Description

‘My Own True Story’

By Gladys Medcroft

ISBN: 978-1-78382-237-9
Published: 2015
Pages: 51

About the Author

If you saw Gladys going about her daily business you would not look twice.
Just another housewife, a mother, one who gets on with the chores of life.
It is not everyone though who has enough courage to tell of deeply personal trials and tragedies. Not a story told to seek praise, but in the hope that it may help others to understand.
This book only touches on her dedication to helping others. She is a true friend to those she continues to visit in hospital or call on at home in their time of need. She makes no mention of the years she has devoted to The Southmead User Network. Hers is not a passive role, she has always pushed to make life better for others.
Whether a major event, or a weekly or monthly meeting, Gladys is always to be found at the forefront of the action.

Book Extract

About a week later I developed signs of hyperactivity, which alternated with periods of complete inactivity. I spent hours watching television, identifying the characters with relations, but the bad characters I obsessively identified with myself. Another symptom was that I sat for hours watching the clock on the stove looking for consolation.
I developed a terror of people and thought they were following me. Cars also frightened me, every driver had Ron’s face, but I couldn’t stop myself looking in them. I had a feeling of being closed in but was scared to go out.
I avoided all people but men in particular terrified me, even to the point that I thought they were trying to photograph me in my bath and all the time the light bulbs were flashing. I thought I was being watched and
photographed all the time. Sometimes I had spells of intense activity and danced wildly until exhausted before slumping into a chair and falling asleep.
I disowned my name and my ring. I still tried to go to work, but sometimes I couldn’t bear the place or the people, although they really tried to help me. On one occasion I wrote a letter and gave it to a man at work, although I hadn’t written it for him but for another dear friend; this particular workmate never knew how he helped me just by talking to me.
I said many things, which were true to me in my fantasy world, but had no real truth in them.
Sometimes between whiles I realised what I had been saying but could find no way to rectify it. I felt guilty and stupid and stayed away from work more and more.
The money from the Insurance cane through and I spent wildly but not without purpose. I replaced a lot of furniture – I didn’t want any remainders of the past. I started taking the children out, using taxis in which I felt safe. I had to make myself shop for food otherwise the children would have gone hungry. The money was no object. I did not consider it was mine and was trying to get rid of it. We went on holidays, had meals out and generally spent the money until it was gone.
By now I was doing a lot of walking, but I was always looking for somewhere safe. A day came when I felt desperate. I went to the local churches – if they had been open – if I could have found someone to answer my cry for help, what happened next would never have come about.
I walked all the way to the centre of the city, several miles in a daze, and found myself eventually in the Lord Mayor’s Chapel, an historic building in Bristol. Once there, I sat down and started to cry. I couldn’t stop and I cried for three hours, hiding my face. There was a member of the chapel staff there, who tried to help me in my distress, but I couldn’t express what was happening. Eventually he had to send for the police – he had no choice – but I thought he was against me, and I couldn’t understand what I had done wrong. Once in the police care I felt relaxed and safe and was able to talk coherently.
They gave me a cup of tea and I waited until eventually a welfare officer arrived at Bridewell and took me home.
In my desperation I had started drinking, any time, day or night. I was drinking sherry and even took it to work with me concealed in a container.
The doctor came to see me and prescribed tablets but I did not take them. I had enough sense to realise the danger involved in taking them while drinking heavily. A day came when I bought a bottle of whisky, took it home and drank nearly the whole bottle. I can recollect gathering up the children’s clothes and throwing them all out of the window. Neighbours thought I had taken an overdose and called an ambulance, and I was taken to Southmead Hospital. When I was on the bed I heard someone say, “She’s drunk.”