GUEST ARTICLES
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This first piece is from my online friend Marty!
Complex Simplicity: The Art of Being Honest
By Martin Baker
I am grateful to Peter for inviting me to guest on his blog. He didn’t set a specific topic so as I sit here in one of my favourite coffee shops on a Saturday morning I’m wondering what to write about. What to share.
On the table beside me is the book I have been re-reading for the first time in decades: John Powell’s “Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am?” It’s not a book about mental health as such. It is a book about communication; about sharing our truths, doubts, fears, delights, and hang-ups with one another; and in so doing, allowing understanding and compassion to grow. (It is Powell’s contention that only by being honest and open with others can we come to know ourselves.) And that is of relevance to all of us, whether we live with a mental health diagnosis or not.
This kind of honest communication is fundamental to the close, caring, mutually supportive relationship I have with my best friend Fran Houston. It is also the central message of our book, “High Tide, Low Tide: The Caring Friend’s Guide to Bipolar Disorder.” When it works – when you allow it to work – the rewards can be immense, as I said to Fran just yesterday:
Martin: Things are so much simpler when we can be honest with each other.
Fran: It is because we feel safe and we trust.
Note that I said “simpler” there, not “simple”! Emotional honesty isn’t something that comes easy to me. There have been very few people in my life I’ve trusted enough to be vulnerable with. And doing so doesn’t guarantee an easy ride! It’s not about easy, it’s about real. It requires courage on both sides; not only to share your truth honestly but to face the consequences of your honesty, and the other person’s.
The exchange I quoted earlier between me and Fran was in response to a less-than-easy exchange yesterday on one of our twice daily video calls. (We live three thousand miles apart on opposite sides of the Atlantic. Our relationship is lived online using chat, emails, and voice and video calls.) We caught up on our news since we’d last met online, including our respective weights (we have been weight loss buddies for the past six years or so). I then moved on to talk about a friend of mine who has been having a rough time. Fran listened patiently, then drew me back to centre. It was clear that from her perspective things were far from okay.
I knew Fran’s weight has been increasing lately, and that she was disappointed and annoyed at her apparent inability to get on top of what was happening. But I hadn’t recognised just how desperate she was feeling about it, or that she felt alone in dealing with the complex and conflicting issues it brought up for her. She didn’t feel I was on board with it – and her – at all.
Fran’s honesty brought me up short. There was a flicker of defensive ego response – “I’ve had a lot going on for me recently, Fran, you know that.” – but that lasted no more than a moment or two. It was true, I have been working through some personal issues of my own for a while now. Fran has been there for me, which I have greatly appreciated, but I probably took my eye off the ball in terms of what was going on for her and what support she herself needed.
We stayed present with each other. We stayed calm. We stayed online. We talked, and listened. I asked Fran what I could do to help her. She suggested some practical things I could do but most of all what she needed was for me to hear her, and be there for and with her. We agreed I would be more vigilant, and that Fran would let me know if she again felt I was not fully on board in the ways she needed me to be.
I am proud of how we handled what might have been an awkward or contentious situation. We each got to share who we were and what was going on for us at that moment. We accepted without judgment what we were hearing. We acknowledged what was missing, what was needful. We recommitted to each other. And we moved on as friends, together.
About the Author
Martin Baker and Fran Houston are best friends living on opposite sides of the Atlantic: Martin in the northeast of England, and Fran in Maine. Fran lives with bipolar disorder, chronic fatigue syndrome, and fibromyalgia. Despite the distance, Martin is her primary support and caregiver. Their book “High Tide, Low Tide: The Caring Friend’s Guide to Bipolar Disorder” was published in 2016 by Nordland Publishing. A new book featuring articles from their blog (www.gumonmyshoe.com) will be published in early 2019 by Eliezer Tristan Publishing. You can follow Martin on Facebook (www.facebook.com/Marty.Baker.Author) and on Twitter (twitter.com/GumOnMyShoeBook)
This second post is from my good friend Melanie
Melanie Llewellyn, 37 is an author, designer and mental health advocate from Bedfordshire, UK.
A Journey Through Childhood Mental Illness
Watching my young daughter laying in hospital fighting for her life, I felt helpless. She was only twelve and had attempted her life, out the blue and for no apparent reason.
She was seemingly carefree and happy, doing well at school and had a wide circle of friends. Our home life was good with a strong family network. The paramedic attending to her that fateful night had noticed dozens of small cuts on her wrist; she had been self-harming, something I had not been aware of.
The year before, I had suffered a breakdown caused by the stress of running a demanding business and ended up in a psychiatric unit where it transpired I was suffering from stress-induced psychosis. Not thinking straight and in the grips of this frightening illness, I had even attempted suicide, I was so desperate. My daughter had stayed with my parents while I was in hospital, who we're both very close with, and thankfully I made a full recovery within three months. She had seemed to cope with everything so well and we had returned home where life was good again.
Now the nightmare had returned only this time it was my young daughter in turmoil. She recovered physically after five days, but mentally was clearly unwell. Psychiatrists, doctors, social workers and counsellors all rallied around along with our family, to gently try to find out why she had done it so that we could help her. But she wasn't talking.
I knew what it felt like wanting to die, in the grips of mental illness. But I also knew it was possible to recover with the right help and treatment. How could we help her though if she wouldn't say why? One evening a few weeks later, she came into my bed and cuddled up to me. I felt she had things on her mind and tried to get her to open up. "You'll think I'm crazy," she sobbed. I assured her I wouldn't and that nothing was so bad that we couldn't fix. To my relief, she opened up. It was nothing I could have imagined.
She had been hearing a voice in her head for the last year. A nasty, horrible voice which mocked her and told her she should kill herself. It was relentless. It would taunt her constantly until one day she could take no more. I hugged her tightly and promised her we would defeat it. She was certain it would never leave her but I cuddled her to sleep and then sat up and wrote down everything she had told me. I made copies the next morning and gave them to everyone involved with her care. I felt positive that now they knew what they were dealing with, they could help her.
It transpired she was suffering from elements of different mental illnesses including PTSD, depression, psychosis and the beginnings of an eating disorder. She was still suicidal and was assigned a crisis team who visited every day. Her psychiatrist put her on child-appropriate medication and she had a counsellor and art therapist who she saw once a week. I realised she had essentially copied me by trying to kill herself but felt I couldn't blame myself as I too was desperately unwell at the time. I wanted to use the strength that I had found in recovering to help her, not be consumed by guilt which would help no one.
Meanwhile things sadly got worse. She was self harming, behaving badly, getting into toxic friendships and smoking. She almost attempted her life on another two occasions and I found a suicide note in her room.
In time however, something amazing happened. With the right treatment and support she slowly started getting better. Bit by bit, day by day, the desire to die melted away and the voice got quieter until it disappeared completely. She was weaned off her medication and spent less time in therapy. As suddenly as it all started, it stopped. She's 17 now, has just passed her driving test, is going to university next year and is happy and healthy. She has grown into a strong young woman with the world at her feet. She is testament that you can get better and emerge stronger.
Melanie has written a book about her daughter's journey through childhood mental illness, called "And When You Become A Diamond." It's available from Amazon here: http://amzn.eu/4SmrdDl
Melanie gave a recent talk at The Shard in London about her daughter’s experience, the current young people’s mental health crisis and her message of hope. You can view it here: https://youtu.be/koE7aaacpqg
Follow Melanie here:
Twitter: twitter.com/Melanie_Burnell
Facebook: www.facebook.com/andwhenyoubecomeadiamond
Instagram: and_when_you_become_a_diamond
This next article is from an online friend of mine with much wisdom to share about the relationship between religion and mental illness.
Delight in Disorder: My Story, My Message, My Mission - by Pastor Tony Roberts
4 min read
My Story
In 1995, I was a young, ambitious pastor serving a small village church. One Sunday, I delivered a sermon on human illness and divine healing in which I shared these words:
When we become ill, it is important to listen to our bodies and pray that God help us make necessary changes. Our ailments may be blessings in disguise. We may be expecting too much from ourselves, or avoiding things we need to face. As we listen to our bodies, talk and reflect with others, and pray together, we can gain spiritual insight which will help us live healthier, more productive, more abundant lives.
The next day, I was in the seclusion room of a psychiatric hospital. I was told I had bipolar disorder, that I would never work as a pastor again, that my marriage would likely end, and that I would spend the rest of my life in and out of psychiatric hospitals.
By the grace of God and with much help from many others, I served another dozen years of fruitful ministry, was married “for better and for worse” for twenty three years and have mostly progressed in treatment to enjoy what my psychiatrist calls “maintenance remission.”
My Message
Having served over twenty years in ministry while wrestling with a serious mental illness, I have a message of Good News to share. This is not just positive affirmation meant to cover up feelings and shame and fear. It is not something I’ve picked up from one of the countless self-help books on the ABCs of analysis and treatment. It is certainly not that I have attained victory over bipolar through divine intervention alone and I no longer need medication or therapy.
The Good News we have to share is instead the hope that, with Christ’s saving grace, the hellish impact of mental illness will be bearable. God is with me even in the darkest valleys of despair. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ. Our hope, the Good News is that God has a purpose for our lives. And when we carry this hope, we find fellowship with others who struggle; we are emboldened to fight the stigma that often leads to dangerous silence; we find a measure of peace even during the worst moment that things will get better. We don’t know when, or how. Maybe not even in this life. But things will get better.
My Mission
Many people with mental illness are angry at God, at believers and at faith communities. People within churches struggle to understand mental illness to connect what medical advances about brain chemistry with Truth revealed in Scripture. I have lived in both worlds and wrestle daily with my dual identity as a Christian who has a serious mental illness.
My mission is to bridge the distance between faith and mental illness — fostering faith among those with disorders and diagnoses and promoting compassion within the faith community. Sharing my spiritual memoir is the first step towards this mission.
Won’t you join me on this mission? Pray for those impacted by mental illness. Recruit them to share their stories within your sanctuaries. If you have a mental illness, set aside your assumptions and walk into a church one Sunday or ask to go with a Christian you know.
When we do these things, we reclaim our godly mission through the madness of the world.
For more about Tony and his mission and work visit delightindisorder.org
This first piece is from my online friend Marty!
Complex Simplicity: The Art of Being Honest
By Martin Baker
I am grateful to Peter for inviting me to guest on his blog. He didn’t set a specific topic so as I sit here in one of my favourite coffee shops on a Saturday morning I’m wondering what to write about. What to share.
On the table beside me is the book I have been re-reading for the first time in decades: John Powell’s “Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am?” It’s not a book about mental health as such. It is a book about communication; about sharing our truths, doubts, fears, delights, and hang-ups with one another; and in so doing, allowing understanding and compassion to grow. (It is Powell’s contention that only by being honest and open with others can we come to know ourselves.) And that is of relevance to all of us, whether we live with a mental health diagnosis or not.
This kind of honest communication is fundamental to the close, caring, mutually supportive relationship I have with my best friend Fran Houston. It is also the central message of our book, “High Tide, Low Tide: The Caring Friend’s Guide to Bipolar Disorder.” When it works – when you allow it to work – the rewards can be immense, as I said to Fran just yesterday:
Martin: Things are so much simpler when we can be honest with each other.
Fran: It is because we feel safe and we trust.
Note that I said “simpler” there, not “simple”! Emotional honesty isn’t something that comes easy to me. There have been very few people in my life I’ve trusted enough to be vulnerable with. And doing so doesn’t guarantee an easy ride! It’s not about easy, it’s about real. It requires courage on both sides; not only to share your truth honestly but to face the consequences of your honesty, and the other person’s.
The exchange I quoted earlier between me and Fran was in response to a less-than-easy exchange yesterday on one of our twice daily video calls. (We live three thousand miles apart on opposite sides of the Atlantic. Our relationship is lived online using chat, emails, and voice and video calls.) We caught up on our news since we’d last met online, including our respective weights (we have been weight loss buddies for the past six years or so). I then moved on to talk about a friend of mine who has been having a rough time. Fran listened patiently, then drew me back to centre. It was clear that from her perspective things were far from okay.
I knew Fran’s weight has been increasing lately, and that she was disappointed and annoyed at her apparent inability to get on top of what was happening. But I hadn’t recognised just how desperate she was feeling about it, or that she felt alone in dealing with the complex and conflicting issues it brought up for her. She didn’t feel I was on board with it – and her – at all.
Fran’s honesty brought me up short. There was a flicker of defensive ego response – “I’ve had a lot going on for me recently, Fran, you know that.” – but that lasted no more than a moment or two. It was true, I have been working through some personal issues of my own for a while now. Fran has been there for me, which I have greatly appreciated, but I probably took my eye off the ball in terms of what was going on for her and what support she herself needed.
We stayed present with each other. We stayed calm. We stayed online. We talked, and listened. I asked Fran what I could do to help her. She suggested some practical things I could do but most of all what she needed was for me to hear her, and be there for and with her. We agreed I would be more vigilant, and that Fran would let me know if she again felt I was not fully on board in the ways she needed me to be.
I am proud of how we handled what might have been an awkward or contentious situation. We each got to share who we were and what was going on for us at that moment. We accepted without judgment what we were hearing. We acknowledged what was missing, what was needful. We recommitted to each other. And we moved on as friends, together.
About the Author
Martin Baker and Fran Houston are best friends living on opposite sides of the Atlantic: Martin in the northeast of England, and Fran in Maine. Fran lives with bipolar disorder, chronic fatigue syndrome, and fibromyalgia. Despite the distance, Martin is her primary support and caregiver. Their book “High Tide, Low Tide: The Caring Friend’s Guide to Bipolar Disorder” was published in 2016 by Nordland Publishing. A new book featuring articles from their blog (www.gumonmyshoe.com) will be published in early 2019 by Eliezer Tristan Publishing. You can follow Martin on Facebook (www.facebook.com/Marty.Baker.Author) and on Twitter (twitter.com/GumOnMyShoeBook)
This second post is from my good friend Melanie
Melanie Llewellyn, 37 is an author, designer and mental health advocate from Bedfordshire, UK.
A Journey Through Childhood Mental Illness
Watching my young daughter laying in hospital fighting for her life, I felt helpless. She was only twelve and had attempted her life, out the blue and for no apparent reason.
She was seemingly carefree and happy, doing well at school and had a wide circle of friends. Our home life was good with a strong family network. The paramedic attending to her that fateful night had noticed dozens of small cuts on her wrist; she had been self-harming, something I had not been aware of.
The year before, I had suffered a breakdown caused by the stress of running a demanding business and ended up in a psychiatric unit where it transpired I was suffering from stress-induced psychosis. Not thinking straight and in the grips of this frightening illness, I had even attempted suicide, I was so desperate. My daughter had stayed with my parents while I was in hospital, who we're both very close with, and thankfully I made a full recovery within three months. She had seemed to cope with everything so well and we had returned home where life was good again.
Now the nightmare had returned only this time it was my young daughter in turmoil. She recovered physically after five days, but mentally was clearly unwell. Psychiatrists, doctors, social workers and counsellors all rallied around along with our family, to gently try to find out why she had done it so that we could help her. But she wasn't talking.
I knew what it felt like wanting to die, in the grips of mental illness. But I also knew it was possible to recover with the right help and treatment. How could we help her though if she wouldn't say why? One evening a few weeks later, she came into my bed and cuddled up to me. I felt she had things on her mind and tried to get her to open up. "You'll think I'm crazy," she sobbed. I assured her I wouldn't and that nothing was so bad that we couldn't fix. To my relief, she opened up. It was nothing I could have imagined.
She had been hearing a voice in her head for the last year. A nasty, horrible voice which mocked her and told her she should kill herself. It was relentless. It would taunt her constantly until one day she could take no more. I hugged her tightly and promised her we would defeat it. She was certain it would never leave her but I cuddled her to sleep and then sat up and wrote down everything she had told me. I made copies the next morning and gave them to everyone involved with her care. I felt positive that now they knew what they were dealing with, they could help her.
It transpired she was suffering from elements of different mental illnesses including PTSD, depression, psychosis and the beginnings of an eating disorder. She was still suicidal and was assigned a crisis team who visited every day. Her psychiatrist put her on child-appropriate medication and she had a counsellor and art therapist who she saw once a week. I realised she had essentially copied me by trying to kill herself but felt I couldn't blame myself as I too was desperately unwell at the time. I wanted to use the strength that I had found in recovering to help her, not be consumed by guilt which would help no one.
Meanwhile things sadly got worse. She was self harming, behaving badly, getting into toxic friendships and smoking. She almost attempted her life on another two occasions and I found a suicide note in her room.
In time however, something amazing happened. With the right treatment and support she slowly started getting better. Bit by bit, day by day, the desire to die melted away and the voice got quieter until it disappeared completely. She was weaned off her medication and spent less time in therapy. As suddenly as it all started, it stopped. She's 17 now, has just passed her driving test, is going to university next year and is happy and healthy. She has grown into a strong young woman with the world at her feet. She is testament that you can get better and emerge stronger.
Melanie has written a book about her daughter's journey through childhood mental illness, called "And When You Become A Diamond." It's available from Amazon here: http://amzn.eu/4SmrdDl
Melanie gave a recent talk at The Shard in London about her daughter’s experience, the current young people’s mental health crisis and her message of hope. You can view it here: https://youtu.be/koE7aaacpqg
Follow Melanie here:
Twitter: twitter.com/Melanie_Burnell
Facebook: www.facebook.com/andwhenyoubecomeadiamond
Instagram: and_when_you_become_a_diamond
This next article is from an online friend of mine with much wisdom to share about the relationship between religion and mental illness.
Delight in Disorder: My Story, My Message, My Mission - by Pastor Tony Roberts
4 min read
My Story
In 1995, I was a young, ambitious pastor serving a small village church. One Sunday, I delivered a sermon on human illness and divine healing in which I shared these words:
When we become ill, it is important to listen to our bodies and pray that God help us make necessary changes. Our ailments may be blessings in disguise. We may be expecting too much from ourselves, or avoiding things we need to face. As we listen to our bodies, talk and reflect with others, and pray together, we can gain spiritual insight which will help us live healthier, more productive, more abundant lives.
The next day, I was in the seclusion room of a psychiatric hospital. I was told I had bipolar disorder, that I would never work as a pastor again, that my marriage would likely end, and that I would spend the rest of my life in and out of psychiatric hospitals.
By the grace of God and with much help from many others, I served another dozen years of fruitful ministry, was married “for better and for worse” for twenty three years and have mostly progressed in treatment to enjoy what my psychiatrist calls “maintenance remission.”
My Message
Having served over twenty years in ministry while wrestling with a serious mental illness, I have a message of Good News to share. This is not just positive affirmation meant to cover up feelings and shame and fear. It is not something I’ve picked up from one of the countless self-help books on the ABCs of analysis and treatment. It is certainly not that I have attained victory over bipolar through divine intervention alone and I no longer need medication or therapy.
The Good News we have to share is instead the hope that, with Christ’s saving grace, the hellish impact of mental illness will be bearable. God is with me even in the darkest valleys of despair. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ. Our hope, the Good News is that God has a purpose for our lives. And when we carry this hope, we find fellowship with others who struggle; we are emboldened to fight the stigma that often leads to dangerous silence; we find a measure of peace even during the worst moment that things will get better. We don’t know when, or how. Maybe not even in this life. But things will get better.
My Mission
Many people with mental illness are angry at God, at believers and at faith communities. People within churches struggle to understand mental illness to connect what medical advances about brain chemistry with Truth revealed in Scripture. I have lived in both worlds and wrestle daily with my dual identity as a Christian who has a serious mental illness.
My mission is to bridge the distance between faith and mental illness — fostering faith among those with disorders and diagnoses and promoting compassion within the faith community. Sharing my spiritual memoir is the first step towards this mission.
Won’t you join me on this mission? Pray for those impacted by mental illness. Recruit them to share their stories within your sanctuaries. If you have a mental illness, set aside your assumptions and walk into a church one Sunday or ask to go with a Christian you know.
When we do these things, we reclaim our godly mission through the madness of the world.
For more about Tony and his mission and work visit delightindisorder.org
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