The worst nightmare of a family caught in the mental health system.
Close your eyes and imagine a time long ago. A place with knights and dragons and castles in the mist……
The castle/walled city is a symbol of the mental health system, the king is the government, the child takes are childrens services and the asylum is the Mental health hospital.
Once upon a time there lived a family. The family had a mother, a father, two wonderful boys and a beautiful girl. The family was not rich but it was blessed with good health and happiness and enjoyed long days in the warm sunshine, surrounded by family and friends. Their life looked bright and the future full of promise.
Then one day an evil stranger came to their village and did unspeakable things to the little girl. The family was shocked, confused and angry and did not know where to turn. Word spread amongst the villagers of what had happened. But no one came to help. The villagers closed their doors. For the first time ever the family felt alone in their own village. They wrapped their arms around each other and shut out the world.
Time passed in a blur as the family tried to understand and move beyond what had happened in the hope that life could continue unchanged. But then one day they saw, in the distance the black horses of the king’s guards riding towards the village. The mother felt her heart gripped with terror. The riders had been sent by the king to make the family come with them into the walled city where they claimed the family now belonged. They said that the King had ways to help the little girl recover and promised that the king would not let them down. The family had heard stories about life inside the walled city. People spoke in only in whispers of those who lived there. No one went there by choice and no-one ever seemed to return. The family protested and looked to the villages for help. But people lowered their eyes because no-one knew how to help. The family tried to fight the guards but in the end as the sunset over the village, the guards took the family away. Their days in the sunshine were over.
The walled city was beyond the worst fears of the family. There was a darkness and coldness that the family had never known. The streets were narrow and closed in. The doors were closed tight against the darkness. No one smiled in the walled city and somehow the sun that came through the cracks in the walls sensed the sadness and shone a little less brightly. The joy of life and laughter of love is never heard in the alleyways of the walled city. The family soon realized their worst fears were indeed true. They discovered that once you were inside the city it was nearly impossible to leave. People in the walled city did not have the same rights as others. There is little justice and little optimism. It is indeed a place of the deepest despair.
The guards were unable to catch the evil stranger who had harmed the young girl and some said that they do not even try. They instead, handed the family to the child takers. The king claimed it was to ‘save’ the lost children but no one ever saw a child ‘saved’ by the child takers. People said it was the king’s way to hide the thing people most feared. The child takers had no rules and answered to no one. They took the young girl to ‘look after’ her. For month’s the family tried to find where she was. They searched the prisons and towers of the city but she could not be found. They went to the king and the chief of the guards and the child takers but no one would tell them where she was. Finally, they went to the highest judge of the land who was a kind-hearted man and ordered the child takers to return the girl to the family.
But by the time she came back she was changed. The child takers had not cared for her and she was thin and sick. The stillness of her eyes and her transparent skin told of her sadness. The family was change too. The father had drawn into himself and the two sons had become angry with the King and those that worked for them. But worst of all they became angry that their sister had bought them to this dreadful place that they did not deserve. The mother kept working for the money the family needed, as the walled city is a very expensive place to live and their savings were gone. It was an effort to face each day. The family felt a deep sense of grief at what had be taken from them all.
In the months ahead the family tried make a new life and to bring the light back into the eyes of the little girl. But she was out of their reach. The people from the Asylum were now enmeshed in their lives. The asylum was a place of true torture. The family watched helplessly as the people from the asylum twisted the mind and spirit and heart of their little girl, until they no longer recognized her. Her eyes were dead and her heart was cold. The desperation that had gripped became a became a deep sense of hopelessness. The family was powerless to change what was and could no longer remember what had been. The light of hope that sustained them no longer shone.
The days became weeks, the weeks became months and the months became years. The young girl became a young-women. Her childhood had been lost to the child takers and the asylum and could never be regained. She battled daily with not only the memories of the evil stranger but with the cost of life in the walled city. The mother often wondered which had harmed her the most. The girl did not love herself or feel worthy of life. She built walls to shut those who tried to love her. She was lost and alone searching for something that did not exist.
Some nights the mother stood on the ramparts of the walled city with the icy wind in her face, looking longingly across the valley to the village they had left so long ago. She asked herself if this was how the story was to end. She cried- and surprised herself that after so much, there were any tears left.
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