many companies in all three markets, wholesale, retail and corporate, both in Ireland and England. Indeed I furnished my whole apartment from the proceeds of my earnings having been housed by the Council with not even one chair to sit on. (At the time, I was at an all time low).

I worked, periodically, in the animated film industry. I successfully secured a place in a top college specialising in Film Animation, in England, but at the time I was not confident enough to take up the offer.

In 1997 I took up Oil Painting and joined a studio of other working artists. I have had three, 2 man Exhibitions and most recently my first Solo Exhibition. These exhibitions were highly successful and money from sales at my recent solo will go towards editorial assistance on a memoir I am presently writing

And somewhere in time I won a writing competition on prime time radio and it was read on air.

Now, considering all I have said about the extreme turmoil I was constantly in, can one say that my personality was retarded when I had the wit, the fight, the ability to engage with others in business transactions and had the talent and skill to reach a high level of expertise in all aspects of the Visual Arts Field, applied Arts, and Film?

My ability to overcome my intense distrust of the world and people saw me fight for a solid artistic career path and I never wavered in my fight to be counted one of the best, to be chosen over others in a career that is highly competitive and sometime downright vicious.

I believe you cannot label me as having a retarded or inadequate personality when all along I had such a strong single- minded drive to succeed against all the odds.

A question to be considered – How far could I have gone in my chosen career, if I had received adequate and successful help with my legacy of childhood trauma and sexual abuse, earlier? If distress issues were grasped by the right agency from the onset, would I have found a more equal, normal social slot in society? If I had not presented to the Mental Health System and been treated by the appropriate agency for my distress at the onset, could I have become empowered and strong in my early adulthood and so fulfilling my wishes of becoming a mother and having successful relationships and being at one with the world?

These are all hypothetical questions, but I believe by staying in the Mental Health System, I was denied any hope to succeed on a human level, to be treated equally. Instead, I was so disempowered, that a label slapped on me became my very identity and so I travelled a lonely, solitary path, at odds with my fellow human travellers throughout my adult life.

I have come far in a relatively short space of time, the road is not an easy one for I admit, given my personality and background, I have limitations. But I am willing to accept these and work on aspects of the self I can work on. My life’s aim is to continue the process of education and learning, learning to understand what it is to be human, what it takes to be a friend and have friends.

Certain things are outside my remit, such as, gaining a sexual identity, but this I do not mind for to have friends and be a friend is a new and joyful experience.

Also, depression and uncertainty have to be taken as a given. It is part of my heritage and I accept them but these act as a catalyst to spur me on in my pursuit of happiness, fulfilment and clarity.

They pronounce me as being fully human.

Email address: annken@gofree.indigo.ie

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