Reasons to Celebrate? A Brit's Thoughts on Thanksgiving

When you go home, do you look around and wonder, “Who are these people, where did I even come from?” I mean, you look at them all, sitting there, you know... they look familiar, but who the hell are they?

— Claudia, Home for the Holidays

A few weeks ago I mentioned to Fran that I needed to find something to write about. Without hesitation, she suggested I write about what Thanksgiving means to me. I said I couldn’t really do that as I’m not an American, but I could imagine I’d feel somewhat the way I do celebrating Christmas as an atheist. That is, conflicted. Fran paused, smiling. I realised what she’d done. She’d led me into discovering an angle to explore. I reminded her she’d done the same twelve years ago when she suggested I write a book about being friends with someone with mental illness. Both ideas were too good for me to dismiss! Hopefully, I joked, the blog post wouldn’t take as long to write as our book had.

Christmas is a religious celebration of Christ’s birth, yet you’ll find no mention of god, church, or Jesus in my account of What Christmas Means to Me. I enjoy traditional carols and songs such as Here We Come a Wassailing by English folk singer-songwriter Kate Rusby. Steeleye Span’s Gaudete is another favourite, but the Pogues’ Fairytale of New York and Let it Go From the Disney movie Frozen evoke Christmas better for me nowadays. Food is also important, whether it’s dining out with friends or the family meal on Christmas Day. In short, I celebrate Christmas in ways I find meaningful, ignoring its underlying religious message. It’s hypocritical, I know, but I’m far from alone in that.

I can’t speak with any authority on the origins and meaning of Thanksgiving as celebrated in the United States. From Fran and other American friends, I know it’s one of the most important social celebrations of the year, second only — if that — to Christmas. It’s a time people gather with friends and family for company, thankfulness, and good food. It’s not a time people look to be alone. My friend Jen recommended I watch the 1995 movie Home for the Holidays, saying “it’s hilarious but also realistic.” I haven’t managed to watch it in full, but from the trailer I think I’d enjoy it.

The movie’s message seems to be that family gatherings are always going to be difficult but blood is thicker than water and we shouldn’t let differences divide us. As Henry Arson put it, “Opinions are like assholes, honey. Everybody’s got one and everybody thinks everybody else’s stinks.” That’s true up to a point. Some differences of opinion are to be tolerated in those we love. Pineapple on pizza, yes or no? is the classic example. Sometimes, though, differences are far more fundamental, and harder if not impossible to accept. That’s arguably more true this year than any other in recent history.

Despite the original settlers’ Protestant religion, modern Thanksgiving in the US is a secular holiday. As an atheist I’d have no qualms taking part, but there are other reasons to feel uneasy. The popular idea that the first Thanksgiving was a peaceful celebration by the pilgrim newcomers and the Native Americans has been challenged on historical as well as moral grounds. The pilgrims brought diseases previously unknown to the native people, who at times were kidnapped and enslaved, and ultimately displaced from their lands. The following is excerpted from a BBC article Thanksgiving: Why some push back against the holiday’s “mythology”.

The origin of the Thanksgiving holiday dates back to a harvest feast held in 1621 between the Wampanoag, a Native tribe who occupied the land long before, and the newly settled English colonists in America. The gathering is widely seen as a celebration of the alliance between the two groups, but leaves out the ways in which those ties were broken.

It’s unsurprising that some Native Americans and those cognisant of their history don’t celebrate Thanksgiving but observe it as a day of mourning.

The myth of the family coming together in peace and unity is exemplified by Norman Rockwell’s painting Freedom from Want (also known as The Thanksgiving Picture or I’ll Be Home for Christmas). Superficially wholesome and reassuring, such myths can place enormous demands on family members, whether they’re responsible for organising the gathering or expected to attend. We’ve shared guest posts on this topic in the past, including Let It Go: Reducing Holiday Triggers for Your Child, Season’s Greetings, and How I Unplugged the Christmas Machine and Created Stable Holidays.

The myths can ring very hollow for people finding themselves alone, or whose family situation is less than idyllic. This is viscerally expressed in the song December Hurts written by RØRY, Dan Lancaster, Sean McDonagh, and Dom Liu.

Hark the herald angels sing
To the ones who can’t go home tonight and got nobody to ring
Hark the herald angels sing
To the kids who hear their parents fight and miss out of everything
Oh, the Christmas song you never heard
Deck the halls with sadness
Cos for me December hurts

I mentioned that Thanksgiving was arguably more problematic this year. I’m observing things as a non-American from the other side of the Atlantic, but I see a great deal of anger, disappointment, and uncertainty about Thanksgiving being voiced on social media in the aftermath of the US presidential election. One person commented that this is either going to be the most uncomfortable Thanksgiving for many American families, or the most cancelled Thanksgiving. Another declared that this is the first year ever they won’t be attending Thanksgiving dinner with their family. How representative these comments are is impossible to guage, but the emotions expressed are intense, raw, and appear genuine.

To state the obvious, these comments are by people on the political left, who are variously shocked, appalled, and scared by the election result and what it will mean for them, their friends and loved ones, and the nation they love. Those on the political right likely feel they have everything to celebrate, of course. Whatever your politics, it’s clear to me that American society is more polarised and entrenched right now than at any time in living memory. Falling so soon after the election, Thanksgiving is the first and most obvious demonstration of this division, but Christmas isn’t far behind. To quote Adele in Home for the Holidays, “I’m giving thanks that we don’t have to go through this for another year. Except we do, because those bastards went and put Christmas right in the middle, just to punish us.” These fractures may prove difficult to heal.

We’ve witnessed something of that polarisation on this side of the Atlantic. Brexit in particular cut across traditional political lines and exacerbated divisions between friends and within families. Notwithstanding this year’s election of a Labour government, politics in the UK appears to be shifting to the right as it is elsewhwere. I’m not aware of an equivalent boycotting of family gatherings here, but I imagine some difficult decisions are being made. Full disclosure: if I was American I would vote Democrat. I could no more countenance voting Republican than I could vote Conservative here in the UK.

I asked Fran what she thought about Thanksgiving this year. She said she still sees it as an opportunity to celebrate. Despite all I’ve written, I agree with her. I’d want to spend Thanksgiving with those I feel closest to and safest with. This is a time when coming together with those most important to us is especially important. How and with whom we do that is up to us. We don’t have to buy into all the hype. There’s no need to stress out or put ourselves into debt buying lavish gifts and catering for large groups of people just because that’s how we’re told it should be done. We’re not required to give our attention, time, and presence to people whose opinions and choices are fundamentally at odds with ours. We don’t have to compromise our values, beliefs, and wellbeing to keep the peace.

Rather than despairing that things have changed, we can take it as an opportunity to focus on the things — and people — most important to us. One comment I saw on social media expressed this perfectly for me. “Family dynamics are supposed to change as people grow up, move out, marry and die. Start new traditions. We don’t live in a Hallmark movie or turkey commercial after all.”

I think that’s worth celebrating. And there’s always pie.

 

Photo by Preslie Hirsch at Unsplash.

 

Home Eleven

Writing prompt: Tell the story of something that happened to you, but write it from a different perspective, or as fiction rather than fact.

It was our first visit to the Green Festival. In past years I’d learned about it after the event, or we were doing something else, or ... well, anyway, this year we went along: my wife Pamela, son Michael and step-daughter Emma. When we arrived there seemed to be plenty going on. Lots of stalls and tents, noise and people. Our first priority, though, was food: somewhere to sit and eat the picnic we’d brought with us. We found a suitable spot close by a huge felled tree that was providing children with a makeshift and ecologically sound climbing frame. We attacked our picnic with good-natured greed to the accompaniment of the loud, live, 70s music emanating from a marquee somewhere close behind us.

My hunger pangs assuaged, I sat back to take in the surroundings and indulge in a little people-watching. Perhaps from a desire on the part of parents to remain within hailing distance of their newly arboreal offspring a clear, roughly circular area around the Tree was circumferenced with other little grass-sitting groups like ours.

Looking closer at some of these groups, though, I realised it was unlikely they were all parentally motivated. Some of them seemed too young to have children of their own. The plastic beer glasses and trademark khaki and camouflage attire proclaimed many of these to be students (I have been a student myself, I can say these things). Perhaps, I pondered, there were other, more primitive, totemic forces at play about this Tree.

Half an hour later, our picnic eaten and our bodies refreshed, the four of us set off to explore. Too many sights to describe properly. Hot and cold food of every description and cuisine, mostly veggie and richly spiced. Stands promoting the WWF, garden composting, Freedom to Roam and varied uses for hemp. Second-hand and ethnic clothes (a big attraction for Pam and Emma). Honey sticks. Foxglove cuttings for 25p each. “Can I have one, Dad?” No, Mike, they’re poisonous. “I know that. Can I have one?”

We bumped into a friend of ours who we’d not seen for some months. Chatting away, following the direction our children were taking through the trees, Pamela, Cal and I found ourselves all at once in a secluded clearing.

I write “secluded” and it is an uncomplicated word. No doubt the image it conjures for you approaches how things first appeared to us as we entered the space. Yet it is worth a moment’s elaboration because, looking back, the seclusion of the place was its very essence.

My word processor’s dictionary defines the verb seclude as “To set apart from others / To screen from view.” Well, the belt of trees through which we had just passed certainly screened us visually from the rest of the Festival — and screened the rest of the Festival from us. Looking back I could see nothing of the bustle and bright colours, tents and stalls and people we had just left. Only the trees. Not even a lamppost.

We were less effectively screened from the sounds of the music playing outside. Yet even so there seemed to be a certain — attenuation — that is hard now for me to describe. The sounds came through to us, but it was as if their brashness and volume and nearness were being filtered out, leaving just the music’s essential poetry. The beat and message crossed the half hundred feet of sparse woodland as readily as it had traversed the twenty or thirty years since most of it was laid down.

All of this is in retrospect, of course. At the time it just seemed like a nice place to be. The three of us found a place to sit. While the children explored and Pamela and Cal talked I looked about.

The clearing was perhaps thirty feet by fifty: an irregular ellipse delimited by the trees on one side and on the other by a swathe of large bushes bordering the park. A number of tents — signs on a couple pronounced them to be yurts — had been erected against the bushes. The Healing Yurt. The Quiet Yurt. The entrance flaps on most of these were closed but on the one closest to us they had been left tantalisingly parted. Inside it looked quiet and peaceful and part of me wanted to crawl inside and rest. But a stronger urge to caution held me back.

A number of other people sat or lounged about on the grass. Off to the right a group were seated on bales of straw about a small wood fire. I watched with pride, a little parental caution and not a little envy as Mike walked over to watch the flames and was soon chatting away to one of the women. I felt Outside.

More or less directly across the clearing a kitchen stall boasted a fiercely vegetarian cuisine. Strung between branches overhead a broad shimmering silk banner proclaimed the legend “Home Eleven”. I wondered if it was the name of the kitchen or of the site itself. A strange name, in either case. The stall seemed to be manned by a tall good-looking guy in blond dreadlocks and a girl with long red-gold hair, a great figure and a loose purple dress.

Maybe I was staring because the girl looked up suddenly, catching my eye. She turned to Dreadlock, said a word or two, then smiled across the clearing in my direction. I smiled back feeling strangely — inordinately — elated. Not (just) because a pretty girl had smiled at me but because her smile seemed to include me in everything that was happening in that place. Instantly, I felt Inside. Then someone wandered over to the kitchen and she turned away to serve them.

I lay back in the sun and closed my eyes. I felt totally at peace now. More simple words but I’d read what “at peace” feels like and this was it. Seclusion. The music coming to me through the trees and down the years. The sound of my wife and our friend talking beside me. Now and again a delighted shriek from Emma and Mike as they played. I tried to remember other times I’d felt that good.

After a while I sat up again and took out my camera, carefully composing one of my panoramic series of overlapping pictures. I stood up and wandered off with the intention of taking some more. At the edge of the clearing I took another series of shots, panning around the site. Ginger was still at the kitchen and I framed the picture, planning to take one to remember her by. Then someone moved beside me. Lowering the camera found Dreadlock staring at me.

“Her name’s Ellen,” he said flatly. I felt embarrassed but after a moment he smiled broadly and extended his hand. “And I’m Kai.”

“Martin,” I said, smiling back. Kai had the same all-encompassing smile as Ellen and, whatever they thought of me I felt no offence had been taken. Kai turned back to gaze across the clearing. I looked at him more closely. I have said he was tall, blond. But close-to, what I noticed most about him, apart from his hair and that smile, were his eyes. Deep, wood-smoke grey. Eyes that seemed inordinately alive.

In fact his hair was not dreadlocked but tightly and intricately braided. He was dressed in a patchwork waistcoat of green and brown velvet over baggy cord pants. On a silken cord at his side hung a slim silver pipe, like a penny whistle but of much finer work. Another touch of silver was the inch-long leaf shaped brooch on his waistcoat. It might have been a beech leaf. I’m not that hot on trees.

A strange character, certainly, with the air of a Pied Piper. Fey. I couldn’t guess what or who he might lead off with that pipe, though.

“Are you hungry?” Kai asked. I might have been but I didn’t want to spoil the moment. I was also still a bit wary of walking up to the girl — Ellen.

“No thanks. Not at the minute.”

I didn’t know what else to say. I felt rather in awe of him, to be honest. A part of me has always felt a romantic attraction for the kind of life I imagined Kai and Ellen enjoyed. When he spoke next, he might have been reading my mind.

“We move around the country, from fair to fair, festival to festival.”

“You are Travellers, then?”

“We — travel, yes.”

“What do you do in the winter. I mean, when there aren’t any festivals?”

“There are always festivals, Martin. If you know where to look.”

Once again there was silence. I guessed Kai was waiting for me to speak. I felt it was important for me to say the right thing.

“All this — the feel of the place — it reminds me of Glastonbury.” Kai still didn’t speak. I wondered if he knew what I meant. “The Festival, you know?”

“Yes, we are at Glastonbury. Every year.”

“Right. I was there in ’83 and ’84. With some friends from University ...”

Memories flooded over me, as though someone had pressed the PLAY button. Those two long, hot weekends at Glastonbury had been so important to me. What do they call such things — seminal? Me and my three closest friends in the world. The two years’ Festivals were different, of course.

The first was a totally new experience for me: like waking up one day on another planet. A planet that intuitively felt like Home — and yet, on which I wandered like an Outsider amongst innumerable, wonderful aliens. No, “Observer” would be a better word. I had wanted to Belong, so much, but hadn’t quite dared to let go.

One year later: Glastonbury ’84 with the same three friends, now at the end of our years together at University and about to move out into the world. The weekend of sun and music marked that transition: its wonder and strangeness now even more wonderful and strange — and even more remote.

Kai didn’t speak for a while; until my thoughts had come full circle and returned me to the music and drumming of the clearing in the park.

“It is good, Martin, that you feel these things about a place. Not many people do.”

“I guess so,” I said, lamely.

“What do you feel?”

“Now?”

“Yes, right now. What does this place feel like to you, Martin?”

I knew the question was important. But not as important as my answer might be. I looked around the site again. Carefully. Trying to see. To feel. The group of students lounging on the grass in front of the kitchen. Another group off to the right, playing at rhythm on a set of bongos (had they brought them with them?) One guy had one of those huge multi-coloured felt top hats that in any other setting would have been ridiculous but here made him seem to Belong. Across the clearing my wife sat, still talking with Cal. Somewhere close by — every now and then I could hear them — my children played, weaving new friendships and games out of smoke and sunshine.

“It feels like coming home,” I said.

Another pause. After a full minute, as I was about to speak again, Kai continued. “For some of us, Martin, there is no coming home. Then one must make the most of where one is.”

“‘Home is where the heart is’, you mean?” As I heard my words I cringed. They sounded so corny.

“Something like that, yes.”

Kai went silent again and looked away from me across the clearing. I wondered if my unintended flippancy had annoyed him. Suddenly, it was important to me that it should not have. I glanced across at him. In the short time since we had met, his face, and especially his eyes, had been bright and alive — present was the word that occurred to me. Now, though, those grey eyes were undeniably Distant, as if beneath the trees he saw other faces and heard a different music.

I followed Kai’s line of sight and met Ellen’s gaze again. Only this time it was not me she was staring at but Kai. No, not staring: it was as if the two of them were joined by their shared look. I knew, suddenly, instinctively and without any sense of surprise, that Ellen was experiencing whatever Kai was seeing behind his distant eyes. And I sensed that neither of them were anywhere near as young as they had first appeared.

Their intensity unnerved me. I was getting into something deep. Something was happening around me. Something that might include me, if I dared to let it.

A loud laugh from Mike caught my attention and I glanced across in the direction of the fire. He was there, with Emma and a little girl they seemed to have made friends with. All was well. Then I noticed two of those sat around the fire were staring across at us. At Kai. The man’s long hair, dark grey peppered with white like a frost upon slate, cascaded about the shoulders of a blue robe. I’d have put his age at maybe fifty, though in retrospect I am not so sure.

His companion appeared a woman of similar years. She wore a dark green dress. Her hair, though, showed no sign of age and shimmered like gold in the sunlight which fell upon her through the trees above. For a moment she turned to her companion and I caught a flash of silver from a brooch at her breast.

I shook my head. What was going on? Who were these strange people? Assuredly, they were not Outsiders like me and Pamela and Cal and the students still drumming in the centre of the clearing. The four of them Belonged here.

I looked at the drummers. They all seemed intent upon their music and paid me no heed. The rest of the people about the fire the same. Outsiders, too. The drumming was getting to me, nevertheless, and I glanced back at the players. One of them stood up — the guy in the big felt hat. Taller and older than he had appeared sitting down, he seemed to be leading the others in the rhythm.

For just a moment he looked over in the direction of Ellen, who was still stood at the counter of the kitchen stall. As he caught her gaze the pulse of his drumming paused agonisingly. A glint of silver again, this time upon the brim of his huge, ridiculous hat. Then he sat back down and brought the drumming about him to a crescendo of thrumming sound.

Kai moved beside me and I glanced back at his face. The distant look had gone and he was Present again. The drumming stopped short amid laughter and cheers from those taking part in the music.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like something to eat?” Kai asked me.

“Okay,” I replied this time. “Yes, I am hungry.”

“Good.”

Kai led me across to the kitchen.

“Ellen,” he began. “This is Martin. He’d like something to eat. Can you fix him something?”

“Of course. What would you like, Martin?” She gave me another of her smiles, but this time its effect on me was more normal. I blushed deeply.

“You choose. Please.”

“All right.”

I watched Ellen moving — easy, graceful — as she fixed me what looked like a piece of plain bread on a platter of leaves. I’d rather had my eye on the gooey-looking vegan chocolate cake. As she handed it to me I glimpsed what I now more than half expected to find. At her belt a silver brooch just like Kai’s.

“Thanks. The bread looks good.”

“Try it.”

I bit into the bread and almost choked in surprise. It was delicious, far better than it appeared. Ellen laughed out loud.

“It’s great!” I exclaimed.

“I’m glad you like it. Good, simple, food means a lot to us.”

Us. I looked round for Kai, but he seemed to have vanished. The older couple were still sat by the fire, but were paying no attention to anything beyond the dancing flames. I finished the bread: it was easily the most wholesome food I’d ever tasted.

oOo

I knew it was time to go. That whatever it was that had happened, had happened and was over. And yet I also knew something had changed for me. In an important way I had been allowed Inside something big and wonderful. Nothing could be quite the same again. I handed back the leaf platter.

“Thank you, Martin. Here, take this leaf in return.” And with that Ellen unclipped the brooch from her waist and placed it in my hand.

“I don’t know what to say,” I began. “But — thanks!”

I made to leave. To join my family and the Real World again. “Just one thing,” I began, turning back to Ellen and nodding to the branches overhead. “Why does the banner say ‘Home Eleven’?”

She looked up; paused for only a moment before replying. “That’s not what it says.”

 

Originally published in 1999 by Middle-earth Reunion.

With Love: A Curated List of Open Letters

In the first of a series of themed posts, I’ve compiled a selection of my open letters, plus two letters and a poem written to me by other people. The open letter format can be useful, not merely to share what we’d like to say — or have said — to someone, but also as a novel approach for presenting other content. I’ve provided a brief introduction and quoted from each letter, but I encourage you to read them in full.

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An Open Letter to My Father

My father died when I was eighteen. This open letter to him was the first time I’d written publicly about my childhood and family life. It was first published in June 2016 by The Good Men Project.

I grew up accepting disability and illness as things you put up with without making a fuss about them.

But Dad, that wasn’t enough. I didn’t learn how much it fucking hurts to live in chronic pain. I didn’t learn how someone can rail against the injustice of it all, scream at the universe — and then move past that and take the next step. You never let me see it’s okay to cry and be weak sometimes, and share how you’re feeling when life is really shitty. I have no idea how you felt about your life. Or your death.

It took fifty years and some major fuckups on my part before I started to get it. Before I stopped running away from those unable to bear their illnesses and problems as stoically as you bore yours.

Read the letter in full here.

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An Open Letter to My Mother

This open letter to my mother was written in response to a writing prompt by Stigma Fighters. The brief was to write “a letter to someone who stopped talking to me.” I thought immediately of my mother who had died in a Liverpool nursing home six months earlier. The letter was published by Stigma Fighters in September 2018.

I own my share of the blame. The depth of your need terrified me and I left you to get on with it all. I wasn’t there when you needed me to be. It was easier to pretend I didn’t notice. To visit occasionally and then not at all. To phone occasionally and then not at all. To write letters, and then postcards, that said very little and needed no reply. I’ve learned a lot about being there these past years but too late for you and me. There is no going back but I would do better by you now.

Read the letter in full here.

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An Open Letter to Fran

I’ve written two open letters to my best friend Fran. The first was published here on our blog in May 2016 as An Open Letter to My Bipolar Best Friend. We’d been friends for five years.

I used to sit in coffee shops wishing I had someone to meet up with. Now, this place is my social hub. With friends online and friends face to face I meet and chat and share and talk and laugh here, regardless of geographic distance. What changed? You entered my life! In the five years since we became friends I have opened up enormously. Opened to you, opened into our friendship, but also opened to let others in, opened to let myself out. Our friendship has been and is transformative for both of us. This relationship between a well one (me) and an ill one (you) has turned both our lives inside out, and its impact ripples out into the world.

Read the letter in full here.

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Another Open Letter to Fran

Five years later I published It’s Not Boring! An Open Letter to My Best Friend on Our 10 Year Anniversary.

Our blog. Our two books. Our online presence on Facebook, Twitter, and elsewhere. I’m deeply committed to them all. But they are not us. They share our story and our message of hope, but we know the stories, tips, strategies, and techniques we write about because we have lived them. Day in. Day out. Ten years. 3,653 days. (And yes, I looked it up, to be sure I had the leap years right!)

I’ve loved it all, Fran. Not always liked it or found it easy — we’ve had our share of hurt and darkness, some of it our doing, some of it not — but I’ve always loved being with you. I told you once “I never don’t want to be here,” and that’s still true, no matter what is going on for you or for me. That commitment has kept our friendship strong and endlessly reinventing itself. The dark times and the light, the low and the high, the well and the unwell; they are all part of what we’ve shared and continue to share. As I’m sure I’ve said once or twice along the way, it’s not boring, being your best friend!

Read the letter in full here.

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An Open Letter to Myself

I’ve never felt moved to write a letter to my younger self, but in 2021 I wrote to myself from the perspective of a caring and concerned friend. It was an interesting experience and gave me fresh insights into different aspects of my life, character, and behaviour.

The book you wrote with Fran is about how you’re the “well one” in your friendship, with her as the “ill one.” But those terms are relative, aren’t they? “Well ones” like us struggle too. And sometimes the line between the “well ones” and the “ill ones” becomes blurred, to say the least. I’m not sure you realise how important what you’re sharing is. That “Boys Get Sad Too” piece felt like a turning point for you. Would you agree? I recognised myself in what you wrote there, for sure. It was a bit of a wake up call, to be honest.

Read the letter in full here.

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An Open Letter Book Review

In 2021 I was offered the chance to review the latest novel by author Anne Goodwin. I found the book fascinating but was stuck for a way of presenting my review until I had the idea to frame it as an open letter to my friend and fellow mental health blogger Aimee Wilson. Published as Warehousing Society’s Estranged: A Review of Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home I feel the approach worked well. The author has shared my review several times on her social media, suggesting she agrees.

I’ve rambled on longer than I meant to, but before I finish I want to mention how the book explores the origins or causes of mental illness. Genetics, trauma, and the environment are all suggested as potential factors, but it’s the last of those which receives the most attention. At one point, Janice the social worker seems to think removing someone from their hospital environment into the community will restore their humanity. “Detached from the hospital,” she imagines, “her passengers were transformed from patients to people.” To me, this says more about Janice’s attitudes than the patients. They always were people, whether inside or outside the hospital and regardless of their diagnoses or how long they’ve been there. I think you would agree.

Janice’s naivety is challenged by events. It would give too much away to talk about what led to Matilda’s incarceration, but by the end of the book, “[Janice had] learned a painful lesson about environmental influence: put a woman in a madhouse and she’d behave as a madwoman, but putting her in an ordinary house wouldn’t necessarily reverse the process.” In other words, we are affected, often deeply and irrevocably, by our circumstances and by those around us.

Read the full book review here.

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An Open Letter From Aimee Wilson

Early 2019 found me struggling a good deal with self-doubt in a number of areas of my life, including my role within the wider mental health community. Some of these concerns were shared in a post titled Impostor Syndrome, Self-Doubt, and Legitimacy in the Mental Health Arena. In response to that piece and others, Aimee published a letter to me on her blog I’m NOT Disordered: “I know that you’ve been feeling sort of lost recently and have been questioning your place in the mental health world so I thought that perhaps this letter might motivate you through these doubts and struggles.” Her words and support — and the support of other friends too — helped me through what was a difficult time.

I fully believe that you can’t get through a mental health illness alone; and that support can come from anyone… a professional, a family member, or a friend... The difficulty comes in allowing yourself to lean on another person or even to just admit that you need to lean on them! But people like you, make it so much easier because your support is unconditional and, whilst you’re unable to identify with some aspects of mental health, you have an unmeasurable willingness to learn and develop an understanding in order to better support a person. I love that you ask me questions when I’m struggling because it’s much more helpful than you just sitting there and nodding along, pretending to understand.

Read the letter in full here.

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An Open Letter From Brynn McCann

Another close friend, Brynn McCann, wrote me an open letter in December 2021. Titled The Miracle of Light: An Open Letter to My Friend Marty, it is one of the most read posts on our blog.

We are kindred spirits and even though we’ve never met in person, we really work hard at truly seeing the other, and we succeed at that more than we fail.

I truly have learned how to be a better person because of you. I treat people better and love them more fully because you taught me and are still teaching me how to do just that.

And isn’t that what real friendship is about? Mutual respect, being present, not judging. I can tell you anything and you support me right through. That is true friendship. That is a miracle.

Read the letter in full here.

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An Open Poem From Sarah Fader

The final piece I’m choosing to present is a poem, written to me in 2018 by another friend, Sarah Fader. As it’s relatively short, I’ll include it in full. I don’t think I’ve ever felt as understood and seen by anyone before. I’m glad Sarah felt that too.

Poem for Marty

Everyone has their own darkness
Mine is outside of my skin at times
Creeping slowly around
the confines of my mouth
not allowing me to speak
only telling me to feel
what I don’t want to feel.

You see my dark and
also the light even when
it’s hard to find
even when
it’s invisible to everyone around me.

That is your power
That is your gift
You sit quietly
Listening
as she talks
she cries
she needs you
and you’re not afraid
in fact you embrace the raw feelings.

I’m relieved to know that there are people
like you in the world
Thank you for loving without question
and embracing us without fear.

Don’t change who you are
Ever
And
Keep listening
It matters.

Read the original post here.

---

Over to You

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading these open letters as much as I’ve enjoyed bringing them together. Have you written an open letter to someone before, or had one written to you? What are your thoughts about the format? I’d love to hear from you, either in the comments section below or through our contact page.

 

Photo by Calum MacAulay at Unsplash.

 

What Christmas Means to Me

I was searching for a blog topic recently and my son Mike suggested writing about my ideal Christmas. It was a good idea and I love this time of year, but I wasn’t sure how to approach it. My ideal Christmas has always been the last one I spent or the next one to come. In the end I decided to explore what I’ve enjoyed about Christmas in the past and how I’m feeling about this one, which is so different because of covid-19. I hope you enjoy sharing the journey with me.

Childhood Memories

My childhood memories of Christmas come to me as a series of disconnected snapshots or vignettes.

Hunting for the presents my parents had hidden away. Finding them in the suitcases stored underneath their bed.

Denshi board electronics set and Spirograph.

The wooden gifts my father made for me over the years: the castle my son inherited, the music box, and the fishing tackle box I wrote about decades later.

Standing outside Liverpool’s registry office on Christmas Eve in a blizzard at my cousin’s wedding.

Then there’s the year it was my parents’ turn to host the Boxing Day party for the extended family. It was so foggy no one could get home and aunts, uncles, and cousins had to stay overnight. This was fun for us kids, probably less so for the adults!

University Days

I studied pharmacy for four years at the University of Bradford. In common with many of my fellow students, I travelled home for Christmas, but there were plenty of opportunities to celebrate before we headed off.

I remember the day trip to London with a group of my new friends at the end of my first university term. We seemed to see more of the city on that one day than I would manage after university when I lived in the capital for three years!

I remember getting dressed up for my first year pre-Christmas Halls Ball, immortalised in my poem Contemplation 2:

Today, separated from you
by so many hours and tears
I found a picture of us
laughing.
Do you remember when we laughed as loud
—when a dream was all my desire
and the girl in the red dress danced away
a night of them
as I lay in her smile and the sounds of her singing

In my third year in Bradford, my housemates and I hosted a pre-Christmas meal for a few friends. I remember good food, laughter, and games. Somewhere, there’s a photo of Sally dancing on the table ...

London Town

After graduating from university I spent three years in London, although I still went home at Christmas.

I remember shopping in London for gifts and ideas. All the Christmas trees, lights and street decorations, in Covent Garden and elsewhere. Treating myself to roast chestnuts and mulled wine from street vendors.

I recall going into work at weekends to hand-print batches of Christmas cards.

I remember making cuddly toys and other presents for friends. The cuddly toy rats were particularly popular. I made Pemberton the grizzly bear as a Christmas gift for one of my dearest friends. Pemberton returned to me years later after she died.

Gift wrapping has always been a huge part of Christmas for me. I remember sitting on the floor in my bedsit wrapping presents for friends and family. I took it very seriously and built boxes from scratch for the odd-shaped items that are so difficult to wrap.

Newcastle

Christmasses in the thirty-plus years I’ve lived in Newcastle have been rich and varied. My first memory is a pre-Christmas meal in the house I shared in Sandyford before I moved to Kingston Park the following year.

Family trips to Dobbie’s garden centre in Ponteland for lunch on Christmas Eve. Choosing one new tree decoration each to add to the collection.

The wooden pirate ship and dolls house I made for Mike and Emma.

Cross-country trips to deliver gifts to family in Carlisle. Shopping and lunch at Gretna Green.

The annual trek into town to the post office to mail boxes and packages to friends in the UK and beyond.

The excitement of receiving packages through the mail, and (less fun!) the long queues at the sorting office to collect those which came when there was no one at home.

Dressing the tree in space cleared amongst the customary household clutter. Green and red ribbon bows I made decades ago for our first family Christmas. Precious decorations from friends and loved ones over the years. Mike’s pipe-cleaner beast. The paper crown and plaster tree Emma made at nursery.

Christmas morning phone calls and messages to those far away. Coffee and toast for breakfast in a sea of wrapping paper. Cooking the dinner. Roast chicken, rather than turkey. Roast potatoes and parsnip, Brussels sprouts, carrots, sage and onion stuffing, cranberry sauce, and gravy. Christmas pudding and custard.

Buffet meals for a day or so after. Raiding the fridge for cheeses, cold stuffing, olives; whatever can be found. Chutneys. Pringles. Mince pies, two at a time with cheese.

Marty and Fran

Fran and I met online in May 2011. Of all the Christmases we’ve shared since then, none have meant more than our first, as we described in our book High Tide, Low Tide.

During our first December as friends, Fran was in a deep depression after spending most of the previous year in mania. She felt bereft, isolated, suicidal, and alone. It meant a great deal to her that she could spend time on webcam with me and my family over Christmas and New Year. We opened our presents together, and Fran kept me company in the kitchen on Christmas morning as I cooked dinner, my netbook perched precariously on top of the saucepan stand. Fran told me later it was the best Christmas she had ever spent.

In December 2013 Fran took me on a visit to Swan Hall, which is a large Victorian house which opens its doors to visitors at Christmas in aid of local charities.

Fran: Do you wanna go to Swan Hall with me?

Martin: Is that the Christmas tree house?

Fran: Yes.. It’s $5 but I don’t think they’ll charge for you..

Martin: I’d love to! Christmas starts here!

We were on a video call as Fran arrived. I imagined she would end our call and take photographs to show me later, but she kept me on the line and even introduced me to the people on the door. “This is Marty, my friend from England. Do we need two tickets?”

Recent Years

Recent Christmases have been blessed by time spent locally with friends.

For the past two years, I’ve taken part in the wonderful Jingle Bell Walk in support of the Chris Lucas Trust. I have warm memories of us gathering with the other walkers outside Newcastle Civic Centre and then walking along Northumberland Street to Monument, down Dean Street, under the Tyne Bridge and along the Quayside to be met at the finish by Santa and his reindeer beside the Millennium Bridge. Dancing and singing along to Disney’s Let it Go!, then a quick drink in the Pitcher and Piano before heading home.

Drinks upstairs at the Charles Grey pub, then standing at the crowded doorway for the countdown to the Newcastle’s Christmas lights being turned on. Singing and dancing in the street to the Pogues’ Fairytale of New York, which will always remind me of that day.

Christmas shopping in Morpeth with Aimee. Calling on her just before Christmas so we could open our presents together.

Opening presents with another dear friend in our favourite coffee shop. The gratitude journal she gifted me last year is still very much in use.

Christmas 2020

Many of the moments and traditions I’ve come to treasure have had to be set aside or postponed under the shadow of covid-19. The UK government plans to allow up to three households to meet indoors between 23 and 27 December (see the official guidelines) but my family and friends have decided it’s safest not to meet until the new year at least. That means no cross country drive to visit family in Carlisle, no Jingle Bell walk (it was cancelled anyway), no trip into town with friends to see the lights, and no opening presents together in person.

I’ve not shopped in Newcastle as I usually would have done. (I have only been into town twice since the start of lockdown in March.) Everything I’ve bought has been sourced online or in my local shops. Fran and I agreed not to ship gifts to each other this year. Instead, we ordered online and had the packages sent directly. We will meet on webcam on Christmas Eve as usual. Aimee and I have exchanged three gifts each by post, which we’ll open together on a video call, and will save the rest for when we can meet safely in person. I’m doing the same with other friends. It will still be special, just different.

My Ideal Christmas

At the start of this post, I said that my ideal Christmas has always been the last one I spent or the next one to come. Having looked back now over the years, I’d say the one I spent last year — Christmas 2019 — was a near-perfect blend of moments spent with family and friends at home, in coffee shops, restaurants, pubs, and bars. This year can’t be like that but it can still be ideal in its own way because we’re all making it work in different ways.

For some people, celebrating Christmas at the proper time will be paramount, but for me, it’s fine if Christmas doesn’t all happen on December 25, or even in December at all. Christmas for me is less an event and more of a celebration of closeness and connection. In the same way that Fran celebrates her birthday month rather than just the day of her birth, we can celebrate Christmas 2020 during December and into the new year.

What Christmas Means to Others

I asked Fran what her ideal Christmas would look like.

My ideal Christmas is where I get to spent time with my friends, and decorate my apartment so I can make my home warm and inviting. And have good things to eat — not too fattening! And get lots of pressies! Oh, and Netflix shows!

I smiled, because despite covid-19 restrictions, she is able to realise her ideal Christmas this year, and that makes me happy.

Over the years, a number of guest writers have written for our blog on seasonal themes. I’ve chosen three to share with you here.

How I Unplugged the Christmas Machine and Created Stable Holidays, by Julie A. Fast

Season’s Greetings, by Roiben

Let It Go: Reducing Holiday Triggers for Your Child, by Tricia

I’d also like to share Carolyn Spring’s Christmas Is Optional.

My friend and fellow mental health blogger Aimee Wilson told me, “Christmas is important to me because I’ve been a psychiatric inpatient over Christmas before, so I like to fully enjoy it now I’m better and at home.” Aimee ran joint blogmas and vlogmas posts on her blog I’m NOT Disordered last year (a herculean endeavour, to create written and video content for each day from December 1 until Christmas!). I’ve contributed to her Christmas posts in the past, including my Christmas wish list last year and a Christmas Q&A back in 2017. This year, Aimee is running a blog series on the theme of recommendations. You can follow, starting with the introduction in which Aimee talks more about what Christmas means to her.

What does Christmas mean to you? Is it a joyful time, or something you survive rather than enjoy? Does it bring good memories or recollections you’d rather not revisit? What would your ideal Christmas look like? We’d love to hear from you.

 

I'm on My Way: Thoughts Inspired by Ed Sheeran's "Castle on the Hill"

I’m on my way
Driving at 90 down those country lanes.
Singing to “Tiny Dancer”
And I miss the way you make me feel, and it’s real
We watched the sunset over the castle on the hill

(Benjamin Levin and Ed Sheeran. “Castle on the Hill.”)

I’m no music aficionado but if I really like a song I’ll play it over and over, to the point where I have the lyrics committed to memory. If I ever find myself at a karaoke with a few pints inside me and a friend at my side there are a few numbers I’d have a go at. “Let it Go” (from Frozen), “Take Me Home” (Jess Glynne), “Fairytale of New York” (The Pogues), “Stay Stay Stay” (Taylor Swift) — and Ed Sheeran’s “Castle on the Hill.”

I found Sheeran via a video of Canadian singer-songwriter Shawn Mendes performing “Treat You Better” at Capital FM’s Summertime Ball. The song meant a lot to me but in this recording Mendes opened with lines I didn’t recognise. A quick search revealed they were from “Castle on the Hill” by Ed Sheeran. I found the official video and was soon hooked. It evoked memories and feelings that were not always comfortable: a good indicator something is worth paying attention to. The song describes Sheeran’s childhood and teenage years in Suffolk, England. The castle of the title is Framlingham Castle.

[I’m unable to post the full lyrics for copyright reasons but you can find them here.]

The song opens with Sheeran recalling breaking his leg at age six. The incident is presented as a badge of honour. I have no equivalent badges, never having broken my leg or anything else for that matter. My earliest childhood memory is visiting my father’s office on one of his rare Saturdays at work. I was maybe ten years old. The memory plays like a short clip from a black and white movie in which I’m sitting on a tall stool in front of an enormous typewriter while my father busies himself in his smaller office next door. There’s no sweet perfume like the mountain grass Sheeran recalls; perhaps there is a musty aroma of printers’ ink.

Sheeran recalls finding his heart and breaking it. I recall a crush on my classmate Lynette, another girl whose name escapes me, and Anne and Glenda who were rumoured to sell kisses if you were in the right place at the right time. I had good friendships through childhood and my teens but none survived my leaving home for university. I occasionally think of searching for them on social media but in truth I have little interest in picking up old threads.

The chorus, which I quoted at the start of this post, evokes memories of driving at speed with the radio on full blast, but I’ve only once driven at anything like ninety miles per hour. On that occasion, I briefly touched 100 in my mother’s Ford Fiesta to collect a friend who’d broken down late at night. There was no music on that occasion, but when I had my own car my driving playlist included “Echo Beach” by Martha and the Muffins, and Sniff ‘n’ the Tears’ “Driver’s Seat.” The latter is the archetypal driving track. (I agree with the person on YouTube who commented “Should be built into every new car. There should actually be a button for it on the steering wheel.”) Listening to it now I’m transported thirty or more years into the past, driving around London or to and from Bradford to visit friends.

I’ve never been a big fan of Elton John and didn’t recognise the “Tiny Dancer” reference until I looked it up. I’m glad I did, because certain of Bernie Taupin’s lines resonate strongly for me. “Blue-jean baby” recalls my first year at university, my first real love, and these lines from my poem “Passionale.”

After so long in blue-jeans
I still need a girl with a feminine flair
who can put on a dress that is not
an invitation

Other resonances are more recent but no less potent. I love how Taupin’s line “But oh, how it feels so real” is echoed in Sheeran’s “And I miss the way you make me feel, and it’s real.” I sing along tunelessly, but with great feeling. I’ve never watched the sun setting over a castle on a hill but I’ve sat with friends at Alderley Edge as night fell across the Cheshire Plain.

Beneath the trees
Beneath the stars
Cautiously we found each other
And a place for silence.

In the second verse Sheeran describes smoking hand-rolled cigarettes and getting drunk with his friends on cheap booze. I was a late starter in these rites of passage too. I’ve never smoked tobacco (or anything else). I’ve never run from the police and had scarcely touched alcohol before I left home at eighteen. I’ve had my share of drunkenness since then but only once threw up afterwards, and that was due as much to food poisoning as the amount of alcohol I’d consumed.

I don’t recall what day of the week I had my first real kiss but I do remember who I kissed. Did I do it right? Probably not — who does, the first time? — but there were many more after that so perhaps I didn’t do too badly.

For me the most poignant part of the song is the bridge section, which describes what happened to the singer’s closest friends since they were in their teens. I have little idea how my friends’ lives unfolded. Aside from my immediate family only one person I’m close to now has been in my life more than ten years; most only two or three. I’m not sad about that. Many people seem able to reconnect with people after months or even years as though nothing has changed but I’ve never been that way. For me, meaningful connection implies continuity and a certain frequency of contact. We don’t have to check in every day but if it’s less than once a month the friendship is unlikely to last long in any meaningful sense.

Despite his friends’ various life challenges, Sheeran declares that “these people raised me and I can’t wait to go home.” Apart from my parents I was never emotionally close to my family — my sister, aunts, uncles, and cousins. The one exception was my Auntie Beb who took me hiking in my teens. I was raised, like Sheeran, by my friends — in my case those I met at university. I thought of them as family at the time and for years after, although I never felt a full member of the tribe despite strong ties of love and commitment. Over the years the ties that bound us thinned and faded. Some were severed, others I relinquished when they no longer served me. I have no yearning to “go back home” the way Sheeran does. Indeed, there is no one or nothing to go back to. It no longer exists.

Maybe like Ed Sheeran I’m on my way — but toward what future or destination am I travelling? I’ve wrestled with this for months now, mostly concerning my career but other areas of my life too. I think that’s why “Castle on the Hill” evokes so much for me. It challenges me to look inside myself and see myself for who I really am.

Postscript

This blog post has stirred a lot of memories and emotions. This is a deep dive, not just into my past but into the person I am now. It reminds me of what one of my friends told me the other day about therapy. How it’s not about fixing you, it’s about making connections between the gaps inside you. (That is a weak echo of how she expressed it.) She spoke with passion and clarity about how gut-wrenchingly hard the work of therapy is. How if you’re not prepared to do the work you’re unlikely to benefit.

What I‘m doing here doesn’t come close to that intensity or depth, but I sense there is more beneath the surface. An image arises in my mind of the Tolkien’s Dwarves who dug too deeply and awakened the Balrog. We each have our monsters, our creatures lurking in the dark, our hidden memories and secrets. My friends. Me. Ed Sheeran. All of us.

 

Photo by Happy Bean Photography / CC BY-SA

 

"Remember When?" - Building Shared Experience in Unprecedented Times

We are going through the pandemic together.
— Fran Houston

In our recent article for Diane Atwood’s award-winning blog Catching Health, Fran and I shared how the coronavirus lockdown is affecting our 3,000 mile friendship. The title we chose — Stay Home, Stay Safe, Stay Connected — highlights our commitment to staying in touch with each other, other friends and loved ones.

Fran: Marty and I meet every day on Skype to hang out and process what is going on in the world and relax watching movies together. I talk with other friends on the phone.

Martin: Connection is also really important to me. I can’t meet friends in person but I’m keeping in touch with as many as possible.

I have friends I talk or chat to every day, coronavirus or not. But since the lockdown I’ve also been reaching out to folk I contact less frequently, or who I’ve not heard from in a while. Fran is doing the same. I’m sure it’s true for most of us. I was thinking about this the other day. It occurred to me that we’re doing more than checking to see people are okay. We’re supporting each other, yes. But even more than that, we’re sharing our experiences in what truly are unprecedented times.

Those experiences are different. Some are undeniably harder than others, but all are valid. Maybe you’re a key worker on the front line or support someone who is. Maybe you’re working because you have no choice, are furloughed, or have been laid off. Maybe you’re in quarantine; caring for loved ones; volunteering time, energy or resources; or simply following the imperative to stay home. However this pandemic is affecting you, your experience is unique and your contribution matters. You matter.

We are living through times none of us anticipated or prepared for. We didn’t choose to be here but are here nonetheless. There is no road map to guide us safely to the other side, no book of instructions, no guru with all the answers. We are navigating as we go, discovering what works for us and what doesn’t. The pandemic has not only changed our circumstances, it is changing our lives, our relationships, our very selves. Some of the changes are subtle; many are more fundamental; others devastating, even brutal. The full impact may not become clear for years, but it’s certain none of us will emerge unchallenged or unscarred.

The people we hold close now will forever be part of our coronavirus experience. We will turn to them in months and years to come for comfort and to validate what it meant to live through these times. “Remember when?” will help us make sense of it all. That is something powerful and profound, and worth preparing for.

Here are a few suggestions to help build shared experiences that will last far longer than the pandemic.

1. Who are your people? Who is there for you and with you through all of this? Who are you laughing with, crying with, listening to, singing to, watching movies with? Who’s there for you and allows you to be there for them? Family, colleagues, friends new and old, neighbours, or former strangers, these are your people.

2. What memories are you building? Good or bad, these days are part of our lives, our individual, shared, and collective memory. We cannot un-live this, as much as we might want to. Much of it will be hard to look back on, especially if we’ve lost loved ones, jobs, money, education, or opportunities. Those who have accompanied us will be those we need in times to come. What stories have you listened to and told? What laughter have you shared? What tears have you shed together?

3. What are you learning? What are you discovering about yourself, your family and friends, and how the world works? Maybe there are things — or people — you took for granted, or things you thought important which don’t seem so vital now.

4. How will you remember? You might think there’s no way you’ll forget what you’re living through right now, but memory doesn’t always work the way we’d like it to. Build shared experiences you’ll cherish in years to come. Photos are an obvious starting point, but be creative. Screenshot fun times you’re having with friends on Skype or Zoom (with their permission, of course). Share recipes and swap photos of the results! Send someone a video message. If you’re able to, mail a greetings card or letter, a small gift, or self-care package; it will be something tangible for them to treasure.

5. Not everything needs to be shared. Some things will be too personal to share, even with those you trust and are closest to. Consider starting a journal or mood diary, or write a letter to yourself in the future. Be as honest as you need to be. This is your life. These are your thoughts and feelings.

There will be tears and pain when we look back on the pandemic of 2020. But there will also be joy and laughter, and the comfort that comes from surviving dark times in good company.

 

Photo credit: Edwin Hooper at Unsplash

 

Coronavirus: Why "Stay Home" Is Not a Safe Option for Everyone

The author has asked to remain anonymous.

At this time of nation-wide uncertainty, many of us are preparing to spend the foreseeable future isolated at home with our families, hoping to make the best of the situation surrounded by those we care about.

However, isolating at home can be a frightening prospect for those members of our community who do not feel safe at home. This includes people living with a loved one suffering from addictions such as drugs or alcohol, and those subjected to domestic violence. I have lived with an addicted partner and know first-hand how this impacted my quality of life, as well as that of his children. Anger and frustration used to lead to domestic violence issues worsening if he could not obtain what he wanted or persuade me to get things for him immediately.

Families are advised to isolate, and with good reason, but does this leave our vulnerable neighbours less likely to be taken in by those who are “socially distancing” from the rest of the community? I was extremely lucky during the time I was going through this. Despite pushing people close to me away, I am forever grateful to the friends and neighbours whose doors I could and did knock on – sometimes at all hours of the night – if I needed somewhere safe to hide. I worry this may not be available for others when we are all in lock down.

I also had the option of hiding in cafes and pubs if I didn’t want to disturb anyone. At times I would wander the streets or 24-hour shops to give myself time to think. I used to visit a local casino and pretend I was playing on the screen machines. I really didn’t have the money to play but took advantage of the free hot drink and sandwich that was available, when I had no financial means to buy basic things like food. These options are less available to people going through this now.

The coronavirus is clearly a threat to us all, but to those seeking safety from a violent partner, the threat is very much more real at those moments when they may need to flee the danger quickly. Will they, and possibly their children, have somewhere to go on the spur of the moment? These situations often occur suddenly without time for planning.

Uncertainty about jobs means there is also less opportunity to save money in order to plan to leave or get a break from the home situation by being at work. The same applies to children now that schools are closed. People at risk may also feel less able to reach out for help and support for fear of burdening the emergency services at a time when they are already struggling to cope with increased demand.

There have been suggestions of prisoners being released early from prison. This may shorten the period of separation and “relief” a partner may be relying on, either to provide valuable headspace or to facilitate plans to leave the relationship.

Maybe not everyone we see out in the streets is deliberately defying the government social distancing advice, and it’s easy for us to judge them without knowing their story. As we prepare to spend quality family time together, please spare a thought for those unfortunate enough to not have a safe place to call home.

Useful Links

SODA: Survivors of Domestic Abuse.

Gov UK: Find out how to get help if you or someone you know is a victim of domestic abuse.

NHS: Domestic violence or abuse can happen to anyone. Find out how to recognise the signs and where to get help.

Women’s Aid: Information and support on domestic abuse.

Women’s Aid: Violence against women and girls (VAWG) sector statement on COVID-19

A message from CHILDLINE about support during the coronavirus outbreak

 

My Mental Health 2018: Aligning It All

By Peter McDonnell

I realise that some people reading this article might not be enjoying their mental health at the moment. I would like you to know that it is possible for things to improve.

January 2018 – “Let’s just keep all the good stuff and lose all the bad stuff.”

As a result, at the end of 2018 I find myself more confident and outgoing. I was already doing very well in those areas twelve months ago but now my brain is serving up witty stories and points of general interest in a familiar, effortless, appropriate fashion, sometimes in a magical way. I’m not arrogant or egotistical so I like to control myself in social situations when I feel like my confidence is getting away from me. I have been reminding myself that other people are simply not as interested in many of the things that delight me, and so I pass the conversation on to other people too and just listen for a bit, becoming interested in them and their lives.

I have two mental illnesses, psychosis and anxiety. Both are fading away – something that lifts me every time I remember how far I have come since being housebound by that stuff. For years my mental acuity and happiness was gone, beaten into submission by psychosis and anxiety. Now that the problems are fading, my mental acuity and happiness is coming back with quite a passionate drive and it’s very nice to be back. I am able to apply myself to my work more effectively too. In more recent years I had to grow thick skin in preparation for mental health problems bothering me while I was at work and I’d learned how to self soothe by taking breaks. This this year such problem moments have hardly even been there.

I started a new job in the summer at the same time as England doing themselves proud in the World Cup. I am now nearly six months in as a part time peer support worker on the local ‘P.I.C.U.’ (Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit) ward, the very same ward I was a patient at many times when my mental health was particularly bad. I have two other part time jobs. I work as a cleaner at the nearby Sports Centre, a job I do three hours a day at because it’s more interesting than you’d think and pays well. I also do a shorter amount of hours in a carpentry/joinery workshop making bespoke pieces from upcycled materials to sell in a shop. It’s therapeutic in several ways and very rewarding when my projects sell, and they sell quickly too! (I make coffee tables, wine racks, small cabinets, etc.)

You may well expect me to write a lot about my experiences on the PICU, but I rarely do because the patients have a right to their privacy, but I enjoy it. I feel useful there. I organise bingo games on the PICU and several other wards at Parklands Mental Hospital, which is part of the Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust. I bother local businesses including the big five supermarkets every three months for bingo prize donations. They are all very generous, especially Waitrose and Sainsbury’s. I have been able to gather some impressive prizes. Enthusiasm for bingo is particularly high on the over 65s ward. “Two little ducks, 22,” the room shouts – “quack, quack!” and so on. I am becoming familiar with the call signs.

My Princess nieces, two and a half and four and a half, visited us from America in the summer which was of course the highlight. As well as being rewarding work (I am familiar with and fairly adept at doing the parenting thing, for days at a time sometimes – they used to live close by and I like to think I’ve helped raise them and will continue to do so) they are great fun. Them being born gave me a small prod into reaching a new level of maturity and good mental health. I understand the walking unicorn I got them for Christmas was the favourite present.

I haven’t had a holiday this year, though I had two brilliant trips across Europe in 2017. I haven’t got my book published yet but I have received professional advice on the process, including two manuscript assessment services that provided lengthy appraisals, both saying similar things including “Disneyfy your book Peter!” Disneyfying my book means: Start with an attention grabbing scene, then fill in a bit of the back story, then introduce the dilemma, then bring in hope, then confidence and then work towards the happy conclusion. My mental health memoir was already a bit like that and the reworking is thus feeling easy at times. Lots of work to do though as I am keen to make my story the best it can possibly be.

Disneyfying a book, film etc. is very common. They all do it; Harry Potter, The Lord of The Rings, Star Wars, Peppa Pig, The Cat in The Hat...

In mid-December I received a surprise in the post, a copy of the Taylor and Francis Psychosis Journal 2018. In it they published a 3,500 word article I wrote for them on things that helped or hindered my journey with psychosis. It was another real highlight seeing my article in print in a bona fide psychosis journal. I wasn’t sure how widely published or respected the T and F Psychosis Journal was/is, but my Auntie in California who works as a literary researcher providing material for professionals told us that she has provided articles from this journal to researchers and professors at Stanford University. It was nice to feel such validation.

Christmas has been good for my family and me too; a busy week of seeing them and celebrating. My mum and I had several video calls with my nieces in America and we watched them opening presents. I miss them a lot, but having video calls with them every week does actually fill the hole a bit!

And so for 2018 things are continuing to slot into place – something I feel lucky for but have also worked hard to make happen, and I have been growing as a person in an enjoyable way. After many years feeling like an outsider, feeling normal again is fantastic.

Of course in an ideal world I’d be out partying hard tonight, I’m writing this on New Year’s Eve 2018. One step at a time though. Maybe next year. I had a few big New Year’s Eve celebrations in my teenage years and early twenties so I’ll always have that.

I wish you a happy and prosperous 2019.

About the Author

Peter McDonnell, 36, is an author, woodworker and mental health advocate from Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK.

He often writes articles on his experiences with mental illness and recovery for mental health websites. He is working hard on his memoirs of his experiences with mental illness. He has a website where you can see book extracts and his articles as well as a few other things. He also likes to write about travelling.

His social media links are easy to find on his website: petermcdonnellwriter.com.

 

The Importance of Family

By Peter McDonnell

This weekend my brother Will is home from Bristol, a rare things these days unfortunately. I live with my mum in my childhood home and my dad lives close by. At the moment we have just finished dinner and now we are sharing things on our electronic devices and relaxing. Will doesn’t share my opinion that my new Samsung Galaxy Smartwatch is worth every penny; unnecessary is the essence of his words. I agreed in part, but I have been looking for a nice watch recently and it makes so much sense to have a smartwatch instead of a normal one that could only tell time and date, even if it was emblazoned discretely with a mid-range maker labelling like ‘Citizen’ or ‘Seiko’. My new watch is like having James Bond’s watch. There are vast options for different designs for the watch face which on its own would be a clincher for the fashion conscious.

Will told us about his recent shenanigans over dinner and desert. He is learning to drive and we talked about that too, and we began telling old stories of driving experiences we had had pre-qualification. I was stopped by the police when I was a teenager after taking my mum’s car out for a quick night time joyride as I was just learning. She didn’t let me drive her car again until I was thirty. Kudos to her for sticking to her word.

Before long we were sharing stories about underage alcohol consumption. When I was thirteen I got a bit too drunk after boldly swigging four big gulps from a whisky bottle while on holiday with my dad and brothers. While naughtily drunk / hung over I spent twenty-four hours hiding from my dad and hoping that lots of coffee would cure me but all it did was turn my vomit black. I’m not sure if my mum had heard that one before.

Will has recently visited a Whisky distillery on the Isle of Skye where they sell their whisky in their small shop at higher prices than the local supermarket. And also, get this: the local pub is 200 metres from the distillery and they buy whisky from that distillery online because it’s cheaper that way. So their bottles travel from the distillery many miles to the online distributors, then back to the pub. That’s just crazy. We agreed that it was downright unscrupulous and that some people are driven by profit a bit too much.

We revisited a bottle of walnut wine that hadn’t been touched since a French holiday in 2013. It went very well on my Belgian Chocolate ice cream. We spoke, as we often do, about whether microwaving ice cream ruins it. I have been microwaving ice cream for a quick softening for years and I have never ruined it. Lots of people seem to passionately disagree with me on this though.

We chatted about my two little princess nieces who now live in America, with my mum saying she is looking forward to them being teenagers and seeing how my older brother navigates the issue of having teenage daughters. I recalled about how my niece used to outsmart me at age two and a half. She’d take me away from her parents somehow who limit screen time and then ask if she could watch cartoons on my phone. I’d always say yes, without realising that she had a plan. She didn’t really want to pick out books and toys from her bedroom upstairs, she just wanted someone with a phone to watch cartoons on, but she couldn’t ask when her parents were in the room. I’ve always thought that was quite clever.

I do enjoy spending time with my nieces. It’s good for my mental health. The standalone best thing for my mental health is my family. When I first got ill in 2001 with grandiosely delusional psychosis it was my mum and dad who saw I was unwell and involved the local services. I was doing silly things such as planning to travel to France to meet an imaginary friend after she didn’t show up at The Ritz Hotel (I travelled to meet her at The Ritz the previous day). I needed sectioning on the local mental health ward. At this time, where I was following a delusional agenda of grandiosity, sectioning probably saved my life. My parents visited me every day during my incarceration which couldn’t have been easy, I was disrespectful and rude sometimes because nobody believed in my true identity as the modern day Jesus. I was frustrated and I accused my parents of lying to me whenever we discussed if they believed in me. Along the next few years of being in and out of mental hospitals they stuck by me closely as did my brothers and all family members who lived nearby. My grandparents were lovingly supportive; aunties, uncles and cousins too.

After three years I began to improve in my psychosis but contracted anxiety/panic. My mum, dad and brothers spent the next six years doing the balancing act of being sensitive to my anxiety while also trying to push me into doing more and more socialising. If they hadn’t started this process thirteen years ago I would be unable to socialise today. I also appreciated it when my brothers continued to laugh and joke with me. It showed that they still saw me as a person with a sense of humour even if I did have mental health problems.

I am over my anxieties now, and my psychosis is much, much, better. Both are barely even there and I owe it all to my family.

I became godfather to my second niece in 2016. Looking after them has made me a more confident person with adult responsibilities; someone who is in step with the world. I spent years trying to get back ‘in step with the world’ from about 2007 to 2013. By that I mean being normal: doing things that others do, like going to work, socialising and enjoying weekends. To have such a life, where once I was afraid of leaving the house, is just brilliant.

I have been lucky to have things fall back into place a bit for me. I hope it shows that a mental illness can sometimes pass. An important lesson I learned is to trust doctors and those that love you. I didn’t trust anybody involved in my care back in the day, but it has now become clear that of course they were not lying to me. Their advice and behaviour was a gift and I wish I had started trusting them earlier. My improvement gained good ground when I let my supportive team help me.

About the Author

You can find more of Peter’s writing on his mental health website petermcdonnellwriter.com. He is also on Facebook (Peter Edward Mcdonnell) and on Twitter (@PeterMcDonnell_).

 

Not to Punish but to Understand

Sometimes it happens that you read or hear or experience something so sharp, so surprising, so out of left field, so TRUE that it stops you in your tracks. That’s what happened the other day when I came across this quote on social media.

Imagine meeting someone who wanted to learn your past not to punish you, but to understand how you needed to be loved. (Author unknown)

There is personal relevance in the words, for me and others in my life right now. But that’s not what I want to write about. What I want to explore — and I am writing as much for me as for you, dear reader — is why it would ever be otherwise. Why are those lines so shocking? Ought not every person we meet — certainly every person we allow in close — approach us in such a way?

Perhaps. Well, yes, in fact. But for a whole heap of reasons silence and stigma and shame remain powerful forces in society at large and in the smaller, more immediate communities in which we live out our lives. Wherever we meet — in our families, schools, colleges, places of work and of worship — the response to us, to our stories and histories, so often falls short of the caring curiosity for which we yearn.

Sadder still, we punish ourselves for what we have done or said, or failed to do or failed to say; the times we believe we have let ourselves or others down. How rarely do we approach ourselves with compassion?

What would it feel like if we did? How would it feel to explore our own stories wanting not to punish but to understand how we need to be loved?

 

Tribe and Untribe (A Trip to the Pub)

Almost exactly a year ago I wrote about visiting Wylam Brewery Tap Room at the Palace of Arts in Exhibition Park, Newcastle. I returned today and as I sit (inside, because there’s some sort of food festival going on outside in the beer garden) I am thinking back over the months that have passed since I was here last.

My wife Pam and I have enjoyed three vacations in Cumbria: a week last July in Bowness, a week in October just outside Brough, and a week this April in Appleby. Christmas was spent quietly at home. In March we travelled down to Liverpool with our two adult children for my mother’s funeral.

At work, well I’m still “doing the same job in the same place” which hasn’t challenged me for quite some time. However, as of the past two weeks I am feeling far more optimistic and engaged. She refuses to take any of the credit but this is very much down to my brilliant boss Judith, with buy in and encouragement from senior management all the way up to and including our Chief Exec.

It occurs to me this is the third Newcastle pub I have been in this month, which must be some sort of record! It’s not the alcohol (though I would be hard pressed to fault the pint of Collingwood Pale Ale I’m drinking). Rather, it’s a growing confidence in myself as someone who needn’t feel out of place in a social setting. I am reminded of something I wrote some time ago:

Be aware of the stories we tell ourselves, especially those that begin “I'm not the kind of person who ...”

Although I’m here on my own today, an important aspect of this is that I have people locally who are glad to see me and places and events where we can meet. As I wrote recently, I have found my tribe.

Of course, if there is a tribe there must be an untribe. Fran and I have been talking recently about the importance of boundaries and distinguishing healthy connections from unhealthy ones. About those people we recognise (and are recognised by) as “our people.” Those we resonate with. Those we feel safe with and respected by.

This doesn’t mean we get to ignore or behave badly towards people who are not our tribe. (I’ve come a long way from the days when I had an Inner Circle of “Special People,” and I’m not going back there!) But it does mean we get to respect our boundaries and decide where to focus our time and energy.

There is a flipside, of course, which is that we may find ourselves on the outside of other people’s boundaries. There will be (there are, I guarantee it) people for whom we — our attention, our attitudes, life choices etc. — are fundamentally unhealthy. Even toxic. And that’s okay too. Respect the other person. Respect yourself. And move on.

I’m here. I’m me. I’m growing. I’m learning. I’m flawed. I mess up. I fess up. I love. I am loved. It is enough. I am enough.

Mine’s a pint, by the way. Cheers!