Strange Sally Diamond

Reading about my birth mother was … odd. She was angry, aggressive and violent. She was unable or unwilling to articulate any of the terrible experiences we had suffered. It was clear that Dad was frustrated with her. She could not understand that he was there to help her. She did not display any sign of affection or softness, except to me. I could glean from his notes that the longer Dad spent with Denise, the less he liked her.

Dad decided eventually that Denise and I must be separated. I had begun to progress and was no longer whispering. I was starting to show ‘normal signs of curiosity’ consistent with my age. At that stage, Denise had occasionally let go of my hand, and in the sessions in Dad’s office, she would allow me to play with the toys in the corner, but never took her eyes off me. In consultation with the team, Dad concluded that I would never be able to develop naturally under Denise’s shadow. Her violence and aggression were often mimicked by me. The plan was a trial separation at night when we were asleep. Denise’s parents gave their consent, even though it wasn’t technically needed. She was a ward of court.

Denise was heavily sedated on 15th May 1981. We had been in the unit for over a year at that stage. Denise would have just turned twenty-six. I was placed in a separate room next door to hers with Jean, and a nurse was to stay in a pull-out bed in Denise’s room. Dad slept upstairs. Nurse Crawley was primed to give Denise further sedation if required that night, but that she was not, under any circumstances, to reunite us.

Everyone in the unit was on high alert, but Dad said nobody could have predicted what happened. Mum and Dad were awake most of the night, but Dad eventually drifted off to sleep about 5 a.m. At 5.30, Denise’s screaming started. Dad did not intervene. Twenty minutes later, the nurse began to scream. When he entered her room, Denise was already half dead. She had banged her head repeatedly off the wall with such ferocity that she suffered a brain haemorrhage. She died later that morning in hospital without regaining consciousness. The nurse had tried her best to restrain her, but Denise had unnatural strength. Nurse Crawley was distraught, as were Mum and Dad.

An inquiry was held. Dad was exonerated, although he expressed terrible guilt. Dad wrote that Denise’s parents, although devastated, may have been relieved. Their visits over the previous fourteen months had been extremely difficult for them and had become more infrequent as time went by. Denise’s father had given up coming altogether. Denise saw all adult men as a threat. Their daughter was gone long before she died. She had never allowed her mother to hug or hold her. She recoiled from her father. Dad was the only man she ever saw. In retrospect, Dad thought that a female psychiatrist should have been appointed to take the Norton case, but he was the only person with the appropriate experience of dealing with deeply traumatized patients at the time and took us on as a special project. Aunt Christine had said that men made all of the decisions in those days.

Jean took over my primary care and development. On the morning of my mother’s death, I too had woken and fought my way into Denise’s room. I saw her unconscious body and her bloodied head. Jean grabbed and hugged me and tried to soothe me, but I kicked and screamed and fought and escaped her grasp and curled up beside my dying mother until the ambulance came to take her.

I barely ate or spoke for the first three months after Denise’s death. Denise’s parents no longer visited. They did not want to see me. They officially declared they would not be taking me home in the event that I would be released. I was a ward of court. Gradually, I became more attached to Jean; not in a physical sense, but I would confide my worries in her. I told her that Mummy had gone with Toby and that I was afraid I would be on my own. Dad noted individual sessions with me and, over time, ‘despite Mary’s deficiencies’, he speculated that I might be rehabilitated.

The Eastern Health Board issued a press release announcing that Denise Norton had tragically committed suicide. No details of the circumstances were given. Mum and Dad’s names were withheld too. The newspapers of the time said that Conor Geary now had a death on his hands. He might as well have murdered Denise.

Even though Dad was exonerated by the inquiry, he knew that his reputation in the small field of Irish psychiatry was irreparably damaged. By mutual agreement, he resigned his position.