The recovery position

September 7, 2005

Peter Bullimore used to be a successful businessman. But after being diagnosed with schizophrenia he became a "revolving door" patient for eight years. Yet after attending a self-help group for voice-hearers he found a route to recovery. He tells Adam James how he is now committed to service-user led initiatives

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Peter Bullimore has a story which might both send a chill down your spine and inspire you.

In 1991 he was a family man and successful businessman handling turnovers of £1m. By 1992 he was an overweight, self-confessed down-and-out psychiatric patient. For the next eight years he became a revolving door patient. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, he said he was once threatened with life in a secure unit.

But Bullimore found a path to recovery. It was not via a new wave neuroleptic, but a basic - albeit painful - re-appraisal of his life initiated by contact with those he met through the Hearing Voices Network, perhaps the most influential self-help organisation for people diagnosed with psychosis.

Bullimore's no longer a schizophrenic. He's a voice-hearer, dedicating his time working for three organisations. He is chair of Sheffield's Hearing Voices Network, business manager for Asylum, a magazine for democratic psychiatry, and co-founder of the Sheffield-based Paranoia Network, a self-help organisation for people experiencing extreme paranoia, aka delusions.

It is the government's own national institute for mental health which urges mental health services to adopt a "recovery" approach to practice. "Services of the future will talk as much about recovery as they do about symptoms and illness," rang the "The Journey to Recovery - The Government's vision for mental health care" document in November 2001.

It may be a big call, but ministers may be hoping experiences such as those of Bullimore, essentially written off as a "chronic schizophrenic", will be a thing of the past.

"I was bombarded with voices, telling me to stab or burn himself or harm other people," recalls Bullimore. As well as taking 25 tablets a day ("enough to knock out a cow") he experienced the worst side of psychiatric services. "Once, I did not have a bed and slept on the toilet floor," he says. "Drug treatment was never any benefit. It was a case of drug 'em up and shut 'em up." The side effects from powerful sedative medication was all pervasive. For a number of weeks he had to wear a towel under his mouth to soak up uncontrollably dripping saliva.

But Bullimore's social worker then put him in touch with a hearing voices group in Sheffield. At the time Bullimore was as paranoid as ever. "I was scruffy and smelly," he remembers. "But the 10 people in the hearing voices group were all clean and presentable. It was such a wakening because I actually felt I belonged somewhere."

It was though mutual support and self-help methods that Bullimore found his route to recovery. Moreover, against all his doctor's advice he successfully came off his cocktail of medication. It took two years.

"Imagine anxiety. If you times it by 10, that's what the effects of coming off the medication was like," he recalls.

Bullimore, aged 43, still hears voices. But he says he is control of them, rather than vice versa. "It's all a power thing," he says.

In his previous life Bullimore was a successful seller of fire places. Now, he is thriving in new territory, promoting service user-led recovery approaches and immersing himself in developing community mental health services in Sheffield. His vision for the future? "It is a better service for people with mental health problems who have a choice in what treatments they receive." It's a comment that comes from the heart.

* This article first appeared in OpenMind magazine

Adam James is the author of Raising Our Voices - An Account of the Hearing Voices Movement. Available from www.psychminded.co.uk

Asylum magazine
Hearing Voices Network

See also:
Dec 19, 2003: Finding a way out of paranoia - a report on the first self help group for people with extreme paranoia. Will it make as big an impact on how 'delusions' are viewed as the Hearing Voices Network continues to do with 'aural hallucinations'?

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A sense of humour to go with it

From: Andrew Townend, day care worker, St Annes, Leeds
Date: February 15, 2006

I have just been on a hearing voices course presented by Peter Bullimore. His story was moving, but told with a great sense of humour.

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Genuinely helping people to recover

From: Mark Turnbull, support worker, Irwell Valley Housing Association, Greater Manchester
Date: June 8, 2007

This man changed my life. After seven years of studying psychology this man came along and un-jargonised the myths about mental illness.

Now his words and the work of the hearing voices network dominate my approach and I am genuinely helping people recover. Thanks Peter!

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Highlights real problems

From: Andrea Hanley, student nurse, Manchester University
Date: September 24, 2008

I attended a lecture today delivered by Mr Bullimore, it was a real sit up and listen moment. He had the full attention of a lecture theatre of approx 150 people within the first minute! What an amazing story and heart warming too.

Peter gave the lecture in a manner that included humour but highlighted the very real problems that people with mental health issues face every day.

As a student studying adult branch an insight to mental health is always welcome as it is barely touched on at all during the branch years training.

Thank you Peter, it really has given my colleagues and I something to think about.

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Inspired

From: Sharon Stansil, mental health nursing student, Canterbury Christchurch University, Kent
Date: November 13, 2008

In May 2007 I attended a training course on Hearing Voices. The short role play gave real insight into what it must be like to hear voices. Peter Bullimore's story inspired me to want to make a difference, to question existing medical views and look at mental health from a different perspective. This gave me a thirst for knowledge and has led me from support worker to student nurse. I am currently in my second year of university.

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