So, about ‘that letter’, the 12 page letter that I wrote to Sally Mungall during the week between the 16th and 23rd of December, 2021, the same letter that ignited so much hysteria among so many mental healthcare professionals. Well, here is ‘that letter’, published for the first time for anyone who cares to read it. At first I was only going to publish the second part of the letter. The first part referenced two ‘gifts’ that I had prepared for Sally, the first ‘gift’ being an almost complete manuscript of a children’s story that I had written, the second ‘gift’ being a ‘concept’ drawing I had made of the two principle characters in that same children’s story.

The second part of the letter is the important part, the most pertinent to my story. For the sake of thoroughness and in the spirit of openness I have decided to publish the letter in its entirety.

The actual letter that I handed to Sally on the 23rd of Dec 2021 was hand-written by me in my awkward, somewhat spidery scrawl over 12 pages of A4 paper, a stream of consciousness without edit or rewrite. Before sealing the letter in an envelope I decided to make a digital copy and typed everything again. I didn’t copy the first part of the letter verbatim. A lot of writing about my children’s story and characters didn’t seem so important and I was pressed for time. The second part I copied virtually word for word. I think there might have been a slight alteration in the phrasing of the last sentence or two but the digital copy of the second part remains, almost without exception, faithful to the original.

So, why do I feel the need to share such a deeply personal letter with you all?

First of all, I feel it is important to be as truthful as possible. Much of what happened to me throughout the year 2022 was the result of willful deceit on the part of Sally herself and her clinical and leadership cohorts. In marked contrast, any potential embarrassment felt by me in publishing this letter is overwhelmingly countered by the knowing that I have not deceived anyone in the telling of my story.

Second of all, if there is fault in any part played by me in this whole sordid tale then I want to be candid about it. My otherwise fragile sense of self is strengthened by my dogged persistance in maintaining absolute integrity. I am always frank and endeavor, at all times, to be honest. The best way for me to recover my mental health is to remain truthful with my words even if they reflect negatively on my character.

Third of all, I want the reader to understand that any preference on my part for privacy in this matter has long since been wrested from my control. You will note, in your reading of the letter that I gave permission for Sally to share it with her supervisor. In all other respects this letter should have been kept confidential, but it wasn’t. Indeed, this letter, and at least one other deeply private and personal handwritten letter, has since been confirmed to have been handed over to other NHS staff working out of a different Foundation Trust without my permission. This letter was one of two such handed over to members of the Community Mental Health Team at the Bridge Centre in Basingstoke and was later used, maliciously, against me by one unscrupulous member of staff there before being unaccountably ‘lost’. I will write about this in greater detail in later chapters of ‘Four and Twenty Dead Crows’,  and then again in ‘Just Caws', the sequel to this blog.

Finally and most importantly, I am sharing this letter to build a particular case and so prove a point.

Within less than a week of handing this letter to Sally I experienced a catastrophic mental breakdown. I didn’t understand what was happening to me at the time so I felt compelled to visit my doctor on the 29th December, 2021 to report acute depression, panic attacks and severe suicidal ideation. I was in a state of complete and utter crisis when I accompanied my daughter, Meg, to her final review at CAMHS on the 13th January, 2022, by which time the cat was truly out of the bag and clinicians began devising a covert plan to manage me and manage their own professional reputations.

Access to records released to me by Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust on the 15th June, 2022 included an email written by Sally and addressed to Nic ( Hoyle ) at MID AND NORTH CRHT REFERRALS, ( Crisis ) at 16.21 on the 20th January, 2022. Sally’s written words were that 'Mark has given a veiled ultimatum around collecting the art work that he had made in relationship with me during our parent work together.’ No 'ultimatum' was ever uttered by me. There is no documented evidence of any 'ultimatum' made by me. There was no such 'ultimatum' made in this letter.

This letter was one of two hand-written by me and addressed to Sally. At the end of March, 2022 a second hand-written letter was handed to a colleague of Sally who was authorised by CAMHS General Manager, Wanda Reynolds, to act as an intermidiary. This first letter confirmed our mutually agreed intention to meet again in 2022 in order to collect my art therapy drawings, the plan to review those drawings together and for me finally to take an opportunity to extend our relationship. This letter then went on to forward my respect and make it absolutely clear to Sally that I was prepared to accept her rejection of any proposal to extend a relationship socially or even romantically. I went even further, acknowledging the possibility that she might already be in a relationship and letting her know that I would, under such circumstances, walk away.

Again, there was no allusion to veiled ultimatums in the hand written letter that I gave to Sally on the 23rd December, 2021. According to dictionary definition an ultimatumn is , veiled or not, a final demand or statement of terms, the rejection of which will result in retaliation or a breakdown in relations. Why would Sally use those words if not to frame a narrative, perhaps designed to distance herself from accountability or even deliberately make a problem out of me? 'Retaliation' turned out to be a strawman justification for the way I was about to be treated. Clinicians and leadership at CAMHS confected a bogeyman, brought into lurid detail and made larger than life, or at least bigger than the real me, that's for sure. There was no intention of 'retaliation' on my behalf but nevertheless, the letter was used by Sally’s clinical and leadership cohorts, partly or wholly, to justify histrionics of incredulous proportions. This letter was foundational in framing a narrative that I was, somehow  ‘obsessed’, ‘fixated’ and a 'risk' to Sally and other staff and eventually, even to my own daughter. This letter triggered a sequence of events that saw me grotesquely misrepresented, monitored, deceived, openly lied to, wrongly pathologized and, ultimately, criminalized. And all of this happened behind my back. I was never given an opportunity to speak, to defend my reputation, give my own account of events or challenge the veracity of any of the spurious allegations made then or since. I was unaware, wholly ignorant of everything until many months later when a member of staff at the Wellbeing Centre, a service in Basingstoke run by the charity funded Andover Mind, suggested I access my medical records. I was also unaware, or at least in denial, that I had been catastrophically  damaged by the inappropriate, unsanctioned and professionally incompetent delivery of psychodynamic therapy. My mental health breakdown which began during the Christmas of 2021 was caused by several mitigating factors, not least by the inappropriate and unsanction art therapy supervised by Sally herself. It wasn’t until I finally met Isobel, a truly competent psychotherapist, that I began the work that eventually led to real insight, to the understanding that I had been abused, but I’m getting ahead of myself. My work with Isobel has it’s own time and place later in this story.

In the meantime, here is ‘that letter’ warts, spelling mistakes, typos and all. Make of it what you want. And be forewarned as I intend to publish more of my letters and they are exponentially more distressing to read.

THAT LETTER

End of therapy letter hand delivered 23/12/2021

Dear Sally,

I hope you are not troubled by this letter or indeed the size of it. It’s not a ‘dangerous’ letter, by which I mean it won’t get you into any trouble professionally or personally but it is a necessary letter for me and for my peace of mind.

First, I have enclosed a couple of ‘goodbye for now’ gifts to you as promised last week. One is a draft of one of my stories and the other is a piece of concept art of the two principle characters. During the last hours of my therapy with you I tried to tell you of my plans for the immediate future.  In trying to bring order to the chaos of my deeply troubled mind I had the idea to restart work on a series of children’s books that have been sitting on a shelf for awhile. It’s a commercial endeavour that I had resisted for a long time because my artistic vision has been fixed, uncompromisingly, on loftier fine art ambitions but commercial success is now likely my best hope for a future. I have little hope of a long term adult relationship but a career is still under my control, if I can just find the heart to follow through. The draft is actually the chronological third of a dozen or so short stories based on characters that first sprang to life in the summer of 1978 and tell the tales of a gnomish community in a forest realm that I call Thimbledore. It isn’t complete as there is a final four hundred words or so still needed to give the story it’s happy ending but I thought you might like to read this much because the inspiration to restart this work is YOU. These characters are creatures of the earth, the beings closest to nature that I have ever invented and, incidentally, the closest incarnations to match distinct aspects of my own personality. The first character is Bromble, the simple, gentle, kind-natured albeit naive  Broonie who I believe represents the best in me. The second character is Nook, the practical, logical, pragmatic academic Broonie who represents the analytical part of me. These two characters have been visualised in the concept art that I’ve enclosed for you. There is a third character called Grout, a bombastic, irascible, mischievous character who is half-Broonie and half something else. He represents the darker side of me but I haven’t had time to draw him. My plan is to finish and release each story to publishers beginning in the new year. I should be able to finish and post each one every couple of weeks as most of them are near completion. I have around a dozen such stories at first draft status. At the same time I’m trying to develop an art style that’s appropriate, maybe something in the loose pen and ink style of Paddington Bear artist Peggy Fortnum. I don’t have the same confidence in drawing as I do have in writing but it would be really satisfying if I could illustrate these stories too. I have ideas for other children’s books as well as a few adult novels lurking in the dark vaults of my mind. Hopefully, these will give me the commercial success I need.

It was also my intention to post related art to my Facebook page to be a lighthouse to you. That may not be so important in view of the arrangement we made whereby I come and collect, when I am ready, the drawings I made during my weeks of therapy with you. And so I come to the really important part of this letter. I love you. I said those words to you many times over the last few months and you were always quick to point out the fallibility of those words. You said my strong feelings were projection and, because I take everything you say seriously, I researched the subject of psychological projection and followed through with transference, counter-transference and even the therapeutic relationship. I’m still researching the subject. I’ve listened to countless hours of online therapists giving their professional opinions on the subject and read whatever I could find on the internet. I’m never going to acquire the deep knowledge that a professional with many years practical experience has. I have to listen to them. I have to listen to YOU. And I have. I understand how projection works along with transference and I have always been aware of the ethical need for boundaries within the theraputic relationship. I understand that my therapy was, out of necessity, rapid and deeply intense and that I was, and still am, extremely vulnerable. The last few sessions with you were absolutely harrowing. I acknowledge the fact that I have never experienced such overwhelming emotion. That emotion is as intense now, even as I write these words, as it was during those last few sessions with you. Those emotions are constantly in my throat, so much so that I sometimes find it hard to breathe, especially at night. I do understand how so much of this emotion arose out of out of the recognition of complex trauma in my childhood. I do understand. I understand so much but there are things that are hard to reconcile. I was, as you know, in therapy before and we covered similar ground and yet I never loved my former therapist. I fell in love with you. And I fell in love with you early on, long before we started digging deep into my past. I loved from the moment I saw your face. You remember, don’t you! Remember when you removed your mask in the second session, 16th September. You acknowledged my profound reaction to seeing your face. You said, paraphrased, ‘ that was a powerful moment for you’. And it was. To me it was love at first sight, untainted by projection or transference. Maybe you don’t believe in such things. Maybe I’m overly romantic. I’m not claiming to love you in the same way that people love each other after knowing each other intimately over time. I am IN love with you. And I know that I will always love you. I don’t know much about your life, the details, your habits, your quirks and flaws, what you like for breakfast, your favourite colour, if you have a bad temper, none of those things. What I do know is I want to get to know you, to experience the slow revealing of all the details that make you who you are. There is a point in every one’s life when you meet someone that you are attracted to and you decide to spend time getting to know someone and that person makes the same commitment, to see if you are mutually compatible. There is a point in time where take a chance and make a stronger commitment or, more properly, a leap of faith. Nobody knows the future. Everybody takes a chance. We all project. We all project our hopes and needs onto other people. I’m no different in that regard. Where I am different is that, while I fall in love rarely, when I do it is quick and deep. I last fell in love over twenty five years ago. I fell in love quick and deep and it lasted twenty five years. I’ve fallen in love three times in my life. Falling in love with you will likely be the last.

So. I’m coming to pick up my therapy drawings in the new year but I’m listening to you speak to me even as I write and I’ve decided to give myself time, time to see if you are wholly right. I had eleven sessions with you. For each session I will wait one week. The 24th Febrauary 2022 is eleven weeks from my last formal session with you to when I contact reception at Camhs to make an appointment with you. Hopefully we can spend one more hour together, at least. Maybe we can go over the some of my drawings. I have huge insight into many of them and you might have a professional interest in learning what those insights are. At some point I’ll extend an invitation to meet me socially. I would love to spend time with you, maybe cook you diner. I would love to draw you or paint you. Maybe there is some way that you could continue therapy with me. Last time we spoke you said there were two other significant areas that we hadn’t had the time to explore. I want to explore them with you. I’m pretty sure I know what one of those areas is. It would be outside the purview of Cahms, of course and might be separate from the paper you’re considering writing on the ‘new ground’ we broke but it would still be of mutual benefit.

Of course, you will have good reason to decline my invitation. In fact there are two good reasons that you might decline my invitation. You might decline for professional reasons. I hope you don’t. Our  theraputic relationship formally ended last week. I’ve read the literature. Therapists are allowed to enter into relationships with former patients in the UK. The General Medical Council issued guidelines back in 2013 allowing doctors to form relationships with former patients. Half of doctors polled in 2011 wanted to be allowed to form such relationships. It’s quite common, really. Of course you might decline my invitation because you are just not romantically interested in me and, well, I can’t argue with that. That’s a rejection that I will have to take on the chin. And then there’s the ultimate reason why you might decline my invitation. I know very little about you personally. I know you have a family but I don’t know much else. I don’t know if you already have a partner or if, indeed, you are married. And that’s something I would never dream of interfering with. I made a promise to you that I would wait for you. Do you remember? I extended an invitation to you to come to my house and I would cook you dinner. I asked you not to say yes or no because, at the time a ‘no’ would have crushed me. I was going to live in hope that one day you would contact me and accept my invitation. I said I would wait. I said it three times to make it a binding promise. There is one circumstance where I would break that promise but only one. If you are happily married then I take back that promise because saying that I will wait under those circumstances is to invite negativity on you and your partner. If keeping a promise to wait for you is contingent on something going catastrophically wrong with a happy marriage or even a happy partnership then I take back that promise. If you are in such a relationship then tell me the truth when I meet you and it will be the last you’ll hear from me. That will be my new promise. And if you are in such a relationship then show him this letter. Don’t keep this a secret. You were never complicit in my falling in love with you. You were doing your job and you did it well. You showed me compassion and ‘heard’ me and ‘looked’ at me. My time with you was constructive and positive despite the very real pain I endured and continue to endure. I’ll always be grateful to you and I will continue to love you until I die. Also, for the sake of complete transparency and to show that I have given due consideration to the possible ethical boundary please feel free to share this with your supervisor. I know that all therapists have their own therapists or at least regular supervision from senior staff. That way you will be free from professional repercussions. Those that read this will understand you are not acting unprofessionally. If there is a Mr Mungall or a significant other reading this then you have my blessing. I wish I were as lucky as you.

Until I meet you in the new year, take care, Sally. Happy Christmas. I love you