‘Wait, you research stories about mental illness, isn’t that really depressing?’: Story telling, mental health and the Love Arts Festival By Katrina Longhurst …
I am a postgraduate English Literature student, which effectively means that I spend most of my life reading stories and writing about them. My main interest is in fiction and memoirs about mental illness and disability. I think this is a fascinating area of research and yet, when I first tell someone that this is how I spend my time, their reaction is often one of surprise, confusion, and, occasionally, slight repulsion. I guess maybe when they asked about my degree they were expecting a nice, quick reply about William Shakespeare, John Keats or Charlotte Brontë- although, incidentally, if we pause for a moment we realise that mental illness is key to all of these writers’ work. The person’s reaction then follows along the lines of ‘I couldn’t deal with any of that slit-your-wrists-stuff. Why would you want to read it?’ At this point I resist the temptation to scream, and instead explain that no, whilst often poignant, these stories do not depress me, nor do they make me want to self-harm, that actually they are some of the most uplifting, life-affirming, funny books I’ve ever read and that it is vitally important to pay attention to this literature in which authors challenge ready made assumptions about mental health and share their stories of mental illness.
We all have our stories to tell, and, considering that 1 in 4 of us will experience mental illness at some point, many of those stories will include a narrative of being mentally ill, whether that be of our own personal experience or the experience of someone close to us. Mine certainly does. Stories are integral to how we see, interpret and talk about the world. They can help us make connections, increase our empathy, challenge our prejudices and stimulate our imagination. Added to this, putting events into a narrative creates a sense of order and gives the teller a power over their experiences which they may previously have felt lacking.
An ill patient who voices their experiences in the form of a story moves from being a passive victim in their suffering to gaining some agency over their illness. In my research I analyse different kinds of stories told by people who are or have been mentally ill, and look at how they choose to tell their story and why. It is perhaps not surprising then that what first struck me when I signed up to volunteer for LoveArts was how many of the events encourage the sharing of stories, particularly Leeds Book Club: Sharing Stories Special and The Word Emporium.
Last year Arts & Minds ran a campaign called ‘Sharing Stories’ based on the power of storytelling to bring people together and raise awareness of mental health and learning disabilities. Working with Leeds Book Club, they came up with 11 books which touched on a variety of mental health issues ranging from Matthew Quick’s The Silver Linings Play Book to F Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night (for full list see http://leedsbookclub.com/2013/01/14/mental-health-reading-challenge-2013/). The initiative was so successful that Arts & Minds has continued the project this year with 6 books about mental health, learning disability and autism: The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer, Marbles by Ellen Forney, The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion, Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healy, The Examined Life by Stephen Grosz and Stranger than Kindness by Mark A Radcliffe. The project also organises events with the authors- e.g. interviewing Emma Healy during the Leeds Book End- and encourages people to review and blog to keep the conversations going outside of meetings. Tom Bailey, Arts and Minds Development Worker, says it’s been great to get people together and to ‘encourage them to speak about their thoughts and ideas about mental health.’ The book club is brilliant because it provides a safe space for anyone to come along, join in with the group and talk about the books and issues touched upon within them.
The book club is meeting on Monday 20th October, 6-8pm at The Tetley, discussing Elizabeth is Missing and The Examined Life. Feel free to come along to chat about these great novels.
The other event I’m ridiculously excited about is The Word Emporium. This is happening on Thursday 16th October and is an evening of poetry and music to celebrate the power of words and their impact on our mental health. As an added bonus the real junk food project will be there with food available on a ‘pay as you feel’ basis. The evening is being led by Rommi Smith, poet, freelance writer and creative writing teacher who was also writer in residence for the ‘Sharing Stories’ campaign. Speaking about her role as writer in residence for the campaign, Rommi stated that ‘creativity is simply the best medicine there is; it is a barometer of feeling, it is transformative of lives and horizons and affirms what it is to be human’ and that her aim in the residency was to ‘celebrate those stories that are so often heard and held by staff, but go unsung beyond the walls and boundaries of these services.’ Surely this evening of spoken word is another great opportunity to do the same. There are open mic slots on the theme ‘Conversations with myself; Conversations with the world’; tickets cost £3.50 per adult, £2.50 for concessions.
Other events to look out for during the festival drawing on storytelling are Playing the Part: Our Story and My Perfect Mind. The first is a workshop on Monday the 20th October at West Yorkshire Playhouse for people living with Dementia and their partners which will encourage creative expression through collaborative story-making. The second is a play, again at WYP, performed by Edward Petherbridge and Paul Hunter, running from 15th-18th October. ‘My Perfect Mind’ is a play which interweaves elements from King Lear and Petherbridge’s own life story of having had a stroke, two of them actually, as he prepared to play the leading role in this Shakespearean tragedy in New Zealand in 2007. Pertherbridge has described the show both as ‘taking bits of my life and shaking them up in a kind of kaleidoscope’ and ‘attending a seminar on King Lear under the influence of LSD’ If that doesn’t pique your intrigue, I don’t know what will!
I’m sure most people are aware of Time to Change, a campaign led by Mind and Rethink Mental Illness, which aims to reduce stigma and discrimination relating to mental illness. On their website they have a pledge wall where an individual or organisation can make their pledge as to how they will help end mental health stigma. At time of writing there were 64,146 pledges. When you click to make a pledge you choose from a drop down of 5 pledges, and one particularly struck me: ‘I will share my mental health story to help others understand mental health’. Too often stories which include mental illness remain untold due to embarrassment and the fear of stigma or are not listened to due to ignorance and ill-founded preconceptions. Love Arts is an incredible festival designed to get us talking openly about mental health, wellbeing and creativity, and what better way could there be to celebrate this than to come together and share stories in the hope that in doing so we will reduce the stigma which still clings to mental illness?
The Love Arts Festival takes place in Leeds from 15th – 23rd October 2014. The Launch is on Wednesday 15th October, 4pm at the Light in Leeds.
See www.loveartsleeds.co.uk for a full programme.