From www.virtuall.org
In Memory of Two Friends, and More.
I used to be really into caving and pot-holing. Like anyone whose has taken part in an extreme sport I knew people who had a friend who had died (mostly from cave-diving). I really wish, as a mental health service user, that I could keep that friend-of-a-friend distance, but this Christmas I learned that two more of my friends have died. It is probably one of the hardest things about making friends in hospital, or in user groups, so many people die young. And how should I write about them without being silly or sentimental?
I first heard of Pete Shaughnessy when I was due to give a talk as part of the press launch of the Royal College of Psychiatry's 'Changing Minds' campaign. Pete, in usual Pete fashion, was organising a counter demonstration and it made me nervous enough to change my talk to acknowledge the fact that some people see psychiatry as part of the problem rather than part of the solution. We met for the first time at a lobby against the new Mental Health Act a couple of years later and found (to my surprise) that we respected each others position and agreed that there are lots of ways of challenging stigma and empowering service users. We stayed in touch and when Mad Pride (co-founded by Pete) was organised I wanted to go to the memorial for those who had died on Archway Bridge but unfortunately I wasn't well. Mad Pride was an achievement, though Pete and I often found time to argue about the name.
Nikki Dakin was the User Development Worker in the London Borough of Harrow. To begin with I was amazed by Nikki's professionalism, patience and her passion for helping service users to do more that they thought they could. Later we became good friends and meetings to discuss local projects (over coffee) would get extended so we could talk about our experiences in the services and our ideas on what would make things better. Nikki was a mega-efficient person and certainly not afraid to delegate as I somewhat ruefully learned on being inspired to join in on local projects that I wouldn't normally have considered. I will miss her immensely.
Pete and Nikki are the ninth and tenth of my mental health user friends to die. And that is good friends, if I include people I have only known to talk to in hospital I know about twenty people who have died young. Some of these have committed suicide, in despair over what their lives have become or as a result of aspects of their illness. Some have died as a result of side effects of their official medication or as a final result of attempting to medicate with illegal drugs or alcohol. I cannot blame them, I am only here because someone in the street choose to call an ambulance rather than step over an unconscious person on a London street.
These are hard things for those who make friends with those with a mental health problem and those who work with them. Both my husband and my greatest friend have told me that they have to live slightly detached from me because I can fall into hopelessness when the jangle in my head becomes too hard. Can anything be done? The government are committed to reducing the number of people who kill themselves, but then they make it hard for young people by continually testing them, and are planning to make it hard for those in mental distress by introducing a new mental health act that takes away any control of their lives' from people who are subject to it.
I personally wish there was a cure, or medication with no side effects. I wish my psychiatrist didn't blame me when I become ill when I'm not doing anything to trigger it, because then it becomes harder and harder to ask for help.
J.A. 02-01-03