Peter Chadwick Ch5 'Schizophrenia'
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In Chapter 5 of 'Schizophrenia: The Positive Perspective', Peter Chadwick reflects on his tumultuous life, including his struggles with identity and mental health. He experienced significant isolation and trauma due to his upbringing and societal attitudes, leading to a suicide attempt in 1979 that he believed was influenced by delusional thoughts. The chapter explores themes of shame, personal struggle, and the intersection of madness and self-discovery.
Peter Chadwick Ch5 'Schizophrenia'
- 1. Peter Chadwick: ‘Schizophrenia: The Positive Perspective’ Chapter 5: ‘Getting in to psychosis’ Peter led a nomadic life and had affairs with women and men (for a short period). People who lived as Peter did were often not psychologists, but were writers. He had a hard upbringing from his mother, who told him life was hard and no-one will help you. He was aware of popular attitudes against ‘queers’. He was apolitical like Kandinsky. The ways open to him were the Army, fit for brewery, building site, pubs, football terraces. His mother was a hater of Chadwicks and the family she had to bring up. The mantra was ‘do these ideas make money?’ So, if everyone else’s bonds are strong with each other, it follows that bonds with you will be weak and you will be isolated. ***(This is a social construct). Peter was looking for himself via psychosis, but madness can kill you, it almost killed Peter. His rating for the impact of his psychotic beliefs was low, however he threw himself under a bus in the Kings Road, Fulham in 1979. This was a price for a decadent life of sex and success at school – win, win, had to be paid for. His mother called him a Chadwick Rotter, a rat, hence he grew up knowing he could do well, but underneath was the feeling of being rotten. His mother said she tried to knock weakness out of him. In her age, asylums meant ‘mental’ and were to be feared. When he was under the bus with blood coming from his damaged hand, he thought of his mother saying ‘job done’. She had to get married to his father in 1918, this was deep shame. He was bullied at one time at school (1963-64) because he had a ‘queer’ haircut and because he did so well at exams – big head and a poof. Later he wondered if he could go schizophrenic, but concluded his mind was too strong for that. In 1974 he was outed as a transvestite and this reinforced his feelings of low self-worth. In 1979 he wrote to teaching colleagues about
- 2. being persecuted in the West Country, and soon heard echoes of these letters on the radio from DJ’s. He assumed the letters had been passed on to the media. He was a ‘known pervert’ to be ridiculed and shunned. He felt it was a reflection of his decadence and that people could have sympathised with his position. His suicide attempt was the result of confirmatory bias from things overheard, in the street and from DJ’s and newsreaders, headlines and snatches of conversation at work. He thought he was being pursued by ‘The Organisation’. At this time he was jobless, no secure home, no love life – so the delusion was his only meaning in his life. He had Christian tendencies, and thought that the ‘new king’ was Jesus at the New Kings Road. These were marginal beliefs that took him over and led him to jump under a bus. This situation had been set up by The Organisation. His blood dripped on the road’s tar – opposite of ‘rat’ from his mother. (cf My words backwards.) Things had been fired at him for months. He was taken to Charing Cross hospital (the charring cross of Jesus) and all these coincidences convinced him of his delusion. In our postmodern world even physical scientists cannot decide on what reality is. He felt like a channel for spiritual forces, a shamanistic character. He had to pay, as a ‘no-good Chadwick’, with personal shame.