TeddyBear's Story - Part 1
This is the true story of my life, it will be painful for me to write and maybe difficult for some of you to read and I hope it will help somebody to an understanding of themselves.
It is dedicated to my first "life" partner who died in my arms at the age of twenty.
Hugs to all
Looking back over the sixty years of my life I have realized that despite the pain and the terrible thing that have happened I would not change anything even if I could, as they have made me the person I am today.
I was born in the Midlands in the UK in 1941 during the war I had two elder brothers I found out just a few months ago that I was very much unplanned, but my parents loved my and only want the best for me, at the age of 10 in my junior school I found that I liked to look at the boys! And at night in bed I would get a hard on and play with myself thinking about boys it felt good to me but knew that I was supposed to like girls, what was wrong with me? So I just looked and wondered.
I was lucky and passed my 11 Plus exam and was to find myself going to a grammar school, this was an old bomb damaged building it had wooden supports in some classrooms and wooden buttresses outside in some places, outside toilets Ugh! Bad heating, Leaking roof what a dump! But it did have a good science lab!
During the first year I fell in love with a guy in one of my classes he was so good looking, I was a skinny bean pole much to tall for my age and not much into sport but had to play rugby football and ended up as a prop or lock in a scrum the love of my life (he did not know it!) often played as a hooker so we would have to get together in the scrum this was torture for me but I did not know what I could do about it, but at least I got to have him put his are around me and as lock got to hug a few nice backsides.
We soon learnt that our crumbling wreck of a grammar school was to be pulled down and that a new "comprehensive" school was being build and we were to form the basis of this "new" type of school, it was to have everything workshops lots of science, art, great playing fields everything you could want and supposedly you could opt in and out of some subject. Mmmm no comment! That never happened
The first day we moved into the school…. What can I say…. A huge very muddy building site! A couple of house blocks, sort of finished and not much else. It was horrible. Designed by and idiot I think, as it was so badly laid out built with cheap materials and we still had leaking roofs! (Made of compressed straw board!).
Within a few weeks we had an intake of new kids. This was to be a very difficult period in my life, one of the new guys and I started to hang about together both in school and out (I was 13 and so was he) our hormones were raging and we of course would talk about sex … and one thing lead to another and we started to "muck about" grin.
We both could not get enough of one another in school and out nothing heavy
But we did work out what a blowjob was and very much enjoyed that one day after school choir practice I went into the toilet block for a leak and my mate came in and dragged me into a cubicle he wanted to have a jerk of session fine by me!
We had just both reached our climax when there was a knock on the door.
Yes we had been caught in the act. And dragged of to the housemaster, parents were called. My mate was transferred to another school and I was sent to see a shrink, not good, I got very upset and very depressed about all of this but some how kept going.
A couple of months later I got involved with a guy a year older than me and this time we went a little further with our activities to me it all felt very normal I just loved guys! The way they looked and the way they felt.
My sessions with the shrink turned into a nightmare as I was being asked questions I did not and would not answer about my sexuality how could I say anything without dropping my mates and I into deep trouble, as at that time ANY homosexual activity was totally illegal! Regardless of age, and the punishments very severe.
I was so stressed out I started to skip classes and spend time in the city library I did try to find out as much as I could about my "affliction" and do a lot of walking I just could not think what to do for the best my parent did not know what to do and I could not talk to them about how I felt, I was told that I was perverted and nasty I did not have very good opinion of myself but my raging hormones would not leave me alone.
Then the fatal day I had skipped a class and when I got home I found my shrink sitting in the lounge with my parents … OH S**T … I was subject to a barrage of questions and just broke down in tears I could not tell anybody how I was feeling I just wanted everybody to go away, but this was not going to happen after an hour I was given my tea and sent to bed I don’t think I slept at all I was petrified of what was to happen and I found out next day.
My father informed me that I was going into Hospital for some help, which was a huge understatement! I was to be sent as a "voluntary patient" to a mental hospital so that I could be "cured" of my sickness, by this time I was a complete wreck I did not have any control of what was happening to me the Shrink turned up and gave me pills that zonked me out and my father drove me to the hospital I did not think things could get any worse.. Wrong! It turned out that the "Voluntary patient unit" was a Spartan huge mausoleum of a place in the grounds of one of the most notorious mental hospitals in the world Central Hospital Hatton near Warwick built in the 1800’s with many terrible locked wards padded rooms and a staff who seemed to enjoy inflicting pain and discomfort.
After a few days of "evaluation" it was decided that I, besides having zonko medicine to keep me quite should have "modified Insulin therapy" (REF-2) sounds not unpleasant, Mmm well if you consider
- I did not want to be there
- Did not agree to any treatment
- Did not think that I was ill
Then being woken at 5am and given an injection of Insulin that caused you to have a high temperature, sweat like being in a shower, and feel sick and just had to lay on a mattress on the floor because you might fall out of bed for 3 hours then drink a pint of sugar solution like clear treacle for 5 days at a time and had to watch out in the afternoon that you did not collapse in a coma! You could not go outside the building without being accompanied by a nurse (jailer!) and that some of the patients in the unit were Very odd indeed. Sex offenders, (some who thought I was lovely but were to Zonked out to try anything) Alcoholics, Schizophrenics, depression, attempted suicides, you name it we had it!
After nearly 2 months of this crap I was beginning to realize that the only way out was to tell my Shrink what he wanted to hear to start to deny who I was to try to convince him I was turning straight but before that happened worse things were to occur, he had decided that we would get faster and better results with "Deep Insulin Therapy" this is much worse and almost as bad as ECT Electro Convulsive Therapy (Ref-3) which I was told would be the last resort, this was done twice a week to about 30 patients and we all had to endure part of the process this simple but very nasty treatment is totally barbaric the patient on the day of treatment has nothing to eat or drink and is given a pill to dry up there mouth at treatment time they are taken to the treatment room and lay down on a table and are given an injection of a relaxant so that you don’t break any bones and a simple thing that looks like a crud set of headphones is placed on there temples with a little jelly on there skin this is plugged into a box with a couple of controls and a push button after a few minuets the doctor adjusts the knobs and pushes the button and delivers a charge of electricity direct to the temples this huge charge completely screws up the brain.
The patient cannot scream because of a rubber gag in his mouth and thrashes about on the table in convulsions he cannot breath and every muscle in his body goes through agony,
As the convulsion dies down they administer oxygen after a period of about ten minuets the patient starts to relax and breath normally but his brain is temporally wiped blank he cannot speak, think, walk or do anything for himself and it takes hours before he can even remember his name, lovely treatment??
I regard this and "insulin therapy" as physical and mental assault as they both mentally rape you! Even today these treatments are used on mentally ill people in the western world and the Doctors still don’t know what they do (apart from frying part of the brain!)
The DIT is done upstairs in another closed locked unit only 12 beds… oh joy … here I am 14 going on 15 locked in a word with 12 guys from 20 to 55 not knowing what to expect the first treatment morning we are woken at 5.30am the beds are very uncomfortable as the thin sheet on the bottom has a thick rubber sheet under it we have to sleep in gowns you know the horrible backless things they use in hospital and no underwear Ugh!
One of the nurses comes around with a trolley with a pile of hypodermic’s and a couple a big bottles of Insulin he draws my dose (it looks huge!) and I roll over on my side a cold swab wipes over my buttock and the BLUNT needle is forced into the muscle and the insulin injected not only painful because of the condition of the well used needle but insulin feels hot as it rips between the fibers in the muscle, (some days I am lucky and get a nice sharp needle and "Sylvester" an Irish male nurse who’s technique is very different he swabs and slaps your butt with the back of his hand and as you relax he uses the syringe like a dart and does it very quickly) I am lying there very frightened and nobody cares… I know that I must try to sleep so I don’t feel the horrible feelings as the Insulin starts to take effect, I feel sick, I cannot get to sleep, I am getting hot sweating my gown is soaked my limbs feel like lead, I have a headache and its getting much worse I must have passed out at that point (about 7:15am I think) next thing I remember is flickering in to existence with a rubber tube up my nose with a glass funnel at the end and my nurse just finishing pouring 1 pint of sugar into my stomach I have bruises on my wrists, they tied me into bed, I have peed myself I feel cold and confused I have to get up all wobbly and my bed is changed and my gown and I get to lie down for about an hour at 11am we are served a rotten breakfast that was cooked at 7 am and kept warm for us till 11am, we have to drink more sugar with a little sour Lemon in it.
Oh joy after dressing we can do anything we like … Mmm cant go out, no TV at all, rotten radio that buzzes and crackles
(The buildings had mostly 220volts DC generated on site with a steam engines! This was still in use in 1983 as a back up when I went to repair an Electronic Organ there. Told you it was bad, the only A/C socket was for the ECT machine!)
At about 1 pm we get lunch, bad again but we have to eat as if you don’t eat and drink lots of sugar you will pass out about 2 pm! The insulin has a backlash. A short walk at about 3:30 pm to the main building Oh horror again odd unfortunate people with very severe mental impairment everywhere some scream, some incontinent some grab at you pass… I wonder what I did to deserve all this … I have a shilling so I buy some sweets, luxury and then back to the ward maybe I will get a visitor.
Even that’s bad as its all in a big empty dusty drafty hall with small wobbly tables and hard wobbly chairs and my mother turns up what can I say… she wants to know how I feel, well after this lot how would you! I cannot say much I cannot tell her I feel better cos I am being abuse and raped right down to my soul having my brain ripped out I just have to screw the lid down even tighter and tell her fine.
This goes on week after week some mornings I am so far out that the liquid sugar thru the tube won’t work to bring me out of the coma I am in and then I wake up with a huge syringe with large bore needle in my arm taped down and with a large rubber band pushing the thick solution into my bloodstream I still have few scars from this.
I see the shrink about twice a week and start to see which way he wants to go so I have to lie convincingly, "no I think I was very wrong Dr", "I don’t know why I liked to play with boys Dr", "yes I understand that I must not ever do anything like it again", no Dr I did not get any pleasure form it" on and on for weeks. The bloody silly Rorschach blot tests "what does this look like to you" to me it looks like something funny and rude but I must look closely at it and find an innocent version that I can describe to him, (Ref-1) I just hope he does not decide to use Sodium Pentothal on me (known as "the truth drug") as under its influence I know I could not maintain my story and I want out I want to stop this nightmare that goes on for weeks, after fourteen weeks I am told that I am cured!
And can go home, well I wanted out of Hatton fast but don’t want to be at home that’s for sure, as I feel that my parents have contributed to my pain and suffering
At home I am supposed to take X pills a day they make me feel like a vegetable, cant even think about sex! Mm well very soon they are being consigned to the toilet! And after about 14 days the drug haze of the last months starts to lift
I have lost weight and look even more like a beanpole I now have terrible dreams at night
I don’t know why, but I feel as though I have been robbed of a very important part of me but don’t quite know for sure just what it is, I am lucky I think as I can still look at a guy and think him nice! So it would seems that the cure had failed, thank god for that!
After a couple of terrible months back at school with all the whispering behind my back
"He’s mad you know, watch out for him he’s a Homo" I still felt like a outcast no friends I came to the conclusion that the only thing I could do was to do a runner leave my home my school, the town that I grew up in my parent my brothers and try to live on my own, and try to find out who the real me was.
I was lucky in that I had been interested in electronics since I was about 9 and as my father worked for a large electronics company had found myself a part time job with a small radio/TV dealer in the workshop (the boss had worked with my dad) and I found I was good! It was all very simple to me, not for me the paper round! I think this helped kept me together as I was treated well here no different from the apprentice "Brian" who’s college homework I some times did for him, I had some skills that might keep me in money, I managed to get hold of my saving book and got what cash I had together and what few things I could take and one morning left the house for school on my bike and never returned I cycled 20 miles to Birmingham and lost myself in the city.
Here I am not yet 16, no friends, little money and very frightened in a city I do not know,
Worrying that the police will be looking for me.
I will tell about this in the next part and yes it does get worse before it gets better.
Hugs to anybody reading this I hope it has not frightened you but I have to tell this the way it was.
If you want to know more about these so called therapies please look at the following:
Ref-1 Rorschach tests
http://skepdic.com/inkblot.html
http://www.rorschach.com/test.html
http://www.phil.gu.se/fu/ro.html
Ref-2 Insulin Therapy
http://www.priory.com/homol/insulin.htm
Ref-3 Electro convulsive therapy
http://www.epub.org.br/cm/n04/historia/shock_i.htm good info here
http://text.nlm.nih.gov/nih/cdc/www/51txt.html
As you will see from modern information as a "Cure" for Homosexuality NONE of these is indicated even the basic psychological tests are of no use, so was this Abuse and the Rape of my mind?? I leave that for you to judge.
