My name is David. Many will know me. I believe my story is a story of hope. I've always
considered myself to have a normal, fairly boring, straightforward background. I've
had straight interests and the like. When I was in the early late 20s of my life, I
was married and divorced, which probably started how things went. I never got married
to get divorced, and the divorce was very antagonistic, lasting three years. And I one
day found myself taken into a psychiatric unit. I went into the office, had a complete
mental breakdown, making funny noises, and it was a medical field that I was in. And
many of the people were hiding behind the desks, mercifully. One of the agency typists
was a mental health nurse, realising I was having a breakdown. And the short of it was
I was put into a hospital, highly sedated, and in three days woke up. And as I looked
at the ceiling, what seemed to be a very bad dream dawned me. The last three days had
been hell and back. My family eventually came up to see me. The police eventually found
them. Of course, I had vanished. They had feared the worst. And everybody was fairly
relieved to find that I was somewhat recovered. The hospital was in North London. I was sent
home. I lost my job. I lost my work. I lost my flat and I had to move. And the exhaustion
of moving some form five months later precipitated another breakdown. This time I was taken to
another hospital. I was caught just about to jump into the River Thames and swim to
south end. And some very generous and kindly security guards and police got me into another
London hospital just south of the river. And again, I had a different form of medication.
I was not so highly sedated, but the psychosis gently over a number of days relieved. I was
again sent home. Then later that year, curiously, I found myself in the September, October that
year having another big breakdown. I was taken to a third hospital. So there was a lack of
coordination. Again, sadly, my family were somewhat emotionally exhausted themselves
because they hadn't realized that when you get sectioned, you are sectioned by the police.
That is the way the mental health work. They always thought that I was guilty of some sort
of misdemeanor. And as I used to work for the police, I had been able to talk my way
out of prosecution. So I was a walking time bomb in that view. And the sooner I got locked
up and permanently the safer it was for me because they loved me and society who needed
protection. In this third hospital, I was put under the auspices of a senior psychiatrist.
Now forgive me if I cry here because it's still, although it's 20 years ago, still tough
because I was doing very well in business at that time. The world was my oyster. The
future lay ahead. It's just taken a different turn by a big detail. The consultant was an
alcoholic. He spent six months treating me for a cocaine addiction. I was not a cocaine
addict. I have a fairly straightforward lifestyle. I'm not big on drink by any stretch of the
imagination. I don't do drugs and I have a fairly simple lifestyle. For six months,
this guy was using me for lectures and demos for his students and then used me for a major
lecture on cocaine addiction, which ended in, shall we say, politely in disarray because
I got so distressed. They gave a big review and then they spent some months covering up
these guy's tracks and they genuinely spent many months trying to decide whether I was
a schizophrenic or manic depressive to cover up the original diagnosis. The differential
diagnosis for me is easy. The manic depressive has a credit card. It's a sort of joke, but
the differences of those two conditions is huge and how they could spend months trying
to decide which I was shows the perversity of the system. My thyroid condition at this
stage had been identified. Clear advice by the endocrine department was in my notes.
On the day that it was given, subsequent notes were to put me on lithium. Lithium is contraindicated.
Over the next couple of years, the lithium dose was increased, causing multiple breakdowns,
causing several admissions. I was taken off lithium to be put on tegratol. Tegratol is
again contraindicated with oral hormones. So if you're on the pill using tegratol,
you may have a problem. This was the regime for many years. In 94, 5 years later, I had
a long-standing history of psychosis, mental illness, lost my work, lost my careers. I
had been made homeless. Although my property portfolio, my business, was in modern-day
terms, probably one and a half million pounds, I was left with pennies. This is the cost,
this is the cost emotionally, financially, of what things go wrong. I then set about
looking at endocrinology, hormones, thyroid. Because I had a medical background, I then
threatened legal action on the hospital in no uncertain terms, and it wasn't actually
a bluff. I had saved up money for a solicitor. They sent me to a leading endocrinologist
at the aforesaid hospital. He was superb as a world leader in the field. Ultimately,
being on tegratol, I was put on four to five micrograms of thyroxine a day, which anybody
is in the business. Apparently, I was on the third biggest dose in the country. I became
normal. Yes, there was the legacy of the sickness and the mess-up and the psychological constant,
but I became normal. There was only one subsequent breakdown some years later due to a lot of
distress by a police prosecution, although false was successful because I was deemed
to be mentally ill. But I have recovered. Yes, I'm still off sick. I do have very poor
physical health, but I would make the observation that had I not had a medical background, I
would not be alive today. I've got no intention of proving it, but any woman will tell you
that doctors aren't always too good at hormones and the illness. The news is, ladies, that
as a man, you've got a double whammy. Yes, a thyroid problem. Curiously, in the last
couple of years, I have been able to create a little bit of funding. I've been taking
a number of trips to Russia to discover the consequences of Chernobyl. My illness in 1989
was probably caused by Chernobyl in 1986. The consequences of that pollution, which
is affected by a Swedish report that came out a few years ago, has affected some 30
million people across Northern Europe. I am just one of many. When you start translating
the costs of my loss, but the cost of my health to 30 million people across Northern
Europe, I believe a lot more needs to be looked at. As I said, I'm just an average guy. My
name is David, and I do believe that my story, when carefully told, will be a story of hope
for many. Thank you very much.
