I wholeheartedly agree - current discussion online to me focus on mental health “lite” and there is an absolute need to talk about the ground shaking, unable to carry on as “normal” illness that I have in my life experienced. There is also a generational legacy to it that is oft missed - is it because but a mere generation ago as your mothers uni letter points to it was not ok to talk about it openly (sometimes I still feel as though it isn’t!) I love that you are opening up this conversation and unveiling those places we have all missed/kept quiet about x
So true and I appreciate the space you’re creating for conversation, and for people to share their deeper, darker experiences. As someone who has witnessed serious mental health problems take hold, and take the life of someone close to me, I am here for it 💛
It's so very hard to be on the outside, trying to support someone in acute distress, Sarah. Thanks for sharing that and I hope your loved one received the help, support and compassion they needed. x
I was saddened to read the letters to your mum. We've moved in the right direction around mental health, but can't help thinking that the sentiment of the consultants letter is what many people still feel, they just don't say it out loud to sufferers. Looking forward to reading your memoir.
Completely agree. And that people are frightened of mental illness, and aren't really sure how to talk to someone who is in a crisis. What works? What doesn't? I've even heard mental health practitioners nowadays getting it wrong. X
Sending love and thanks for this, Lindsay. Very much relate and agree.
It probably says something that I've written this comment several times and never finished the thought! For my own two cents, I'm medicated, and likely will be for the rest of my life, and it can be a very difficult conversation (with new people, with new medical staff) when surrounded by equally necessary awareness campaigns etc about recovery, about mental ill health affecting everyone etc.
It really does and I'm very glad we're finally having those conversations, but I've also been so aware of the distinction you mention when trying to explain that it's a lifelong, chronic condition, and it's not always going to be present in my life in predictable or convenient ways, despite my best efforts to live with it and good support it, and I've largely made my peace with it in order to live my actual life. This is sometimes interpreted as giving up or pessimism of some kind by well-meaning strangers in a way that's very familiar from disability inspiration nonsense.
There seems to be a false binary in some general mental health narratives that you either recover and you're happy, or not. There's not so many spaces to talk about living with it as a chronic presence in your or your family's life and being happy anyway.
That's a long way to say: I'm not sure where the place is for those stories, so I'm so so glad you're making this community here and carving it out for us all. xx
I'm medicated now too, Kay. I have to be honest and say that therapy is only one part of the complex puzzle that currently keeps my head above water.
I really appreciate what you're sharing about your experience of mental ill health being part of you, not something that can be cured or removed. It's intrinsic. I imagine symptoms flaring up in the way that physically-manifesting chronic conditions might (and my symptoms of mental illness are often physical, too). I believe in the importance of (self) compassion as well as treatment in whatever combination works, but know that that too will likely shift with time and circumstance.
It's so interesting actually, to frame mental illness as a chronic condition. I'm going to think more on this because you've reminded me that as a young person caring for my mum, I used to liken a depressive episode to a broken leg, which it absolutely was not! A picture of breaking and healing, maybe, supported me through that because it wasn't palatable to imagine she would never fully recover.
I don't think that acceptance or making peace with reality is in any way a sign of giving up or lying down to it, either. It's a sign of deep personal insight and compassion. Not rejecting what is, but finding a way to live with it. Sending Monday strength your way, pal.xx
I personally think the term for mental illness/ health/ disorder can be used outside a clinical setting however the person likes to call it. Like artists adapt things to suit their stories. But in my current mental health series I’ve focused on saying an array of those terms and advocating against the use of “self care.”
I hope “self care” suggestions for dealing with serious mental health struggles wraps itself in a face mask and dissolves from conversation.
Oh, Chanel, I am with you there. Self care needs to go. Thanks for this input; I actually thought of you when was writing this piece. Thank you for the amazing work you are doing, too. x
There are echos of my own story here Lindsay. My mum has manic depression or bipolar as they refer to it too. We know where it stems from, but she was never offered any opportunity to heal from that, just given Lithium and electric shock therapy. In between episodes she successfully ran a business with my dad and provided a home for me and my sister. Because of my awareness, I have been determined not to follow the same path and try and take good care of my mental health. That sometimes feels like a tiring battle. There was also little support for her family that had to be there to pick up the pieces. That would have helped me enormously as I am still healing from a lot of it. Thank you for sharing son such an important topic.
Yes, this is so familiar to me, and I'm sorry that we share these experiences. It sounds like your mother did an amazing job managing her illness as best she could at the time, but it must have been also so difficult.
My mother and grandmother were never offered talking therapy, nor had their experiences of mental illness and addiction questioned. It was just a chemical imbalance. A wiring thing. A quick fix, though, doesn't heal.
I was motivated to take up the offer of therapy because I had such distrust of the forms of treatment they had endured. Let's keep talking and sharing. x
I could write so much in response to this article, as there is mental *illness* in my family, inlcuding the loss of a loved one due to manic depression. But going to keep it simple... Even though things are talked about more, I still do not think it is in the capacity that it needs to be. Overall, unless one is in a psychotic episode, it is an unseen illness that people often push through, and not share about due to shame or their own insecurtiy. I cannot wait to read your story and get to know you more in this space.
Hey Jennifer. Thank you so much for this response, and I'm sorry to hear that a loved one lost their life to mental illness. I totally agree with you that the parts of these illnesses that are unseen remain so because of shame. I take my own experiences as an example, though I know my mum also feels shame following a depressive episode, and was made to feel shamed after a manic one in the past, too. There is so much guilt for what the sufferer's family also endure, even though it's not the sufferer's fault they are unwell. Oh, so many facets to this. And lovely to connect with you here, too.
I feel like we could talk for hours on this topic. Mental health is a passion of mine and though it now is more related to motherhood there is so much within family that I have dealt with, and agree, the family member also endures so much. I have had it with multiple family members (including my father) and it takes a toll on you and there is so much healing you also have to do because of how your own mental health is effected. Thank you for talking so openly about this--the disucssions *need* to happen.
I am so proud of you Lindsay. Your courage and honesty is already helping so many of us and your shining a light on the darkness is going to have so many positive ripples. I think the reaction you've had to sharing more shows how much the world needs your memoir.
You're also such a beautiful writer - your truth in your words is so powerful. Reading this it seems like you are also getting so much out of writing your stories down and using your creativity in this way.
This is no mean feat though. What you're doing is hard. I see you!
You are so right, Janelle. There is much benefit in the act of writing as well as the sharing. I'm writing about the complexities of sharing our personal stories this Sunday since the media has been full of it this past week.
I'm also thinking about care, though, and the ways that we must seek to look after one another and safeguard against harm when we do this important work. What will be be thinking further down the line, I wonder, about all we have chosen to put into the public domain? Anyway, I am so glad to have you here and always appreciate your kindness.xx
Thanks for your comment, Mary. It means such a lot to me that this is striking a chord and opening up this space for discussion and sharing. We need it more than ever.
Hello again Lindsay! I will try and catch up on all the posts I've missed by subscribing so late, but I wanted to comment on this one as I too, have a family history of mental illness and addiction (my mum and her mum), as well as myself living with anxiety and depression. There is so much shame around mental health and illness, and although we're encouraged to talk (Time to Talk?), nobody really wants to hear about the hard stuff. Just 'self care' (gah!). And if you do need to talk to a professional, forget it unless you can afford a private therapist. You will be lucky to be offered telephone CBT on the underfunded NHS services.
The funding of mental health provision is so patchy across the country and can be totally hit and miss. My mum's support from a third sector service provider contracted by the LA has just been pulled, and we're having to look afresh at options for her care. I was so lucky to be offered psychotherapy after completing a course of CBT on the NHS, which then became three years of psychoanalysis. This was 'right place right time' stuff as my therapist was training and I was deemed a 'good case'... Which brought a whole new dynamic to the relationship!
Here for all of the hard chat. The unsavoury, the chronic. Shame, begone.x
Very interesting Lindsay. I didn’t know that you grew up with mentally ill parents. My own mother has a long history of depression and paranoid schizophrenia, my dad possibly had his issues too, though went undiagnosed. My older brother almost certainly has some serious mental health problems, again mostly undiagnosed and he’s in his mid fifties.
Good points also about the need to use the right language in order to hold frank discussions about these difficult issues.
How much can you attribute to genetics, upbringing, brain chemistry, personality and basic luck, life experiences and circumstances. That’s a question I’m still wrestling with these days.
Perhaps there are no clear cut answers to these questions anyway.
Sadly I don't think there are any clear-cut answers, either. But the very fact that we are embracing enquiry is so important, Jools. We are doing the right thing for ourselves and for future generations, if that applies. I just think that being open about our own struggles as well as giving others the opportunity to voice theirs is so important.
Sorry to read about your family, too. It can be so hard to look after yourself when so many folk around you are suffering, too.
I wholeheartedly agree - current discussion online to me focus on mental health “lite” and there is an absolute need to talk about the ground shaking, unable to carry on as “normal” illness that I have in my life experienced. There is also a generational legacy to it that is oft missed - is it because but a mere generation ago as your mothers uni letter points to it was not ok to talk about it openly (sometimes I still feel as though it isn’t!) I love that you are opening up this conversation and unveiling those places we have all missed/kept quiet about x
Hi Laura. I am so with you on this. I think that there is such a hunger for these discussions regardless of how far we've come. x
“Shame thrives in the dark.”
So true and I appreciate the space you’re creating for conversation, and for people to share their deeper, darker experiences. As someone who has witnessed serious mental health problems take hold, and take the life of someone close to me, I am here for it 💛
It's so very hard to be on the outside, trying to support someone in acute distress, Sarah. Thanks for sharing that and I hope your loved one received the help, support and compassion they needed. x
I was saddened to read the letters to your mum. We've moved in the right direction around mental health, but can't help thinking that the sentiment of the consultants letter is what many people still feel, they just don't say it out loud to sufferers. Looking forward to reading your memoir.
Completely agree. And that people are frightened of mental illness, and aren't really sure how to talk to someone who is in a crisis. What works? What doesn't? I've even heard mental health practitioners nowadays getting it wrong. X
🙏🏻
Sending love and thanks for this, Lindsay. Very much relate and agree.
It probably says something that I've written this comment several times and never finished the thought! For my own two cents, I'm medicated, and likely will be for the rest of my life, and it can be a very difficult conversation (with new people, with new medical staff) when surrounded by equally necessary awareness campaigns etc about recovery, about mental ill health affecting everyone etc.
It really does and I'm very glad we're finally having those conversations, but I've also been so aware of the distinction you mention when trying to explain that it's a lifelong, chronic condition, and it's not always going to be present in my life in predictable or convenient ways, despite my best efforts to live with it and good support it, and I've largely made my peace with it in order to live my actual life. This is sometimes interpreted as giving up or pessimism of some kind by well-meaning strangers in a way that's very familiar from disability inspiration nonsense.
There seems to be a false binary in some general mental health narratives that you either recover and you're happy, or not. There's not so many spaces to talk about living with it as a chronic presence in your or your family's life and being happy anyway.
That's a long way to say: I'm not sure where the place is for those stories, so I'm so so glad you're making this community here and carving it out for us all. xx
I'm medicated now too, Kay. I have to be honest and say that therapy is only one part of the complex puzzle that currently keeps my head above water.
I really appreciate what you're sharing about your experience of mental ill health being part of you, not something that can be cured or removed. It's intrinsic. I imagine symptoms flaring up in the way that physically-manifesting chronic conditions might (and my symptoms of mental illness are often physical, too). I believe in the importance of (self) compassion as well as treatment in whatever combination works, but know that that too will likely shift with time and circumstance.
It's so interesting actually, to frame mental illness as a chronic condition. I'm going to think more on this because you've reminded me that as a young person caring for my mum, I used to liken a depressive episode to a broken leg, which it absolutely was not! A picture of breaking and healing, maybe, supported me through that because it wasn't palatable to imagine she would never fully recover.
I don't think that acceptance or making peace with reality is in any way a sign of giving up or lying down to it, either. It's a sign of deep personal insight and compassion. Not rejecting what is, but finding a way to live with it. Sending Monday strength your way, pal.xx
Lindsay you are doing such incredible work!! ⭕️🙏
Thanks, Claire. It feels more necessary than ever. x
I personally think the term for mental illness/ health/ disorder can be used outside a clinical setting however the person likes to call it. Like artists adapt things to suit their stories. But in my current mental health series I’ve focused on saying an array of those terms and advocating against the use of “self care.”
I hope “self care” suggestions for dealing with serious mental health struggles wraps itself in a face mask and dissolves from conversation.
Oh, Chanel, I am with you there. Self care needs to go. Thanks for this input; I actually thought of you when was writing this piece. Thank you for the amazing work you are doing, too. x
Thought of me?! Well that makes this morning sweeter.
There are echos of my own story here Lindsay. My mum has manic depression or bipolar as they refer to it too. We know where it stems from, but she was never offered any opportunity to heal from that, just given Lithium and electric shock therapy. In between episodes she successfully ran a business with my dad and provided a home for me and my sister. Because of my awareness, I have been determined not to follow the same path and try and take good care of my mental health. That sometimes feels like a tiring battle. There was also little support for her family that had to be there to pick up the pieces. That would have helped me enormously as I am still healing from a lot of it. Thank you for sharing son such an important topic.
Yes, this is so familiar to me, and I'm sorry that we share these experiences. It sounds like your mother did an amazing job managing her illness as best she could at the time, but it must have been also so difficult.
My mother and grandmother were never offered talking therapy, nor had their experiences of mental illness and addiction questioned. It was just a chemical imbalance. A wiring thing. A quick fix, though, doesn't heal.
I was motivated to take up the offer of therapy because I had such distrust of the forms of treatment they had endured. Let's keep talking and sharing. x
I could write so much in response to this article, as there is mental *illness* in my family, inlcuding the loss of a loved one due to manic depression. But going to keep it simple... Even though things are talked about more, I still do not think it is in the capacity that it needs to be. Overall, unless one is in a psychotic episode, it is an unseen illness that people often push through, and not share about due to shame or their own insecurtiy. I cannot wait to read your story and get to know you more in this space.
Hey Jennifer. Thank you so much for this response, and I'm sorry to hear that a loved one lost their life to mental illness. I totally agree with you that the parts of these illnesses that are unseen remain so because of shame. I take my own experiences as an example, though I know my mum also feels shame following a depressive episode, and was made to feel shamed after a manic one in the past, too. There is so much guilt for what the sufferer's family also endure, even though it's not the sufferer's fault they are unwell. Oh, so many facets to this. And lovely to connect with you here, too.
I feel like we could talk for hours on this topic. Mental health is a passion of mine and though it now is more related to motherhood there is so much within family that I have dealt with, and agree, the family member also endures so much. I have had it with multiple family members (including my father) and it takes a toll on you and there is so much healing you also have to do because of how your own mental health is effected. Thank you for talking so openly about this--the disucssions *need* to happen.
I am so proud of you Lindsay. Your courage and honesty is already helping so many of us and your shining a light on the darkness is going to have so many positive ripples. I think the reaction you've had to sharing more shows how much the world needs your memoir.
You're also such a beautiful writer - your truth in your words is so powerful. Reading this it seems like you are also getting so much out of writing your stories down and using your creativity in this way.
This is no mean feat though. What you're doing is hard. I see you!
You are so right, Janelle. There is much benefit in the act of writing as well as the sharing. I'm writing about the complexities of sharing our personal stories this Sunday since the media has been full of it this past week.
I'm also thinking about care, though, and the ways that we must seek to look after one another and safeguard against harm when we do this important work. What will be be thinking further down the line, I wonder, about all we have chosen to put into the public domain? Anyway, I am so glad to have you here and always appreciate your kindness.xx
Thanks for sharing this with such raw openness and honesty, Lindsay ⭐️
Thanks for your comment, Mary. It means such a lot to me that this is striking a chord and opening up this space for discussion and sharing. We need it more than ever.
Hello again Lindsay! I will try and catch up on all the posts I've missed by subscribing so late, but I wanted to comment on this one as I too, have a family history of mental illness and addiction (my mum and her mum), as well as myself living with anxiety and depression. There is so much shame around mental health and illness, and although we're encouraged to talk (Time to Talk?), nobody really wants to hear about the hard stuff. Just 'self care' (gah!). And if you do need to talk to a professional, forget it unless you can afford a private therapist. You will be lucky to be offered telephone CBT on the underfunded NHS services.
The funding of mental health provision is so patchy across the country and can be totally hit and miss. My mum's support from a third sector service provider contracted by the LA has just been pulled, and we're having to look afresh at options for her care. I was so lucky to be offered psychotherapy after completing a course of CBT on the NHS, which then became three years of psychoanalysis. This was 'right place right time' stuff as my therapist was training and I was deemed a 'good case'... Which brought a whole new dynamic to the relationship!
Here for all of the hard chat. The unsavoury, the chronic. Shame, begone.x
Very interesting Lindsay. I didn’t know that you grew up with mentally ill parents. My own mother has a long history of depression and paranoid schizophrenia, my dad possibly had his issues too, though went undiagnosed. My older brother almost certainly has some serious mental health problems, again mostly undiagnosed and he’s in his mid fifties.
Good points also about the need to use the right language in order to hold frank discussions about these difficult issues.
How much can you attribute to genetics, upbringing, brain chemistry, personality and basic luck, life experiences and circumstances. That’s a question I’m still wrestling with these days.
Perhaps there are no clear cut answers to these questions anyway.
Sadly I don't think there are any clear-cut answers, either. But the very fact that we are embracing enquiry is so important, Jools. We are doing the right thing for ourselves and for future generations, if that applies. I just think that being open about our own struggles as well as giving others the opportunity to voice theirs is so important.
Sorry to read about your family, too. It can be so hard to look after yourself when so many folk around you are suffering, too.
Oh absolutely yeah. Intergenerational trauma is very real and sadly inevitable.