Going mad

While I have been in hospital I have found some of tm the staff respond to patients in a manner described by R D Làing in his book The Divided Self.

I could hear someone crying every evening for several hours

I could not decide if it was a baby, The wailing was like a baby’s but the larynx was too powerful, I eventually found it was patients with dementia..

Before that I was told I was imagining it I was afraid wondering if my distress was making me sad and I was projecting it into someone else.

It is sad and I feel it but that is better than being told you are round the bend

Then people I was phoning asked me who it was.So it was they could hear it

The crying has been heard by me now in 3 places.i find it is the same strange sound Exactly the same whoever they are It is not personalised.It may be a default sound I feel their grief. I have worked with the elderly but I have never heard this sound before I notice the average age of people in these places is much older than when I am spent my vacations working in hospitals and homes.,It is tragic