‘Sandra’

A few years ago I worked as a community mental health worker in a local authority resource centre providing residential rehabilitation, short breaks, day services, supported living, outreach and support with medication and managing finances (under appointeeship and deputyship arrangements) for people who were said to have ‘severe and enduring mental health issues’. The service had evolved and grown since opening in the 1970s, becoming a real community hub for a great many people. Being all things to all people, the service made itself indispensable in the lives of the people it supported. I used to think that was a problem because it held people back from becoming more independent. The truth was that the service wasn’t indispensable in the eyes of the local authority, which, feeling the pinch of austerity, decided to close and sell off the building (a beautiful, if somewhat in need of repair, Georgian town house of the sort wealthy urban industrialists used to live in) pair down the service and merge it with another on the other side of the city. I had left by then to embark on my social work qualification journey so cannot speak directly to the personal cost to those the service supported except to say that I imagine it was a tremendous loss to a great many people who used the service, some of them several times a day. It was their place. They lived and stayed there. They got their meds there. They collected their money there. They were supported by each other and the staff there. They spent time with their friends there. It was a safe space for so many. It was a port in a storm. There was a lot that wasn’t right with the service and the support we provided, for sure, but only latterly have I begun to really appreciate that it provided a sense of real community. Nowadays, rather than unthinkingly beating the ‘independence’ drum, I am more inclined to ask: So what if people are dependent on such support? Often, we only miss the things we and others really need when they’re gone. But that’s another blog.

The point is this is where I met Sandra (not her real name). Sandra had been supported by the service for a long time. She had lived there on discharge from hospital and had moved on to the supported living service down the road. She came in once a day for her money and twice a day for her medication. She was most often cheerful and always good natured. A pleasure to spend time with and listen to.

Sandra had a ‘pervasive delusional belief system’. She believed she’d had a baby with a famous person and it had been taken away from her. She sometimes carried a doll, proudly showing it to others, presenting it as a doll, not a real baby. It appeared to give her comfort. She always seemed happier with it. This was frowned on by professionals, who saw it as a signifier of her mental health ‘dipping’. What was known to be true was the sexual and physical abuse she had suffered in her early life. She would make passing reference sometimes, then cheerily move on to other topics.

Sandra also said she was in correspondence with a famous Scottish author who regularly wrote to her and sent her money for allowing him to use her story in a novel he had written. I happened to know this author’s work well, and had read the book. In fact he was a favourite author of mine. I had a signed copy of another of his books. When Sandra showed me the book one day, when I was behind the desk in ‘the bank’ (the place in the building people came for their money and/or medication) I told her I knew it and her eyes lit up. No-one else had ever heard of it. I told her I thought it very good, excellent in fact. She’d bring it in often, when I was on the bank, and we’d have the same conversation each time. She would say, ‘It’s about me you know, Christian’, and I’d say, ‘I didn’t know that, but what an interesting story.’

‘It is, isn’t it? Eeh, I’ve had a terrible life, you know. I was raped.’

‘I’d heard that, Sandra. I’m sorry that happened to you.’

‘Aye, it was terrible. I never want to go through that again. I just want to marry a lovely man. Maybe I’ll meet one in town today, if I’m lucky. Eeh, well. You can’t have everything, eh?’ At this point, Sandra would move on to other, everyday topics, like asking what I was having for my tea, asking about my partner and family and what kind of car I drove. She was adept at cheerful small talk, was Sandra. A pleasure to be around.

Anyway, at our twice daily handovers, mention was often made of Sandra saying she’d had another letter from the writer. Eyes would roll. Why would he write to her? Tish! Is she carrying that doll? If this goes on, I’ll have to ring the consultant…

Sandra was seen by some in the team as a bit of an inconvenience. She wanted to speak to them about things they had no interest in. Would phone up and ask for additional money to buy things from charity shops that we deemed to have little value. She needed protecting from her own bad decisions. She was mad, basically, and needed us to keep her right. And she said things that weren’t true. A baby by such and such? Tosh! I mean, who does she think she is?

We used to visit people in their flats in the supported living service to support them with their housework. I was at Sandra’s one morning when she said, ‘I got another letter, Christian. Fifty quid this time! Look!’ She showed me the letter. It was a postcard with a cat or some other animal on it, a chocolate box style painting. On the back it read:

Dear Sandra

Lovely to hear from you again. I hope you’re keeping well.

Best wishes,

[signed name]

I looked at the signature. It was the identical to the one in the signed book I had at home.

I don’t know where Sandra is now, or how she fared when the service closed. I hope, wherever she is, she is being believed.