How did you feel when you were diagnosed with a case of the Mentals?

I’m doing a thing with Rethink tomorrow in which I talk about what it was like to be diagnosed with bipolar disorder almost…shit, 5 years ago. I know how I felt (incredulous, scared, confused, why-am-I-in-bloody-hospital) but how did you feel when you first got your diagnosis of bipolar disorder or otherwise? (My diagnosis at the [...]

The NHS Saved Me

I was encouraged to post this photo, so here I am, posting it. I scrawled it on my arms at the Block the Bridge, Block the Bill protest last week, which, as other protests against steamrolled government policy, did not even give them pause for thought.

Working After Being Mental/Stigma

Hi chaps, here is some writing, elsewhere! There are 2 things I’ve recently written floating about. The first is an article for One in Four on working post-mental-illness. (Which made it into the Guardian’s society daily, hooray!) Working it out After four years of treatment, three years on benefits and two interviews, I finally found [...]

How To Be Alone

This is an absolutely beautiful little video.  And close to my heart.  I spend most of my time alone.  The nature of living with a night shift worker means there are seven days in every fourteen when I am alone.  I don’t see people other than him so much.  Not much of a social life here. There [...]

World Mental Health Day: Stigma of the Self

Today is World Mental Health Day, and m’colleague Mark Brown has written a piece for the Time to Change website regarding stigma: Negative ideas about mental health difficulty and the people who experience it seem to many to be natural facts, ideas that we absorb as correct without ever being conscious of their source. They [...]