Back the Bill

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You might have heard bits and pieces about 'back the bill' or seen plenty of #backthebill hashtags over the last week. If you're none the wiser it's a parliamentary bill on mental health discrimination proposed by Gavin Barwell, MP for Croydon.

The purpose of the bill is to remove legal barriers that contribute to stigmatised views of mental health problems and in a wider context, send a message that discrimination won't be tolerated. It's supported by the Royal College of Psychiatrists and mental health charities Rethink Mental Illness and Mind. The bill, if passed into law, will

• Amend the Juries Act (1974), removing powers which potentially block 'mentally disordered persons' from sitting on a jury
• Remove powers from The Companies (model articles) Regulations 2008 which state a person may be removed from a position as director of a private or public company 'by reason of their mental health'
• Repeal section 141 of the Mental Health Act (1983) under which an MP will automatically lose their seat if sectioned under the Mental Health Act for more than six months

This bill was read and debated in the House of Commons today, and following overwhelming support, was successfully passed and will now go on to the committee stage, before returning to the Commons for a final vote early in the New Year. 

Of course, this bill doesn't tackle all areas or methods of mental health discrimination, but the fact it has had such support from both parliament and the general public alike means steps are being made in the right direction. But its sad, isn't it, when you consider that most people wouldn't know that these barriers even exist for those of us suffering with mental ill health. We're faced with laws so antiquated they are hard to even fathom. Whilst this should have happened eons ago, the fact that they are being so justly challenged, and hopefully bulldozed, is a reason to be optimistic today.

The conversation about mental illness is gathering pace. That makes some people very uncomfortable still, but we all need to contribute to the momentum of this conversation, educate the haters and turn them into people who understand. One in four of us will suffer some kind of mental ill health in our lifetime, so you can't run and you can't hide, you can't pretend it doesn't happen. People with mental illnesses have just that, an illness. There cannot be one rule for the physically ill, or indeed the physically disabled, and another for those of us on the mental illness and disability spectrum. Whilst that exists, discrimination exists.

I wonder if anyone of you with mental illnesses haven't been discriminated against in one form or another? Sadly, it is still rife, we are still seen as different, odd, mental. We are the last taboo.

Actions, like this bill, give me at least some hope when I'm at home feeling otherwise completely hopeless. I hope that all this means that one day, the discrimination I've faced won't happen to anyone else. One time, years ago, I was arrested: I had been assaulted in an unprovoked attack by a girl in a corridor by the toilets at a pub. I phoned the Police myself. No one else was there to witness it so it was a case of she said/she said, and I also, after being asked a set of questions, disclosed my mental illness: we were both carted off to the station. When I was there, I asked for a doctor to see me, both because of my cuts and bruises, but also because I was taking daily medication at the time and needed some the next morning. I also asked that my social worker therapist, who I was due to see the following morning, be contacted and told where I was. After eventually being released after 18 hours for doing absolutely nothing other than be attacked, and having to keep begging for my meds, I left the station, got straight on my phone and found out the Police had never bothered to call my therapist. 

But perhaps the worst discrimination was at the hands of my last employer, a major international marketing and PR agency. During my time there (6 months) I worked ridiculously long hours, was under major pressure, and that coupled with some pretty horrible stuff going on in my personal life, triggered a cycle of depression. Initially I was given a week off to deal with things, which I was grateful for, but upon returning it was clear I was struggling and they were unhappy with me. After another few weeks I had a total nervous breakdown (are they even called that anymore?!) and was signed off by my GP. I contacted my boss with this information. At the time I was on a 6 month contract which prior to being signed off was in the process of being extended, and a new role had been developed for me. I was informed by HR, not my cowardly boss, that I was surplus to requirements and they were ending my contract there. They used other excuses, but basically, I was fired because I was mentally ill. Thanks for that.

I try not to dwell on that shit, life really is a bit too short to stay angry too long, but I just don't want other people to go through the same. So I'm backing the bill, and hope you will too.

And FYI, I've already done jury service. They can't catch me. Suckers.

Check out Mind's video on the bill here:

Does my anxiety look big in this?

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Anxiety is a pretty complex issue to talk about because it effects people in different ways, for different reasons or because of different events. But when did that ever stop me?

The anxiety I'm talking about right now is the one that makes me obsessive about the way I look, and by 'I' I mean 'every part of my body'. It is probably at the root of many of my ishoos it carves that deep. Now I know there might be a few eyes going glazed and a few fingers clicking off my page thinking "not some miserable cow moaning on about the way she looks". Well if you really want to go, then go. But this shit is real, and I don't have to apologise for it.

My whole life, my weight has yo-yoed. Things went and got serious when I was in my late teens, and I started starving myself both as a way to manage the pain I felt at being persecuted at school, and as way to prove to them and me that I wasn't a 'fatty'. I might add at this point that I've never been fat, at my worst I've been approaching the top part of normal weight parameters for my (very tall) height. But I developed a devastating hate-hate relationship with my body that is still with me, all those years later. 

So first came the starving, the eating tiny meals at best, taking naps after school instead of having to fulfil the call of my desperate stomach pangs. Still I was bullied. I guess they thought I was now a freak for being such a rake? Starvation is a commitment though, trust. I couldn't stick to it, it was too painful both physically and mentally. I moved on to throwing up for a living. The Big B was great for a while as it meant I could still enjoy all the things I loved, food, loads of booze, but I could just chuck up all the crap and get it out after I'd enjoyed it. It felt like the perfect solution and I was proud of myself for managing my 'diet' so well. In reality, I was a delusional mess, and only halted when one night out with the girls, a friend cornered me after my fifth visit to the loo. Sure, I had been drinking a bit, but not enough to make me that sick, "what's going on" she demanded. And suddenly the thrill was gone, my secret had been found out. I felt vile, dirty, that's it, it had been my dirty little secret all along. It was shattered, I was shattered.

Beating being both A & B left me with very little, except to crash diet and feel distraught. I exercised like a beast for periods of time, and couch potatoed the rest. There was no equilibrium, no consistency. There is also a definite correlation between my weight and my bipolar disorder: when I'm high I'm 'skinny' and when I'm low, I'm 'fat'. I'm having a fat moment right now. Fuck.

I write this to you after having been in town with my Mum. For 'a laugh' (those things always turn out bad), we decided to pop to a bridal shop to try on a couple of gowns. I either couldn't get them over my hips, or they were three sizes too big for my boobs, or they were just plain foul. I got to thinking, "oh I definitely need to drop a few pounds before I do this again!". And then I came home, with a full-fat coke and some fizzy, jelly, snake things that I've polished off whilst I been typing. Turns out that right now, I'm in the over eaters club. Can someone please stop this fucking merry-go-round?

For me, the anxiety about how I look governs a massive part of my time, and life in general. It stops me from doing things, wearing half my wardrobe is out as half of it doesn't fit me. The kindly bridal shop woman told me not to loose much weight because the dresses I like need that "bit of curve" I've got going on now. I threw up in my mouth a little at that one...

The truth of this outwardly indulgent post is this: it doesn't matter how much weight I lose or gain, until I face up to my anxiety demons, none of it will ever be good enough, I'll never, ever be happy, or believe the good press about me.

Food for thought?

...makes me want to kill myself!!!

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There are any number of things in life that peeps will use the words "....makes me want to kill myself" for. It could be a hideous haircut that you'll spend the next millennium growing back out, a song played on repeat that gets on your last nerve but you can't help singing along to, one so annoyingly catchy that it burrows into your brain ready to be reactivated at the merest bar of that song playing. It could be...

or even worse...

and it gets worse...WAY WORSE....

Yep, they're definitely up there with Chinese water torture in the 'death is preferable' camp.

So, after that light-hearted musical interlude, its time to talk about the real ish that makes a person want to die. Deep, for sure, but I'm all about educating, dear void. 

Did you know that on the 10th it was World Suicide Prevention Day? No, honest, its not one of those 'world donut day' or 'national greige nail varnish week' press stunts set up to bribe us consumer whores into buying yet more Useless Shit. No, WSPD is all about recognising that people have suicidal thoughts and tendencies, making them aware they are not alone, there is hope, and there is help.

Suicides aren't inevitable. And changing the stigma around them will challenge this very notion. People can be bought back from the very edge, from the point of no return, but it takes a multi-agency approach to do so: coordination between the Government, voluntary groups, public services, the private sector and most definitely from the grass roots at community level. 

I have made three suicidal attempts on my life. The fact I am still here is based on several factors: appropriate help from community mental health teams, my family and fiance, the ambulance service, several A&E departments in the UK, and the Samaritans. Let me tell you that it was with a crushing relief I came through each of my overdoses: waking up in a hospital bed, whilst filled with guilt and anxiety, was the very best outcome each and every time. The sad truth is that, aside from very deliberate and violent suicides, like a colleague of mine who hung himself at home in his stairwell, and a friend of the family who drowned himself in a river, many people taking overdoses (a very common method of both intentional and unintentional suicide) are performing, in their eyes, an almighty cry for help. But the danger of popping a cart-load of anything and everything in your medicine cabinet and thinking the docs will be able to pick up the pieces after you've spent a few hours raging at yourself, is that it might not happen. The docs will only arrive if you're sober enough, or for that matter, conscious enough, to call for them. Or you'll be counting on a friend or partner arriving home to come to your aide. If they don't come, or they come too late, then its curtains. The end. And they get to find you.

Now, this is heavy shit, but I promise anyone reading this who is feeling like the rest of the world and their entire family will be better off without them and is storing up meds or syphoning away ropes or wires to use as ligatures: you will leave a black hole if you pass in that way. Your loved ones will forever wonder why, question if there were things they missed, steps they could've taken to keep you safe. They definitely won't feel better off without you. 

If you're feeling alone or stuck in a situation where you feel there is no escape and that death is favourable, you're wrong. There is always some way out that doesn't put you six feet under. If you have no one to talk to then talk to the Samaritans (they saved my life) or talk to me, email me, let off steam, I'll help you with your options.

A cliched and cheesy affirmation that, if you really think about the words, is a great  healer:

'This too shall pass'

Sit alone with that sentence, repeat it, consider it and put off your other plans a while. Nothing stays the same forever, nothing at all.

If you are in need of help or are having suicidal thoughts please use the following contacts, write them down, keep them in your phone or taped to your mirror:

The Samaritans - 08457 90 90 90 24/7 or email jo@samaritans.org

A&E: your local A&E department can be found here by inputting your postcode. All A&E depts in the UK should have a duty worker available if your need help with depressive thoughts and suicidal urges - please use them!

999 - dial this number if you are in the process of planning or acting out suicidal behaviours. They will blue-light to get to you ASAP

Call your friends, even though you might not want to talk to anyone

Call your family, even though you might not want to talk to anyone

email me on njimmn@gmail.com - I'll point you in the right direction if there's no one else you can trust. 

Finally, please check out the Samaritians' great video 'U can cope' promoting the World Suicide Prevention Day ethos and exploring the stories of people who were close to taking their own lives, and their journeys back from the edge. Hopefully this'll be less irritating than Justin Timberlake's hair: 

Peace and love xxx

Where does the time go?

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If ever there was a truism of life, its that time doesn't wait for you, it just keeps on ticking by. Cliched, yes, but then cliches are just uncomfortable truths wrapped up in a sarcastic bow, right?

The passage of time is on my mind for a few reasons lately, but none more so than because today marks the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Eleven years feels at once eons ago, yet like only yesterday, surely that much time hasn't passed? All the wars and death since that day far exceed in number those lost on the day itself, but somehow the emblem of crumbling towers makes their graveyard more poignant, more tragic. This injustice of people merely going about their day, showing up for work, and being the sitting ducks for aeroplane missiles, is pure, tragic theatre played out in the amphitheatre of life. Death always means a loss for someone, somewhere, but certain losses are harder to bear, and certain griefs made painfully public.

I was in New York visiting with family the year before the attacks, my parents the next summer just a month or so before, and I remember them so vividly both for the fact they occurred so close to my 20th birthday, but also because we had just flown home from visiting my sister in Germany. It was like waking up in a post-apocalyptic disaster movie, except it wasn't make-believe.

It gets me thinking about my own life since those events. Events such as these are supposed to challenge us, make us evaluate our lives and live each day as if it were, too, our last. I'd like to think I've achieved some great things in the last eleven years, and certainly I couldn't ask for a better fiance, family or friends, but the truth is, I'm nowhere near as developed, successful or solvent as I imagined I might be when I thought of what my future might look like years down the line. Does this mean I've failed at life, failed to grab it by the balls and make of it what I should have, what those poor souls didn't get a stab at? 

In contemplation I know now, much more fully than when I was twenty, that life is what you make of it, that you have to take those chances when the universe presents them to you, that you have to chase after what you want from life, not settle if you feel unfulfilled by the humdrum, else in years to come you'll wonder what on earth happened to your dreams.

For me, now in 2012, its time to dust myself off and move forward creatively. 

How about you?

But it isn't all bad...

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If my life is shit, you can bet your arse there's someone out there having a rougher time of it. So here are some things that make me smile even when I'm at the bottom of the well:

My F

Somehow, after a more than slightly chequered relationship history, I've been thrown a curve ball by the universe in the shape of my fiance. Basically, I totally landed on my feet with this one: he's kind, funny, gorgeous, faithful, lovely and always has my back. We got engaged before we'd even known each other a year, and I had absolutely no doubts that it was, and is, just completely right. I don't know what I ever did to deserve a fella like him, but I'm bloody glad I've got him

Family

We've had our share of ups and downs, but ultimately, I'm incredibly lucky to have such a close, supportive family in my parents, sisters and nephews. Moving home has strengthened those bonds and being able to see them all so much more often and have their support when times are tough is invaluable

Friends

I've never been the popular girl surrounded by hoards of friends, but the few I do have are mint. I've actually managed to hold onto them over the years too, something I used to really struggle with when I was younger. I've accepted I don't need a load of satellite mates who just gravitate for the big occasions, or fair weather friends who aren't really interested in you because that takes up time they'd rather spend harping on about themselves. That's meant dumping a few along the way, but we all have to sort the wheat from the chaff sometimes

Home

Home has only been home for a couple of months, but the F and I are loving our gorgeous little house and the serenity, peace and privacy it gives us. Now if only we owned it...

Music

Blasting out everything from wrist-slitting ballads to ear-bleeding thrash metal and singing along can't be beaten in the grand scheme of life's simple pleasures. A good warble always soothes my soul a tiny bit

Art

Putting aside the fact that I haven't been inside a gallery for almost a year, there's little I love more than gazing at art in all its joyous guises, except maybe creating some myself. After a long hiatus, I've recently completed a little mixed media canvas that I'm chuffed with, even if it looks like its been painted by Finger Mouse on crack

Writing

When I was a journalist, I found writing or blogging for and about myself nigh on impossible. Why? Somehow it felt indulgent to waste time writing about that kind of nonsense than formulating and exectuing work I was getting paid for. Now I've taken a step back from that arena, I feel freer and more at peace with indulging my inner writer. Journalism isn't about being creative and letting the words spill out onto the page: its much more formulaic than that. Its a breath of fresh air being able to purge on the page, dear void

Dreams

No, not the sleep variety, but rather those little secret hopes and wishes of success, travel, happiness that bubble within me. Even after the rollercoaster ride of my life so far, its comforting to know I am still able to imagine and desire wonderful and special dreams. Now all I need to work on is making some more of them come true

Beauty

Wow, before this becomes any more of a cheese-fest, I'll finish on a beauty tip. By beauty I mean things like seeing swallows flying at dusk, celebratory bunting, cobbled streets, morning dew, crisp winter days, robins eating berries, unexplored paths...its everywhere

Bail Bail Bail...

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I'm so predictable. After a terrible nights' sleep and a lot of tears I've gone and bailed on the new job, at least for the time being. The past few weeks have been pretty unhappy, save a lovely Birthday weekend thanks to my fantastic fiance, family and friends. It's in part to do with a medication change I mentioned in my  medication's what you need post, whereby I was taken off an antidepressant to see if I coped with being on just the one med; a psychotropic that's meant to work on both extremes of bipolar. Turns out I haven't been coping too well at all as I've taken a complete nosedive and am probably going to have to give in and go onto another anti-D in order to rescue my sanity.

When it comes to the job, I could have totally rocked up and done it, but the ability to suck it up when just last night I couldn't stop gut-wrenchingly sobbing for longer than five minutes, scares me, quite frankly. The way I can switch between "end of the world" and "top of the morning" is terrifying sometimes. And I don't think its in anybody's interest for me to be starting a job with a fair amount of responsibility for others' welfare when I'm secretly drowning inside. Hell, the thought of leaving the house is enough of a gladiatorial challenge at the minute.

But what now? The F and I have our wedding to pay for next year, our benefit stopped the second he got his new job, and I'm sat at home on my own, wondering why the fuck my brain is wired like this. 

Cue wallowing like a hippo in my self-built pile of shit and shame...

Medication's what you need...

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Despite suffering from mental health ishoos for years, I was totally against being medicated up until spring this year. I'd had doctors trying to prescribe me various antidepressants, anti-psychotics and even the odd beta blocker over the years, but I either reacted badly to them, felt more depressed, or went manic when under their influence. The fact that no medical professionals felt these reactions deemed it important enough to reassess what exactly was going on with me only compounded my hatred for doping myself up.

When I compare this attitude with the one I hold now, its almost funny just how different they are. Its not that I've suddenly started pill hugging, but more that I'd reached the point early this year at which I was screaming internally at myself that enough was enough, I couldn't keep putting myself through the wringer like that, just passively accepting that oh, here's another "funny turn", time to baton down the hatches and watch my life fall apart for yet another six months. Instead I demanded to be referred a psychiatrist. I say demanded, in actual fact I had a pretty wonderful GP who was more than helpful in referring me on to the local mental health team for a proper assessment, the first I'd had when not under the influence of an overdose and thus wildly more based in facts, rather than assumptions about me.

This ultimately led me to a new diagnosis of mixed state bipolar affective disorder, or manic depression for the old skool amongst the void out there. Rightly, or more likely wrongly, bipolar isn't a condition that'll see you shuffled to the bottom of the pile like many other types of mental illness or disorder. No condition should see that happen to you, but thems the breaks, whether the mental health community like to admit it or not. Unlike when I was rubber stamped as having 'emotionally unstable personality disorder' and labelled a manipulative drunk by a fairly universally unpopular 1-to-1 therapist in the East London CMHT, this time round I've been provided with a community mental health social worker, regular meetings with a psychiatrist, and a speedy referral for focused psychotherapy.

Medication has had a bigger role to play this time round, too. I haven't just been put on antidepressants and left to my own devices. In fact, after being put on them and then a psychotropic medication designed to stabilise mood and work on both bipolar depression and hypo/mania, I was then taken off antidepressants in the hope a single lot of meds would do the trick in stabilising me. I'd love to say this had worked, but I've had to have my dose increased, be prescribed with benzodiazepine to help with a crushing bout of anxiety, and have the safety net of starting another type of antidepressant in a week if those measures fail. A year ago I would've been running for the hills at mere suggestion of the aforementioned regime, but when I think back to that 'me', I wonder at how I ever got through the day, let alone a week without any kind of meds.

As much as I'd like to say the drugs don't work, they just make it worse...I can't. Fact is, despite my recent tumble off the sanity wagon, I've felt better generally than I have in years.