‘A Win For Pandora, and Team New Media’
Ha, the irony, I have lost my voice, stolen by a thief in the night. An activist without a voice today, but then haven’t I been so stricken in the past?
Today I may well be physically unwell, and reduced to writing notes such as “No, I do not want any more paracetamol, I will die from liver failure!” and such like, but really when you consider it I’ve always been the silent mental health activist, the ‘mouth behind a mouse’, and it has been the medium which I attribute to saving my life on two occasions.
Last week found me taking part in a Guinness World Record attempt, called: ‘Greatest International Scavenger Hunt World Has Ever Seen’ or ‘GISHWHES’ for short. It was something I was drawn to for a few reasons; it sounded weird, it would raise money for charity; I was curious and I admire the man behind it, Misha Collins.
An ‘International Scavenger Hunt’, what was that? Once we’d registered we found ourselves allocated a team; a group of individuals from around the world whom we’d never met. Not at all what I’d expected, having assumed I’d be with a group of people local to me. All teams were then allocated the same set of over 200 scavenger hunt tasks to complete in just over a week. This list was as obscure as it was daunting and not at all easy to attempt, even less so when my team comprised of people from North America, Scotland and Chile. What was indeed astounding was how quickly these ‘virtual’ strangers became a team and how we all worked together, to achieve the same end, which was to complete as many tasks on the list as possible and WIN the Scavenger Hunt.
The very same week found me attending the Mind Media Awards 2011, as a short-listed entry in the category of ‘New Media‘. A category where Bloggers, Tweeters, YouTube’rs and people using the platform of the ‘internet’ to raise awareness by telling their stories, sharing news, and discussing issues which affect those with mental illnesses, and in doing so affectively help tackle the stigma faced by those affected, and the people who care for them. A team of virtual ‘Myth- busters’, personalities so very different, but all with one joint aim – to ensure the voice of the coal face of mental ill health is heard.
Earlier this year I wanted to die. Almost every day for over four months I would awaken with the feeling that there was a huge lead weight on my chest, I would haul myself out of bed, wrap myself in a dressing gown and spend most of my day in complete silence, alone, gazing out of the window at the sea and thinking “it’s time now, time to give up.” Surrounded by family yet with such an intense loneliness which left me feeling like a spectator, someone watching their lives from afar, seeing myself as the one thing which held them back a little, a burden they had to consider. I’d hide my thoughts of suicide deep within me, and try desperately to appear ‘normal’ when people were around. Dragging myself upstairs to dress ten minutes before my daughter came home from school was possibly one of the most difficult achievements for me when the depression was at its most fierce. The very thought of switching on the TV was too much of an ordeal, the remote control was out of reach and I couldn’t move to get it. Two cups and a plate in the sink needing washed would appear to me as a task of mammoth proportion, and the energy, the physical and mental energy it took to complete any job was so exhausting that I thought that this was a life not worth living, and if it was to be my future, then it was a future I was not going to feature in.
The stress of preparing for Christmas 2010 lead me into a hyper-dysphoric state on the day, I was full of energy, anxious hyper-vigilant energy, and whilst the day appeared a success, the next day I was left feeling both physically sick and emotionally drained. I sank back quickly into my ‘dead zone’, and it was at that point my family jointly decided to scavenge cash to send me on convalescence to friends in Egypt.
Looking back it was a pretty dismal state of affairs really. Depressed, suicidal, riddled with guilt and feeling powerless, powerless that is except for ‘social media’. I had a iPAD, a gift, the best gift ever, because whilst I was so poorly I found I could continue to use my Facebook and my BLOG. I could write, I could hide my dressing-gowned self behind a keyboard. No-one could see me, no one needed to know how lame my life had become.
And continue to Blog, Tweet, Stumble and Facebook is what I did, every day, almost ritually. Hiding behind a mixture of politics, jokes, mental health articles, poetry, grumpy and happy articles I was voracious. I took my iPAD to Egypt and made sure I blogged every day, and my online community became my saviour, because they responded to me, but they were at a distance far enough away for me to feel more free, less guilty about my illness, it wasn’t directly affecting them, as it was my family.
As had happened in 2007 when I’d had a breakdown following bullying in the workplace, it would be social media which would play the biggest part in my Recovery, not drugs, not medical help (I’m still awaiting a talking therapy) but my ‘virtual’ life online.
So back to ‘GISHWHES’, and to those ‘MIND MEDIA AWARDS’. My Scavenger Hunt team has yet to learn if we were close to winning, but we’ve had fun and I’ve made new friends, learned something about them, and about team work. I didn’t win in my category at the Mind Awards; the ultimate prize went to Pandora, for her amazing blog: ‘Confessions of a Serial Insomniac’. It would have been strange and unusual to have felt jealous or upset because I didn’t walk away with the trophy, because being short-listed meant that I can now see that what has appeared to me to have been a year wasted, lost in serious depression, is actually untrue, people read my words and nominated me, and I’m grateful to be able see things from this new perspective.
Pandora’s win is a win not just for her, but for ‘Team New Media’, and she blazes a trail in which hundreds of mental health user and carer voices are impacting on the medium of the Internet!
To everyone who speaks up and out on mental health related issues via, Twitter; YouTube; Tumblr; and Facebook or by Blogging, let these awards speak to you, and hear that you are making a difference.
Dawn
30/11/2011
Some important links:
http://greatestinternationalscavengerhunttheworldhaseverseen.com/
http://www.mind.org.uk/news/6100_mind_media_awards_2011_winners_announced
Diagnosis Matters Not!
I have only just found your blog, and wanted to say thank you. I know intellectually that I am not the only person in the world with depression, and all the other chronic conditions that I’ve been ‘gifted’ with this lifetime, but emotionally, the only thing that makes a difference is hearing other people’s stories – like yours.
Hello Dawni your stories always so inspire me. You my Hero, be very proud Dawni.
YOU MAKE A HUGE DIFFERENCE Thank ”YOU”.
Great post Dawn, and thank you for the mention
I completely agree with your point – as we also discussed on Monday – that social media is changing the world. Mind asked me to do a voxpop for them that evening, and as I said in that, without Twitter I would certainly be dead.
This award is for everyone in this wonderful community. Together, we’re all quietly building a revolution in the arena of mental health.
It was an absolute pleasure to meet you, and I hope it won’t be the last time!
Take care
Pan <3 xxx
Sending virtual hugs and coffe ‘n’ cakes xxxx
coffee not coffe!
Dear Dawn,
Your BLOG is unusual in amongst the other nominations because it is so very ‘different’. I have been directed to news articles and to media misrepresentation of mental health as a direct result of checking in on your page.
You are a miner of information and a sharer of stories. Your personal accounts of your experiences are far too understated, because they are immensely powerful.
Shame you didn’t win the Award, would have liked to see you catapulted into the limelight, but you are a real shining light in mental health awareness and I thank you.
Mr L Samuels
Good post Dawn.
You need to make more of your writing instead of hiding it in that ‘box’ on the side of your page.
Followed your Egypt diaries and read you as often as I can.
Sorry you didn’t win, genuinely, but then again you’ve spoken out against Mind and co.
Claire The Bear
Your poems Dawn always speak to me. Hope your team wins the scavenger hunt, and wish you had that trophy because you simply never stop.
Ant
Just to thank you for all your words of wisdom & the help (unknown of course) that is sometimes one of the thin threads of comfort i find while my own ‘lame life’ is played along on social media too.