Fightback by teacher spiked with drugs

Dec 21 2007 by David Higgerson, Liverpool Daily Post

Jo Sullivan ended up with a mental illness after being drugged on holiday. She has spent 17 years battling back, and wants to inspire others. David Higgerson reports

JO SULLIVAN had always wanted to travel. She also wanted to teach. So landing a job in Spain teaching in a school appeared to be a dream come true.

And indeed it was for the first few months. Until, one day, she was drugged. Overnight Jo, from Waterloo, went from an enjoyable life near Malaga to an “unimaginable hell” which, 17 years on, she is only just coming out of.

The mixture of drugs she was spiked with – LSD and amphetamines – led to her developing a schizoaffective disorder which took years for her to get used to.

Jo, a former John Moores University student, said: “I had always wanted to travel abroad and work abroad, and there I was, really enjoying what I did, teaching.

“I was having a great time out there. Then this incident happened. I was having a night out. I don’t like to talk about it too much because I am quite a private person in that sense, but I was drugged with LSD and amphetamines, and that night changed my life with what happened. It had been a wonderful time in Spain teaching, but it all changed that day.

“Fortunately, my sister was with me at the time so she helped me to get hospital treatment. I was hallucinating for 24 hours, and she took me across the Spanish border to Gibraltar, because it is part of Britain and she thought that would be the best place for me to get treatment. She was right and after initial treatment, I was sent back to the UK where I have been in and out of hospital for eight years.

“It was terrible. All of a sudden, I was having to cope with psychosis, and hearing voices in my head. It took a very long time to control them. Even today, the voices are still here, but I know how to control them.

“Since 1991, when this happened, and now, I have had relapses which sometimes have put me back six months.”

Jo is now safely back in Merseyside, where she grew up, and the former Holy Family High School is now in a position to look to the future.

While those around her say they are inspired by her ability to bounce back from such an awful ordeal, Jo also believes the support from the medical profession in Merseyside, along with her family, have made her progress possible.

Yet other people’s negative attitudes towards mental health have led to her feeling a strong sense of injustice.

She added: “The support has always been there, and I’m grateful for that because some-times people who find out about mental illness refuse to go past the stigmas.

“I experienced discrimination when applying for a student cleaning job at a residential care home for disabled adults. The experience, apart from being humiliating, taught me there is a lot of ignorance about mental health, and I want to challenge that. It is a disability, not an inability, and people need to see that. That is why I have chosen to speak out as I have. I now cope and manage my impairment well and live a normal independent life.”

Jo is studying for an Open University degree. She also studied modern languages at JMU in her twenties. Her major pastime is creative writing and her first novel is, hopefully, to be published next year.

The 42-year-old has been doing voluntary work for two years and, having completed the Mersey Care pre-employment course for service users and carers, she is feeling positive about the future and is currently thinking about a teaching career when she completes her degree.

She says the course enabled her to feel “accepted in the workplace… It equipped me thoroughly with the skills and information needed to make a success out of working.”

NOW Jo is looking to the future: “It is impossible to change what happened in the past. I have to live with what happened but I don’t think I would have come this far if I had been bitter and negative about whoever did this to me. I was, at first, but I had to get beyond that.

“You have to deal with what life throws at you, and that is what I have had to do. I have had to be positive and take every step as I go along. I have hopes and dreams, and I’m now at a point where I can work towards them.

“I’m studying Spanish again and would like to live and work in London. Politics is something which also interest me, I’d love to get into that.

“I’ve overcome this, and that gives me the confidence to achieve things in the future.

“It was hard to forgive, but I’ve managed to. Life is too short.

“If I’ve got a philosophy it is ‘you get out what you put in’, therefore, contributing positively is very important. It’s important to fight back mentally and never give up. Positivity can overcome adversity.”

davidhiggerson