The Dog and Homework Lie

When you were a child, the dog ate your homework. When you're an adult the traffic is a nightmare, your alarm didn't go off or your stupid phone lost all its contacts. Does this sound familiar?

That's because we all lie. White lies here and bendy truths there. We get so used to it that we become ashamed of ourselves and lie automatically when we feel that we will disappoint someone, or lose face or cause annoyance. We just want to be liked and well thought of, underneath everything. So , we lie.

I lied endlessly over the years rather than admit that I was bipolar when some aspect of my illness had caused me to either lose my job, lose a relationship, lose a home or lose a friend. I had a completely alternate version of my life and CV ready to roll out at the drop of a hat rather than tell my story the way I do now.

Lying about my illness has become so ingrained over 16 years that it is a habit hard to break.  I turned up at school drop off one morning a few weeks ago and a friend looked at me and kindly remarked that I looked quite tired and asked if I was ok. Without thinking I started to tell her that the dog had eaten my homework, so to speak, and actually managed to stop myself. Then I told the truth. I was actually in the middle of trying to manage a very challenging  *hypomanic episode which had come on quickly and was fairly acute. I explained the basics of my situation to her and one of my son's teachers who was standing with her. Not only were they kind, considerate and genuine in their concern but they thanked me for giving them the insight I had - particularly the teacher who remarked how useful it was to have it from her point of view as all our actions as parents impact our children.

I went home with a weight lifted off my shoulders, a feeling I had not experienced before. Although I have been publicly speaking out about my illness for a while now, this was the first time I have become unwell during that time and this was the first time I nearly lost my homework to the dog. But I stopped myself. I left the school blinking at myself in the light of not having lied about my current battle with hypomania. It felt great.

I was so inspired by my couragous rescue of homework from said dog's gaping jaws, that I turned to my public Facebook page where I share and chat about mental health and inspirational ideas. I documented my struggle on this public forum as well as with my friends on my personal timeline. I charted my episode from onset, through to the peak where speed wobble and breakdown set in and onto treatment with the crisis team and reassesment of my medication and eventually to peacful conclusion where relatively normal service resumed. The whole episode lasted about a month.

The result of doing this surprised me on a number of levels and re-doubled my passion in doing what I do as a public speaker and advocate of speaking out. Here is what happened:-

1 ) I felt supported because people followed my posts and made comments of support.
2)  I didn't have to lie because I was telling everyone the truth and I didn't feel ashamed.
3)  I received messages from a few people saying they were directly inspired by these posts to tell the truth about why they had been off work or behind with something. All of them either struggle with a degree of depression or take meds for a mental health condition.

I worked with the crisis team , my friends and colleagues stood by whilst I did my best to keep everyone fully in the loop. My husband felt hugely supported by the fact that people knew, he felt less isolated in his mammoth task and responsibility as carer. Other parents asked after me and he didn't have to lie, he felt able to ask for compassionate leave from work to lighten the load at home. And here I am  - peacefully emerging out the other side of a hectic few weeks. Hypomanic episodes have always preceded a manic episode and then hospitalisation for me - or - I crash land badly, suffer a major disruption of some kind in my life and struggle, choking, back to normal through a fog of lies about what happened.

 My conclusion is that I don't need to be ashamed of my shortcomings, embarrassed about my inconsistencies or fearful of others' perceptions of me.  Truth has subtle power that can cause unexpected change. It did for me.

The happy ever after bit of this story is simply that the poor dog was innocent the whole time.

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*Hypomania (literally, “below mania”) is a mood state characterized by persistent disinhibition and pervasive elevated (euphoric) or irritable mood, as well as thoughts and behaviors that are consistent with such a mood state. It is most often associated with the bipolar spectrum. Many who are in a hypomanic state are extremely energetic, talkative, and confident. They may have a flight of ideas and feel creative.

- Wikipedia.

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Time To Change

Time To Change is England's largest mental health anti-stigma and discrimination campaign. I am registered on a voluntary basis as a champion speaker. This week, I  joined 5 others and we represented thousands of champions from around the country in London at a key meeting of the entire organisation.

I composed a poem to start the day. It was written to reflect a little of my journey with my bipolar diagnosis and also to express my opinion on the campaign. I was asked by several people throughout the day if they could have a copy and so I have chosen to make it this week's blog.

Each champion made an invaluable contribution to the day, and the "selfie" campaign was led by James Shanks, the champion for London. An invitation was sent to all champions around the country to submit a photo with two reasons on why we are champions.

                 

I crossed the shadowed line,

So hard to see or well define,

that divides the “us” and “them” with eager gladness.

In fear I bound my voice in shame

Silence conquered me and blame,

but all I ever found was my own madness.

I saw a mirror hidden there

And fell victim to the poisoned air -

I swore to keep my fractured pain a thing unspoken

In this mirror, I thought I saw

everything I was and more

the good, the bad, the ugly and the broken.

And strange but true , I cursed myself

I set my freedom on the shelf

but reached for it with hands of crippled doubt...

But - bound in boundless mirrored rings -

I found insanity can give you wings ....

I broke the twisted mirror and walked out.

I took my liberty off the shelf

As a gift I give myself,

I am vulnerable and proud that all may see.

The river calmly leaves the damn,

The Lion lies down with the lamb,

And I walk the world at peace with what may be.

A time can change as all things must

Ages pass in holy dust,

And changes must be made where there is strife

So we each and every one

See a thing which must be done

And we work in common cause to give it life.

The time is here.

The change is clear.

An ear will bend to hear the voice of youth

A mind will turn to change,

And arms embrace what once seemed strange..

And hearts will always heed the call of truth.

(C) Miranda de Barra 2014

Meet Me In The Sandpit

Happiness 

I think we all stop growing up in nursery school. Somewhere between the sandpit and the finger paints. 

I stopped at the dressing up box. I continued straight into a career in theatre and I have been escaping reality as best I can ever since. I have a good few friends who make a living out of the plasticine and crayons corner ( they get to call themselves artists) and I have come across many content people who sustain their adult lives tipping and tapping away with the toys in the mechanical activity cupboard. Architects , designers and programmers.

I do worry about the slightly unsure, runny nosed kids hanging around the edges of everyone else's activity. They don't really get into anything and drip about getting tangled in the aprons at the messy play table. There's always one suffering an enforced vegetarian lifestyle from its well meaning alternative parents, who looks permanently pale and isn't allowed squash. Sometimes, they don't have televisions at home, and cannot casually contribute to topical playground banter - like discussing the benefits of Upsy Daisy's inflatable skirt. I'm not sure what they grow up to be.

Our lives with “what I want to be when I grow up”. We are all heartily encouraged to become astronauts, prima ballerinas, fairies, wizards , lion-tamers and, currently Elsa and / or Anna from Frozen. When we're older and a dose of reality finally drops in, we probably get a more practical idea of what we might like to do. We gradually create a projected future for ourselves. It may be something general or specific – a career in fashion, or a mad urge to be a model. But how far does our actual path diverge from the perceived adulthood we dreamed of so passionately before we started shaving ? Our hearts may be set on medicine and the riches consultant surgeons rake in, but we may end up as the hospital janitor instead.

Now many people end up living a far better lives than they ever hoped for. Others are genuinely content with where they are. But there are simply oodles of disillusioned, jaded, resentful, complacent, cynical, frustrated, trapped, fearful people who mourn with bitterness a road they didn't take. They stick in a rut of necessity, stacking shelves or pushing pens around their accountancy desks wishing that they were in the merchant navy or teaching English to children in an Amazonian tribe. Their mental state is not one of illness. That may or may not be a separate issue. Their mental state is one of disconnection. A disengagement from what gives life meaning. Living with a void in one's soul makes for a hollow life.

When I had my first nervous breakdown 16 years ago, I was living a life very far removed from one which fed my soul. I had started my career playing in the dressing up box as I had faithfully promised my 5 year old self I would. I did become an actress. But after a car accident, I decided a reliable office job in the acting industry would pay the bills and be more sensible. So I became an agent instead. I was caught up in a manipulative, cold, calculating business world and what I really wanted was fluffy hugs, applause for being creative and possibly fairies everywhere.

So off I went in search of the meaning of life. I got into New Age books and courses, healing and crystals, auras and chakras, reiki and flower essences, the third eye and the fourth dimension, earth ascension, star beings, angels and goddesses in Glastonbury. I discovered that apparently I was Guinevere in one past life and a happy Russian peasant in another. I don't think there have been many happy Russian peasants, so I am quite proud of that. Basically, I immersed myself into anything and everything I could in search of a sense of meaning and purpose because the parasitic, deeply unfulfilling nature of my job demanded that I be a person completely removed from the dictates of my heart and soul.

These two worlds pulled me in opposite directions until I snapped. This was my trigger. Over the edge I went and landed in hospital. Within a couple of days there, it was decided that I was bipolar. From fine and functioning ( supposedly! ) to mentally ill in a matter of about 48 hours. I have had 10 episodes over the years when my bipolar has gone cosmic and catapulted me back into hospital. My daily life is a breathtaking circus of moods, energy swings interspersed with doses of crippling depression. This trigger was the start of a life which revolves around managing my mental illness.

I still love the dressing up box but I don't need to be doing exactly what 5 year old me said I ought to do. However, I do need to be doing what 5 year old me meant. 5 year old children know what feels good and what makes them glad to be alive. It might be jelly, swimming with dolphins or making ice palaces with your thoughts. The point is when you ask a 5 year old what they want to be when they grow up, they are actually just telling you that they want to be happy. So all you have to do when you grow up , is try and figure out what the hell that is. Make it easy for yourself and don't listen to anyone else. You can spend money on life coaches and gurus until you're blue in the face. You will make them very happy. Try taking yourself off autopilot and revisit the playground. I did and realised that I just want to be creative and feel appreciated for it. Bingo. It wasn't rocket science.

I'll meet you by the sandpit and you can tell me what you're up to.

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Thank you once more to the exceptionally talented Diana Muller for kind permission to use her illustrations. She very cleverly makes her living in the art corner.

You Can't Say That !

Navigating the political correctness of today's world in any context is a minefield. None more so than the language of mental illness. We tiptoe on eggshells, editing our streams of thought, trying not to offend and getting ourselves tongue-tied in the process.

Therefore, I am going to divide everybody into 3 groups. Already, I am tripping over what to call everyone, so I am going to go for the easy option. Fruit. So let's meet the Apples, Oranges and Pears.

The Apples

 

You are an Apple if you do not have a diagnosed mental illness. You are also an Apple if you feel you do not struggle on any basis, diagnosed or not, with an issue such as depression or anxiety, mild OCD etc.

                                                                    

                                                                             The Oranges

You are an orange if you have felt depressed, anxious, or perhaps aware of OCD tendencies that bother you and that you probably hide. You may take occasional prescribed medication but you try very hard to be an Apple which stresses you out, and you are terrified that you might be a Pear.

The Pears

You are a Pear if you are in my club ! Hurrah and welcome ! It has all gone pear-shaped for us at some point and most of us have done time on the psych ward. We have an official diagnosis, lots of medication, and there's really no hiding our illness although we may not exactly advertise it on billboards. We are officially bipolar, depressed, schizophrenic and everything in-between.

Now that we have that sorted and yes, of course you can be cross-breed of any of the above as you see fit, we can continue. Let's have an English lesson. The Pears get top billing.

The Mentally Ill

This is generally agreed to be the most widely accepted and correct term for the Pears. But nobody uses formal, correct terminology all the time. In the same way that we don't all sit down to a meal laid out with full cutlery and napkins three times a day, we do not refer to the Pears politely and in hushed tones as “Mentally Ill”. When we refer to them in common idiomatic terms we start treading on toes and giving ammunition to the stigma police. If we talk about the mad, the mentalers, nutters, loonies, fruit-cakes, crazies, psychos, crackpots, and weirdos who are insane, unsound, unhinged, a few sandwiches short of a picnic, bananas (fruit again!) deranged and utterly bonkers then it's easy to get into hot water.

But what do the Pears call themselves? Well, anything we like. We bear the cross, we'll park it where we choose. Pears, particularly the out-and-proud Pears, seem to delight in the use of any manner of comic or derogatory language before all and sundry. This divides all the fruit into diverse opinion. Many apples and oranges are perhaps a bit bemused. They may use the same terms in private but “You can't say that!” in public. I know that some feel that it's unfair that different rules apply to the Pears in this context. 

Ironically the blatant use of non-PC terms by the Pears can actually alienate Apples and Oranges in their understanding of them. Perhaps because they don't see how one would refer to themselves that way or it might just make them plain uncomfortable. But sometimes, it puts the other fruit at ease. But then, funnily enough, the Pears are divided on this issue too. Some Pears feel unhappy and misrepresented. They feel that it is self-stigmatising and adds to the problematic issue of stigma in the wider world. For others, it is a release and often a means of bonding with our “tribe”, but even this is not true for all. There really is an ongoing issue for all Pears with the language of mental illness. No-one can please all fruit all the time.

We all know the public use of stigmatising and offensive language is a hot topic. It is traumatic for the slandered and those discriminated against and it lies at the root of that dangerous beast – herd mentality. Running with the hare and running with the hounds to keep onside with one's peers accounts for a huge proportion of expressed opinion. Human evolution favours the social chameleon. So herd mentality will sweep up the undecided and give the timid a cool gang to hang out with. That's fine if we're in high school keeping up with trending boy bands, but it's a different story when someone is bullied with words.

All Fruit are very sensitive souls and bruise easily. Pears more so I think, because it is our sensitivity which often has triggered us into our diagnosis. Perhaps the Apples have tougher skin, or just healthier and more balanced emotional boundaries. Oranges subdivide into far too many segments as as far as their skin thickness, peel-ability and whatnot goes and my fruit metaphor is in danger of letting me down at any second.

I know a lot of Pears use comic and crazy terms as a coping mechanism. It is a defence. As my mother said, you either have to laugh or cry. We feel we have so much to cry about that given half a chance to laugh we will, and laugh as hard as we can. We will give laissez-faire to the Apples and Oranges to join us in doing so - but beware! Danger ! Our emotional sensitivities change with the breeze and what we laughed along with on Tuesday might send us into floods of tears on Friday afternoon. How will you know when it's OK to call us mental and laugh with us and when it isn't ? You won't. Nor will we. Because at some level it always hurts really, no matter who says it. That is because it isn't actually the words that are the problem. Rotting fruit by any other name would still be stinky. It is our illness that we hate.

Briefly, I must just mention the wonderful members of life's fruit salad who advocate that “illness” is not present in the equation, only “difference”. There is no septic or infected tissue, no organic disease and where indeed is the physical location of the mind? I thank them, for to me, this reinforces my personal crusade against my illness. I ride out towards it sometimes like a knight with a lance and bellow “ I am not ill ! ” But the knight charging back at me from the other direction is my mirror image, and she most certainly has been. Often. And the severity of my experiences warrant the term “illness”. It dignifies and qualifies them for, if I try and think of myself as “not ill”, where do I file and categorise my odysseys in hell? In my recovery and positive times however “different” feels more comfortable. Whatever you want to call me, I'm a quirky Pear.

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The GLORIOUS cartoons in this article are the creations of the talented Toin Adams who actually drew them specially for me. For this, and her wonderful fruitiness,  I give her thanks,

The Smallest Twine

" Being that I flow in grief , the smallest twine may lead me"

Much Ado About Nothing  - William Shakespeare

Much Ado About Nothing is one of my favourite plays.... it really is an awful lot of fuss about a fairly flimsy bit of plot which would clearly never happen in real life - BUT - that isn't the point ! I still like it and I watched the 1993 film version starring Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh just the other day.

Sculpture by artist Toin Adams

It was Shakespeare's birthday this week and I choose to acknowledge that by stealing one of his quotes for this post. Leonato, the uncle of the lovely young Hero, is staggered to discover that she is accused of being wth another man the night before her wedding. It turns out in the end that she wasn't but he doesn't know that at first and he is absoutely beside himself with despair. The priest believes she is innocent however and suggests to him that they pretend she is dead until they uncover what has actually happened. ( !  I know ! ) Leonato, in his anguish says "Being that I flow in grief, the smallest twine may lead me".

Now, I'm no expert, but I don't think ropey, deliberately concocted lies about a bride-to-be's virginity are commonplace tragic issues any longer, but that evocative line really jumped out at me. For me, it totally descibes that extraordinary feeling in the grips of depression when I simply cannot think for myself any longer.

When I'm depressed I have a really limited capacity for feeling. The hollowness and sheer desolation of depression steals that away entirely. I feel numb, blank and removed from myself. I have found that I become quite open to emotional suggestion.  If a notion occurs to me that feels like it will relieve or change the living death in which I exist, I will follow it like a broken, unthinking, whipped animal .

This suggestion,  or "small twine",  can be positive or negative or even a psychotic hallucination, but it holds great power.  For example, the notion of suicide .... the absence of positivity and the potential of a tortured mind is a lethal cocktail. The desire for an end to the pain is so strong that it doesn't take much to get lost in the idea. Or, the promise of healing and disease management from flower essences, homeopathy and various alternative therapies when anything seems worth trying.  I tried but to be honest my terrifyingly immense waves of mania black holes of depression have overpowered any and all alternative methods. I always end up hospitalised and drugged to the gills. I know that there is value to alternative treatments - I desperately wanted them to work for me, but they never did. Or I will simply heap all my faith and hope at the feet of some perceived "guru" who I imagine to hold all the answers and explanations to my problems. I have gone after bits of twine all over the place - good , bad and some truly fantastical. There is limited, dubious and often totally absent judgment in the mind when it is ill, suffering and in pain. That is when questionable and dangerous choice are made.

So I call out to those who care about us. I call out to the husbands, wives, fathers and mothers, partners, lovers, daughters, sons, friends and colleagues of the 1 in 4 people in this world who live with the daily soul-destroying erosion of the spirit visited upon us by illnesses NOT of our choosing or design. When you feel you simply cannot understand, when you feel frustrated, confused, rejected, lost, manipulated, abused, taken for granted, forgotten - when you feel we make too much out of it, when you feel it has no substance or is some modern indulgence (after all, people never had mental illnes in the old days) ... when you feel powerless, helpless, ineffectual and alone and you want to escape it all too..... please know that the smallest things can lead the way. For you and for us.

We don't need superhuman, epic feats of heroism. A simple inner resolve on your part to keep trying, listening and learning may be the small twine that we can reach for. You do not have all the answers and you cannot fix us. But, there may come a moment when you are the sole reason we choose to carry on. For that, we thank you.

And as we flow in our grief and confusion, may we yet find the twine that draws us to safer shores.

Original artwork featured  is a sculpture by Toin Adams - click to visit website

Photograph:  Olhos d' Agua beach, Algarve, Portugal.

STIGMA SURVIVAL - A CINDERELLA STORY

How stigma has made me who I am

Join me.     Let me take you back 16 years .....

It is February 1998 and I am shell-shocked after my first nervous breakdown. I have received my mental illness diagnosis. I am suffering from bipolar disorder.

I emerged from a 4 week hospital stay on the wobbly new-born legs of my brand new identity. Mentally Ill. For life. I had crossed that lovely big fat safe line between “us” - the sane, and “them” - the mad. I was one of "them". The mad ones. And I knew I was for sure. The extreme and fairly public nature of my breakdown would get Hollywood baying for the screen rights. I lost my high flying, well paid job in the West End of London in artist management. Gone, the days of negotiating deals worth thousands of pounds for my clients, gone the days of working in a respected team promoting big stars in the world of film and tv, gone the glamour and elegance of big opening nights and royal film premières. I was only 25.

Blinking in the blinding darkness of depression now, I yo-yoed around on psychiatric medicines. What on earth was wrong with me? I had been FINE. And now? This? I went to my GP in utter confusion wanting help, wanting to talk. I remember sitting down across the table from her. I asked her what had happened to me. I remember her words to this day, they still cut to my soul. I had only just been born and she hammered a nail into the coffin I didn't even know was waiting for me.

“Well, you just went mad” she said.

She gave me anti-depressants but they didn't touch the place I descended to next. I do remember banging my head repeatedly against a wall once not long after that because the physical pain soothed the searing agony of confusion in my head. I didn't know I had just met Cinderella's hideous step-sisters. The ignorant, cowardly, unfeeling bullies of stigma.

Those harpies showed their face when I finally tried to pick myself up again. A month or so later, I started looking for work. I decided to try and throw myself back into my old life. After all, I had been FINE. I was offered a job at another major talent agency in the West End. I thought my life was going to be OK, I would have a reason to live again. I was wrong.

The Sunday night before I was due to start work, the man I was to work for rang me up. He started shouting and swearing at me. ( He was known for this, but that doesn't help). He asked me when the f&*k would I have told him about my nervous breakdown and that because I hadn't disclosed it, there was no way I could expect to work for him, there was no job for me, I was not fit to work in his firm. I stood there, shaking, holding the phone like my final lifeline. I could barely get a word in he was shouting so much. I apologised. I said I was sorry. I stammered that I would have told him really soon, it was new to me and I didn't realise I should have told him, but I was going to be fine and I was really good at my job. I tried to sound calm and professional whilst in reality I died slowly, screaming in resistance against that yawning coffin drawing me in. He hung up on me. It was over. The West End world of showbiz is tiny. Word was out. I was finished. I stood there frozen. I felt my world shatter around me. No matter where I turned in the industry I knew, this hideous shame would follow me now. I would be the agent who went mad. Everyone would know.

My next effort, another month or so later, saw me trying to rebuild a social life. I had been hermetically sealed away in depression for months and I thought if I tried to reach out to actual real people, people who had known me before my breakdown I would start to feel like living again. It was July 1998, my birthday. A full 6 months after my breakdown. So, I decided to have a birthday party. I started ringing round and leaving messages. I hoped people would be happy to hear from me, I had been so quiet. I wasn't ready for the first reaction I got.

A friend, who had also been a client of mine, responded with extreme anger. She found out that back when I was in hospital I had contacted another one of my clients, a mutual friend. Not long before my admission, I had managed to negotiate a career changing deal for him in a major TV soap. As a new high profile regular, this would catapult him into fame. He was a great guy, a good actor and a friend and I was proud. Somehow, through the mysterious fog of medication and hovering psychosis, I had managed to use the phone from hospital. I happened to remember his phone number. No idea how. I didn't have any address books with me and staff in hospital limit contact with the outside world to protect you from inappropriate or embarrassing communication before you are well again.

My memory of that phone call is hazy at best, but I remember my intention. I wanted to wish him well. I had been torn away from everything and everyone I knew, lost my job and the reality of my potential future as fallen from grace was already looming. I just wanted to feel one last time that I had achieved something good in the midst of my catastrophic failure as a human. It backfired 6 months later. My birthday invitation incited this woman to anger. She said she couldn't believe that I was just casually trying to invite her to my birthday after hearing nothing from me since my disappearance. She was furious that I had managed to ring the other client at the time of my breakdown and talk to him, but not her. I started stuttering again, trying to explain. I tried to explain how drugged, dazed and confused I was in hospital, I didn't have phone numbers. I even tried to explain the hermetic, reclusive hell of depression afterwards but my voice fell on deaf ears. I am aware that my breakdown and leaving the agency affected the professional lives of other people. Actors relied on me for work. The agency I left had to deal with the fallout and I don't know what happened to all my clients. An actor's life is stressful and unsure and they rely on their agents like a lifeline. I had let people down, and clearly this woman felt justified in turning on me. I was deeply shocked, because before this, she had been a friend. I stopped trying to invite anyone to a birthday party. There was no party at all.

Now, I no longer felt able to seek work in the field I knew. I was certainly becoming more and more afraid of contacting people. I was terrified of coming out of the woodwork hoping old friends might welcome me with open arms.

Eventually though, I did keep trying. I applied for work in other areas of the industry, where I hoped my story wouldn't be known. I had come from a high profile world. So I sort of slunk sideways and finally found work on the television crew of a long running popular TV series. I was right down at the very bottom of the ladder. The lowest paid, and unimportant. I tried to stay anonymous and inconspicuous. I remember pottering past the office of the executive with whom I had once wrangled big money contracts for the stars of the series, feeling grateful never to have met him face to face in my previous incarnation. How mortifying it would be for him to recognise me. Now, I just shuffled in the shadows in yet another identity, hiding from my hideous history.

After a while, my life changed again, and I moved to the south of Ireland. I spent ten years living there before returning to the UK. Whispers would come back to me through the grapevine of people's reactions hearing about my bipolar diagnosis. For example, a mother whose children I taught apparently said she would not want me driving them in my car. Then, there were some friends who made uninformed assumptions about me when I went into crisis once before their eyes. They proceeded to write me off as looking for attention and causing drama for the sake of it. Then, I lost a relationship with someone for whom my behaviour when unwell was simply too much to comprehend or be associated with.

Later again, I started going out with a truly wonderful man, and against the odds I felt that my life might come together again. However at least two people felt duty bound to warn him that I was crackers. One actually walked right up to him and said “You do know she's completely mad, don't you ?” Luckily for me, he did know. And he married me anyway. That person actually apologised to him afterwards – but never to me. That hurt.

Back in the UK again, I vowed to keep my illness under wraps a bit more. I decided to take an Irish psychiatrist's advice NOT to disclose my illness because of social stigma. She said I would find life easier. She was wrong. I was stifling myself. Trapping myself in a straight-jacket of my own design. Sixteen years of stigma and pressure, ten horrible life-mutilating hospital admissions, the daily roller-coaster of completely unpredictable extreme mood and energy swings, debilitated by the exhaustion of insomnia, sleeping pill hangovers and daily medication. Who do I tell ? Who do I trust ? Which friends will stay ? Which job will I lose now?

Added to all this, in the past 5 years, my world has been touched by sorrow and traumas unrelated to my diagnosis. In 2008, my beloved father suffered a massive stroke and I watched and waited for him to die slowly over a couple of weeks. In 2012, my mother died suddenly from a burst aneurysm and I rushed for four hours to get to her, but missed her by ten minutes. I sat with her for ages, gathering her close up into my arms. For me, she was the last person on earth who truly knew me. Also, I would love to say that my marriage was plain sailing through all of this, but it wasn't. My private family life was suffering for separate reasons. I remember holding my mum and feeling that now, I was truly alone. There would be no-one to rescue me any more.

Grappling with all this, in 2013 I had another major depressive episode which lasted months. Once again, as I tried to emerge from it and reach out, a close friendship which had helped me through much of this tripped, faltered and fell. For nearly a year I have withdrawn, crippled with a sense of paranoia, second guessing myself at every turn about how I am perceived as a person. During this hibernation however, a mysterious, almost esoteric “caterpillar thing” has happened. Something beyond words. I have changed. I don't really know how or when exactly. It didn't happen overnight, but slowly. Finally, I find I have emerged and decided I will no longer choose who to trust. I will tell everyone, and wait to see who chooses to trust me.

So I found my voice and came out publicly and so far the world has come forward to meet me with open arms. Friends have shared my writing and people approach me privately to share their stories and even ask for my help. Every day now, I wake up and discover that I can breathe. At last.

People are saying how strong and brave I am. I haven't thought of myself in that way often in my life. I have been thinking about how I have found this new strength. I think the answer is this : it is precisely because of the years of opposition and suppressive stigma I have faced that I actually found this courage. I had nothing else. When I was ill, depressed and afraid I certainly had no courage, even though I wanted it. But I have stopped judging myself through the eyes of others. I have stopped editing what I want to say because of people's actions in the past. I have stopped tormenting myself over what I imagine others might be thinking and I speak because I don't want to choke any more. Only I have the power to change my mind, only I have the power to change my world and how I live in it. So I can be the risk taker if I want to, throw my straight-jacket to the wind and let it fall where it may.

The me that once sat quivering in the corner of the locked solitary confinement room, or held down kicking and screaming by four nurses and forcibly sedated with a massive needle .... that petrified young woman never dreamed that anyone would want to hear her one day. But I am speaking, I am telling my story and people want to listen.

Every snarl of stigma has dissolved into air. I will no longer listen. Every whip which has ever thrashed and beaten me with condemnation and every fence which has ever held me in lies burning.

Nothing more than timber on an ever growing pile. I am not the sorry heap of rags underneath it, in unwashed pyjamas and a dirty dressing gown with the belt taken away by the nurses on the ward because “ I pose a risk to myself and other patients”. That isn't me. 

It turns out that I am actually wonderful. I am more fiery than I knew.... and I've started a bonfire party where everyone's invited. It beats any fairytale ball and no-one has to leave at midnight. Stigma is powerless ash at my feet … we have marshmallows in the flames..... sweet with the peaceful joy of solidarity, acceptance, patience, forgiveness and truth.

There's plenty to go round, I promise. Join me.

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All artwork by Diana Muller at Diana Muller Fine Art
Pieces featured here in order are entitled  "Frozen" , "Somewhere Else", "Nebula" and finally "Conflagration"

All images used here with her kind permission for which I offer my profound thanks.

Thanks go also to her and her family who have always supported, loved and even sheltered me. A joy to know you all and have you in my life. See also http://www.brushwoodstudios.com/ for more of their art.

Mental Illness is an equal opportunities employer.

My husband has an observation which always make me laugh. When he used to visit me in hospital, he would see me chatting with my fellow patients on the ward. Usually I was to be found in the smoking room or somewhere being fairly sociable if I was in the mood. For me, there is nothing in the world quite like the shared experience of fellow psychiatric patients when we sit talking together. There are times when I have never laughed harder.  My husband says it is like witnessing the biggest in-joke in the world.

I feel a particular private freedom and license to be truly and wonderfully myself in this context. Why ? I have not one jot of fear of stigma or judgement about anything that I could say. Not a one. I may not have the same point of view as someone else, I may not look, talk or think the same way and we may come from social worlds a thousand miles apart. But what we have in common is so excrutiatingly deep that I feel a sense of belonging that transcends description.

This sense of belonging is a double edged sword though. We don't all sit together on the ward having a non-stop fraternity love-in. Most of us will at some point feel.... "Oh my God, is this me ? Is this who I am ? One of them ?"

Remember mental illness couldn't care less if you are a member of the Royal family, or born to a crack addict single mum on a housing estate or if you have a  learning difficulty or physical disability. 1 in 4 people currently suffer from a mental illness. When we regard each other we are not blind to these differences. As such we can feel drawn to someone or uncomfortable around them just as we would if we had not met because of our mental health situation. Either way, it's irrelevant because when we feel "Oh god is this me ? Am I really one of them? " the resounding answer is actually no. We are infinitely unique. We are not the same.

This is the point that the 1 in 4 people in the world would like the 3 in 4 to understand. Absolutely anyone can suffer so please stop the stigma. BUT here's the thing .... consciously or subconsciously the 3 in 4 know this perfectly well already which is why they are afraid. Fear and stigma are close bedfellows. When we fear something, we are programmed to distance ourselves from it because at a basic biological level we perceive it as a potential threat.

Fortunately, The discoveries of neuroscience explain to us the phenomenon called “neuroplasticity” which is the ability of our brains and minds to change. For example, thinking even only once in a different way about something changes a neural pathway in the brain. What this means is that potentially the next time we encounter that same thought we link up to the time we had a different opinion. Then the choice of how we think or react has opened up because we have been informed. This is how stigma is defeated. Thought by thought, conversation by conversation. This is how we see change occurring. This is how we transform.

I did. I changed my mind about myself. And I set myself free.

Photographs are of sculptures by Toin Adams http://www.toinadams.com/