Today is a very special day for people like me. It is World Mental Health Day. My illness emerged in all its destructive power at about 9.30 am on Saturday 16th June 1990. Yes it is that defined. For years I would not admit it or talk about it. Except to my people. That is others who are or were mentally ill. We didn't celebrate madness in those day. But we do now.
I always feel a fraud on this day as I really ought to have set up some grand series of events that will change people's minds at the university. But campaigning on that scale is not a strength on mine. Coupled with it falling in week 2 of our new academic year we rarely get enough interest or time to prepare. After all no one is here over the summer. I campaign through this blog, by my teaching, my talks, my books and my practice. Those are my fortes.
That said I'm never idle on this day. This year I went to the annual HPFT Recovery Conference in Stevenage. I came away not with great pearls of wisdom on how to improve our service at the university, no great advice to colleagues and certainly nothing I can summarise to justify my day away. What I did get was a sense of inspiration and invigoration after hearing such wonderful presentations by those with lived experience. In my language the mad.
Tomorrow I go back to normality with the knowledge that those who do go into recovery-and recovery is a journey not a destination-have so much to give to all of us. Without my breakdown the lives of the few 100 students I have seen in the last 6 years would have been different. That may be for good or ill but for some I do make a difference. The hard part is hanging onto that when the dark clouds engulf me again. Today I'm well but I know the clouds will come some day.
I Heard a Voice
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