In this talk I cover both sides of dating with a mental illness. Dating someone with a mental illness and dating when you have a mental illness. Above all, I look at the importance of independence, autonomy and self-empowerment. As well as keeping your relationship separate from the management of your mental illness.

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The 10th October is World Mental Health Day.  Studies conducted on pandemic habits show that different creative pursuits have been really important for people in lockdown, with listening to music ranked as the most effective activity for making participants feel more positive. So for this episode I wanted to come back to my roots and revisit the wonderful relationship between music and mental mental health.

in earnest are a Southend-on-Sea (UK) trio fuelled by the songwriting of front-couple Sarah Holburn and Tom Eatherton, and joined by instrumentalist Toby Shaer. ‘reasons to stay alive’ tackles topics such as despair, gratitude, suicidal thoughts and the climate crisis. More than just a collection of songs, the six tracks flow seamlessly into one another to create a 22-minute composition that loops back round into an infinite piece of art. Diving deeper and even more unflinchingly into their thematic content, in earnestshowcase a unique blend of indie, folk and post-rock with progressive tendencies. During our interview, in earnest explained that their new EP “took its title from a book by Matt Haig, which originally inspired us to talk so openly about mental illness. We wrote these songs to document our personal highs and lows over the past couple of years; the whole record is cyclical to reflect how most of us have felt stuck in an endless loop.”  You can catch the album  on the band’s website and Spotify.

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We talk a lot about “mental health” these days, and less about mental illness. From Instagram to large non profits and government service providers, the message and focus is on being well, taking time for self-care, and recovering.  This is a positive step forward for some. But what about people who live with mental illness all their lives? 

In this conversation with Tarika Powell, we look at how the shifting nomenclature might be increasing stigma associated with people with severe and persistent mental illness and excluding them from meaningful discussions about mental illness and mental health.

Tarika Powell lives with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). She is an advocate for increasing public education around mental health. Tarika is a graduate of Vanderbilt University Law School. She also holds a Masters  of Education and undergraduate degrees in English and African-American Studies from Oberlin College.

Tarika is also a policy analyst and speaker in the fields of fossil fuel infrastructure development, public safety, land use management, and equity. For the past six years, she has helped lead Northwest opposition movements to false clean energy solutions like fracked gas. This work has made her a regional expert on energy policy. 

If you are a watcher rather than a listener, you can find the full podcast with video on YouTube here.

You can find out more about Tarika at https://instagram.com/tarikapowell or https://linktr.ee/tarikapowell

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Heidi Everett is an artist, creative workshop facilitator, mental health recovery advocate, social impact facilitator, and projects and events innovator in Melbourne, Australia. My Friend Fox is her first book.

'My version of events that happened to me involves things that the mental health system will never understand because to understand, it needs to take its pointy shoes off and walk softly through the grass. Through this book I want people to see that those of us in psych wards and on the streets have deep and ancient trenches etched into our lifelines. We need to stop looking suspiciously at people’s damaged hands and read the story they hold preciously in their palms’.
 
In My Friend Fox Everett has reclaimed the story that was always hers to tell; retracing her life up to, during and after her time in Australia’s medical system. Lyrical and poignant, Everett’s words, accompanied by her exquisite line drawings, allow the fullness of her experiences to be seen highlighting the ways in which Everett is more than the diagnoses that comprise a facet of who she is.

Subscribe to our newsletter or learn more about Mostly Mad Music. Read more about My Friend Fox at Ultimo Press.

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In today's talk, I cover the links between narrative therapy, confessional poetry and the emergence of the phrase “My Truth”.

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The recent world events and  subsequent bombardment of graphic tragedy in real-time have got me thinking once again, about the news, why I feel compelled to watch it, and what the (long term) negative implications might be. This week I look a closer look at vicarious trauma (VT),  ‘the negative transformation in the helper that results (across time) from empathic engagement with trauma survivors and their traumatic material, combined with a commitment or responsibility to help them’ (Pearlman and Caringi, 2009, 202-203). 

The greater the exposure to traumatic material, the greater the risk of vicarious trauma. Vicarious trauma results from witnessing and engaging at an empathic level with those affected. And while the phenomenon of vicarious trauma is widely acknowledged, it can be challenging to recognise and deal with it. Its dynamics and `ripple effects’ are complex, pervasive and damaging. 

Risk of vicarious trauma can be reduced by lessening exposure to distressing material and using  music and other strategies to help you take time out, relax, distract or channel low mood.

If you are feeling edgy, irritable, teary, sleeping worse and/or ruminating, maybe take a break from the news. 

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Music, identity and mental illness: Using music to arouse empathy for and between identity groups such as abled and disabled people (people with severe mental illness).

The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) stated that it 'is seriously concerned about the inequalities in terms of physical health and life expectancy of people with serious mental illness'. People with serious mental illness live, typically, between 10 and 25 years less than the general population. Around 80% of this higher mortality rate can be attributed to the much higher rates of physical illnesses, such as cardiovascular and respiratory diseases and cancer experienced by this population (RANZCP 2015). Although there has been improvement in general social acceptance of mental conditions such as anxiety and low mood, significant stigma and discrimination toward people with severe mental illness persist, which affects their employment, housing, health care and personal relationships. They also feel less accepted and supported by family and friends, making them more likely to conceal their mental health status to avoid stigma or discrimination. This means people with serious mental illness are less likely to seek much needed social contact, support and access to mental health support networks. Increasing public acceptance is an important first step to improving their mental health outcomes.

Can the association of music with mental illness change perceptions about people with mental illness? Can music transcend group identity by encouraging empathy between individuals in different groups, including people with disability?

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Loneliness is often described as social pain—a psychological mechanism which motivates individuals to seek social connections. For many people, loneliness is associated with unwanted lack of connection and intimacy and can affect physical and mental health. It can take root deep within the psyche as a restless longing for something. It can be most intense when you’re surrounded by smiling people or in the middle of crowds. Loneliness can drain you of energy and feeling, and yet, somehow, loneliness seems to have birthed great work of art after great work of art. Or has it?

I am currently exploring the connection between creativity and loneliness. One of the things I have been looking at is the way loneliness is treated in text by different writers. Here is a list of poems from the Romantic Era which look at solitude and loneliness. I will be exploring them today to see how these authors share the [universal] human experience of loneliness with us.

I’ll be reading the poems aloud and exploring the text in some detail so feel free to download the poems and read them along with me and my surprise guest!

• I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud - William Wordsworth 
• Alone - Edgar Allan Poe
• Kubla Khan - Samuel Taylor Coleridge 
• The Albatross - Charles Baudelaire (translated George Dillon)

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Binge listening is described as repeatedly listening to a song, artist or album for an extended amount of time. This is a very common occurrence with teenagers. But why do we do it? And is it good or bad for us? In the absence of any significant research in this space, I decided to take the question of binge listening to my peers and Instagram followers - where we had a live talk about binge listening and some of the reasons we think we like to listen to music repetitively.

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This week I talk to my friend Allen Higginbottom, lived experience of paranoid schizophrenia, about psychiatric and sociological interpretations of mysticism and spirituality. Together we begin a preliminary exploration into the vast unmapped world of unshared experience. I talk to Allen about staying grounded and using music to manage mental health. We also cover some of his top tips for managing mental illness and any advice he would give to younger people who might be struggling with schizophrenia.

Allen is currently working as a disability/mental health support worker. He has a Certificate 4 in Community Service, a Certificate 4 in Bowen Therapy and a Diploma of Mental Health. Allen is a talented singer songwriter and enjoys writing and recording original material.  Allen was recently featured in our documentary about creativity and mental illness (link below.)

Check out our "Exploring creativity and schizophrenia mini-documentary" here.

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