The Pave Project Report - Queen's University Belfast

36
The PAVE Project Report
In fact, 3/4 of service users interviewed in this research mentioned the lack of
structured support in the early days and the incapacity of professionals (e.g. doctors,
teachers, police, etc.) in dealing with the depth of psychological trauma they had
experienced, for example, they described how prescriptions of anti-depressant drugs
and tranquilizers were the only help available.
“The night that (my brother) died, the doctor, I knew the GP, and he wrote a
prescription for sixty Diazipan and I can’t remember what the other thing was,
and he says, ‘Yous will need to take this and I looked at him and thought ‘What?!!’
You know, to mummy and she was really… you know. We are not really into that
type of lifestyle. So, we were quite annoyed with that.” (Interviewee P)
“And… of course, go… the local doctor, you know, both me and my daughter, and
heavy medications, taking tablets, taking tablets for years ‘til we eventually put
ourselves off (pause) So, that’s the way it all was, you know.” (Interviewee C)
Other interviewees talked about how there was nowhere to go for help and
professional support:
“All those years… I mean, and just went from bad to worse (pause) so, there was
never any help there at all, and I think that there’s a lot of people and this that
they didn’t, that I knew that lost their husbands and sons, and we had just each
other to speak to.” (Interviewee B)