The Skeleton Cupboard (33 page)

But as we saw with Mollie, the young woman I met in my final year of training, when I was beginning to get more of an understanding of my professional identity and approach, people in crisis are manifesting much more than the sum of their own illness. Their problems are symbolic of an overall system—usually a family—in crisis.

And we, as a society, are in crisis. I am now a consultant in child and adolescent mental health. Rocketing numbers of children and young people with significant mental health difficulties come through my clinic and clinics like mine across the developed world. And these children are struggling at younger and younger ages.

Our young people show us the uncomfortable truth that as a functioning system, our society is failing. They represent our lack of compassion and understanding, our preoccupation with the survival of the fittest. We struggle to “hear” what they are saying and so we prescribe them drugs.

As I write this epilogue, it strikes me that it may appear that I have written this book as a vehicle to address some of the many complexities and injustices that sit around the care and treatment of those with mental health difficulties. Actually, I didn't. Quite simply I wrote this book to tell some incredible stories about people who, each in their own way, were struggling to live challenging lives. People I feel enormously privileged to have met and from whom I have learned a lot.

I will end now by reiterating that none of these people I have written about in
The Skeleton Cupboard
exists; I have betrayed no confidence by telling their stories.

But then again, I would suggest, and forgive me for leaving you with this, that actually they
do
exist—bits of them exist in us all.

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Throughout my career in mental health services, I have worked with many teams of talented and dedicated people, and in the writing of this book, I have met and worked alongside a new and fantastic team.

Thank you to my agent, Sophie Laurimore, for putting me together with literary agent Will Francis (and his team at Janklow & Nesbit), who has been an incredible support, encouraging me to write what had been in my head for so many years, working with me on the book proposal, and then on so very many drafts.

My thanks to all at Pan Macmillan and the team led by Jon Butler, especially my editor, the brilliant and talented Cindy Chan. My thanks also to P. J. Mark and to Bob Miller, Whitney Frick and the team at Flatiron Books and to Kate Cassady and her colleagues at HarperCollins Canada for taking
The Skeleton Cupboard
to North America and for editing it so brilliantly so it would make sense to my American readers while still retaining my British voice.

I am particularly indebted to my fellow trainees from over twenty-five years ago: the clinical psychologist Jeanette McLoughlin for her extremely helpful comments on the whole book, and to the clinical neuropsychologist Judy Wall for her detailed notes on my assessment of Harold. My friends Dr. Ruth Whitby—the best GP I know—and the brilliant psychiatrist Professor Dr. Michael Craig have given essential feedback.

My greatest thanks go to my career mentor, Dr. Wendy Casey—a woman of compassion, skill and dedication to all those she has treated. Thanks also go to valued colleagues from years past—Dr. Ron Alcorn, Dr. Dylan Griffiths and Professor Tony Roth—who taught me so much, and to Dr. Elza Eapen and Maggie Cohen.

I owe a huge debt to Mrs. Kay Moore, my favorite teacher, who taught me English at school and inspired me to love reading and to write.

My deepest gratitude to the brave and wonderful Avram Schaufield for generously sharing his experiences of the concentration camps during the Holocaust, and to his wife, Vera, for telling me about her experiences on the Kindertransport.

To “my girls”: Kate, Jen, Ruth, Jeanette, Janaki, Jayne—you are brilliant and supportive friends. Also to Bettina, Emma, Lesley and Victoria, and to Lynn, Steph and all my friends at our weekly Zumba and kettlebell classes!

Also, my thanks to my friend and brother-in-law Mathieu, and to Michael and Eric.

Most of all, my deepest love and thanks to my most special girls: my amazing mother, Elfie; my sister and best friend, Katrina; my beautiful niece Clara; and most especially my daughter, Lily—you are an awesome young woman, and I love our laughs.

My wonderful, inspirational father, John, died in 2005: Dad, I miss you every day and wish you could have read this.

To my husband, Bruce—I couldn't have written this or pretty much done anything else in the last twenty-four years without you by my side. And to my gorgeous son, Jack—you make me very proud, and thanks for the endless cups of tea.

Finally, to all those mental health professionals who work tirelessly in often very underresourced conditions to support those who are vulnerable and afraid—I salute you. And to the many children, young people and adults that I have worked with throughout my clinical career: Thank you for the privilege of spending time with you on your journey—I'll never forget you.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tanya Byron
,
a professor of the Public Understanding of Science in the UK, is a British clinical psychologist, writer, media personality, and frequent public speaker who has presented many critically acclaimed British television and radio programs. She writes a weekly column for
The Times
(London) and a monthly column for
Good Housekeeping
(London). She is an adviser on international policy focusing on young people, mental health, and education. The international bestseller
The Skeleton Cupboard
is her fifth book. You can sign up for email updates
here
.

 

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CONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright Notice

Dedication

Introduction: My Grandmother's Frontal Lobes

One
: The Eyes Have It

Two
: At the Bottom of the Deep Blue Sea

Three
: Practice Tales

Four
: Harold and the Nazis

Five
: The Skeleton Cupboard

Six
: Dodging Stones

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Copyright

 

THE SKELETON CUPBOARD.
Copyright © 2015 by Tanya Byron. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

 

www.flatironbooks.com

 

Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reproduce from the following:

 

“Maria” by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II © 1959 by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. Copyright renewed. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Williamson Music, a division of Rodgers & Hammerstein: an Imagem Company.

 

“Stay Well” (from
Lost in the Stars
) by Maxwell Anderson and Kurt Weill © 1949 (renewed) Kurt Weill Foundation for Music Inc. (ASCAP) and Chappell & Co (ASCAP). All rights reserved. TRO © 1949 (renewed) Hampshire House Publishing Corp., New York, and Warner Chappell Music, Inc., Los Angeles, California. Used by permission.

 

“Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep.” Since 1998, this poem has generally been attributed to Mary Elizabeth Frye, written in 1932.

 

Cover design by Henry Sene Yee

 

Cover artwork by Richard Tuschman

 

eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].

 

The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data for the print edition is available upon request.

 

ISBN 978-1-250-05265-0 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-250-05380-0 (e-book)

 

e-ISBN 9781250053800

 

First Edition: April 2015

 

Originally published by Pan Macmillan in 2014