Gum on My Shoe

Some time ago, my friend Liz Kay wrote a blog post about a “motivational” quote she’d come across that struck her as particularly unhelpful and inappropriate. I recommend checking out her post . It’s a great example of how an idea, suggestion, or piece of advice , can be interpreted very differently, depending on your personal history, lived experience, and situation. Something similar happened to me the other day. For several years I’ve followed the Twitter account of author and entrepreneur Marsha Wright . I especially like the messages and memes that are shared every Sunday under her #ThinkBIGSundayWithMarsha hashtag. I often participate by tweeting a quote or message with that hashtag; either a quotation from our book or something by other writers. I also check the hashtag feed and retweet content I find interesting or relevant. Some of it is too upbeat, even for me (I well remember Fran calling me pathologically positive not too long after we became friends — and it wasn’...

If you follow me on social media you’ll have seen that I’m currently on a fortnight’s holiday from work. I rented a car for the first week and took little excursions and day trips here and there in the northeast of England. Alnwick. Bamburgh. Belsay. Otterburn. It was good to be behind the wheel after more than two years, and to revisit places I’ve not seen since the start of the pandemic. My modest adventuring stalled, however, when I developed a cough late last week. I took a lateral flow test on Saturday which confirmed I’d picked up a coronavirus infection from somewhere. It was bound to happen at some point. I’ve had all my jabs but that was never a guarantee I wouldn’t catch it. I can’t say where, when, or from whom I contracted it. I imagine it was one of the restaurants or coffee shops I visited last weekend or at the start of the week. I’m not mad at whoever passed it on to me. Maybe they were asymptomatic and had no idea they were contagious. Maybe they thought it w...

I’m going to talk about a few things said to me over the years by people who have what I do not: lived experience of mental illness. They’ve been hard to hear but I’m grateful because I’ve learned something valuable each time. “You don’t understand” They say we all have mental health but as Fran and I describe in our book High Tide, Low Tide: The Caring Friend’s Guide to Bipolar Disorder there’s a fundamental difference in experience between someone like Fran who lives with mental illness and someone like me who never has. Well or ill, we are all people. Nevertheless, it is naive, disrespectful, and dangerous to downplay the impact illness has on those affected by it. Those who are ill […] have particular life experiences, perceptions, expectations, and needs. To use Fran’s terminology, she is the ill one in our relationship; I am the well one. Nothing more or less is implied by our use of these terms. High Tide, Low Tide , Introduction So when someone tells me I don’t un...

I wasn’t disappointed in you when your weight went up because you ate all the girl scout cookies. Although maybe it seemed that way when I suggested you throw them away or gift them to someone next time, and lectured you about average daily calories. As though that would fix your relationship with your body. I wasn’t disappointed in you when you told me you cut yourself. Although maybe it seemed that way when I said remember I’m here. Don’t ever feel you’d be a burden or that I’d be too busy or asleep. As though I can make the demons go away. I wasn’t disappointed in you when you went back to sleep after our prearranged wake-up call. Although maybe it seemed that way when I started calling a second time or a third to make sure you were up. As though your day starts better in my hands. I wasn’t disappointed in you when you told me there’s no hope, no job, no friends for you so why bother trying. Although maybe it seemed that way when I pushed suggestions in your face you’d trie...

By Peter McDonnell I’m going to dive right in and begin. I hope people with similar problems with psychosis and anxiety can relate. Since writing a memoir of my experiences with psychosis, anxiety and recovery I have found that I can talk much more easily about my mental health issues. Before I began my memoir in 2015 I had no interest in sharing how I was feeling about my illness with my supportive team (my parents who are both qualified psychiatric nurses, my various psychiatrists, my care coordinators etc.), friends, family and work colleagues. Now, just try and shut me up! I often have to remind myself in general conversations that though my mental health and recovery fascinates me, other people are usually not as interested in my experiences as I am (but sometimes they are!). I had my annual appointment with my psychiatrist two weeks ago. She asked how I was, and so I began. I am doing really well. I’ve been a bit blocked up with constipation – I understand that my medicat...