I was such a hyperactive and generally wild child, that at eight years old my mother decided to put me into a hospital for a week’s observation on my mental condition. Lucky for me it turned out to be a homoeopathic hospital!
Although they tried to keep calm and humour me, I managed to drive the hospital staff up the wall. I constantly ran around, told silly jokes and generally complained about being bored.
On one memorable occasion, I decided to play hide-and-seek with the staff (without their willing participation of course). I hid well and they spent a good amount of time looking for me; so long in fact that they gave up their search and continued on with their work. I was rather disappointed when I finally came out of hiding, to find no one was looking for me!
These days I’m sure I would have been diagnosed as hyperactive, suffering from ADHD and who knows what else. With all their associated psychiatric drugs. Back then though, I was released after that week with the conclusion I was just a very active and somewhat wild child, with a silly sense of humour.
As I grew up and out of those ‘childish games’ I found no outlet for my wild imagination, ideas, stories and worlds that swirled around inside my head with nowhere to go. Unfortunately, I hated school and didn’t really try to do anything other than sports, so got no respite there. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I wish I had put a lot more effort into getting a solid understanding of literature and the English language. As well as a good grasp on how the world and its peoples work.
And so, my poor mum was left with no other solution than getting me to take harmless, yet somewhat helpful homoeopathic pills, and generally trying to cope with my wild state of mind.
We moved to North London when I was 10. School kept on being a similar struggle. Although I was full of life and had some fun and successful times, I wasn’t happy. That showed no sign of change, until at 13 years-old I was given my first guitar…and that is what I would like to share with you in my next blog.
Note: For more information on why I am so glad it was a homeopathic rather than psychiatric hospital, learn more here: www.cchr.org