Please note: This report talks about mental health
January 2020; Australia burns, I write the poem a ring of fire then drop from prolonged exhaustion into acute anxiety and indescribable darkness. I wonder in Dante’s name, what circle of hell is this? It’s not clear what triggered this. All I know is I’m suddenly severely ill. I’m bipolar, generally pretty stable apart from these “dips.” Try to contact mental health services, a farce ensues; waiting for call backs that never happen, a lost referral, cancelled appointments… In the end stumble to A&E., finally referred to a consultant psychiatrist and support worker.
Fast forward. A week before the first lockdown I’m sitting in the waiting room at 308 Brixton Road. Notice the bottle of hand sanitiser on top of the water dispenser. It says to me; it’s getting closer, though doesn’t fill me with dread. I’m on the mend, feeling more positive. A week before I’d managed to reach Resonance fm to meet other members of Poets for the Planet. We record a show for International Women’s Day. It gives me back some meaning, purpose and belonging.
The support worker suggests I facilitate the ongoing creative writing group. The psychiatrist wants to change my weekly appointments to monthly. I’m not happy with this, still struggling to go out unless I must. As I make my way back via Brixton High Street, fragile, weave in avoidance of many who are ragged and wretched, aggressive or despondent, visibly acutely ill, far worse than me I reflect, some undoubtedly homeless. I have a home to go to…
The mental health service is scaled down to acute care only for lockdown. I’m no longer acute, support and appointments are cancelled. I have no energy for outrage. Feel a mixture of relief and foreboding. Perhaps my limited ability to function is not going to matter so much with the world on hold, but will I relapse? My one and only excursion in three months has been empowering.
Transpires lockdown is good for me. Join a group morning meditation on zoom, yoga everyday, plant a herb garden. Sit in the sun and read outside my flat alternating The Dali Lamas Cat and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. It’s the warmest April on record, I’m getting a tan worthy of the Med. All possible as I have, precarious though it is, a home.
Lockdown reveals to me that for decades during recovery my inner critic barks you’re getting behind again… you’ve got to catch up! This dissolves in the apparent stasis. Realise this pressure to recover does the opposite. Find in my mind a more forgiving, kinder place with compassion for myself.
Besides those with Covid, with its range of symptoms, people begin to report a strange lockdown fatigue and brain fog. Things I’m well acquainted with. Begin a series of articles on wellbeing for my blog, writing from this place of forgiveness, kindness and compassion.
Realise furthermore I’ve internalised an attitude that society only values me if I’m economically active; after all the wealth of a nation is measured in GDP. What does that say to people, not just with mental health problems, but those limited by chronic illness, disability, the terminally ill and retired, those living hand to mouth on the streets?
As the year progresses the sentiment “we are all in it together” swiftly becomes we are not all in it together equally as layers of inequality are revealed. These revelations must not be allowed to fade when Covid recedes. Can’t help be reminded of the proclamation in Orwell’s Animal Farm, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
