I first met Lorraine Nicholson when she spoke at a
meeting of the Scottish Division of the Royal College of
Psychiatrists . She gave a memorable account of her experience of
mental illness( in her case a severe and lengthy depressive
illness) and of her “recovery journey”. She refers to giving this
talk as a “personal milestone” on her website www.hope4recovery.co.uk/ .
The presentation allowed Lorraine to amply demonstate her obvious
artistsic gifts and their role in her recovery. Lorraine is
generous in her praise of those nurses and doctors (GP and
psychiatrist) who facilitated her recovery and clearly sees
mainstream psychiatric and medical services as important. She
is equally clear however that full recovery involved much more
than taking tablets or engaging in therapy. The love and
support of family ,especially her mother, and friends were central
in allowing her to regain confidence,increase her resilience, and
to help her express herself through her art and writing in a way
which helped her complete recovery.
This book is the product of both her illness and her recovery. It
is a collection of Lorraine’s poetry,artwork and photography. It
is beautifully produced and contains within its pages stories
and images expressing the range of emotions experienced in
the depths of illness and on the recovery journey. The book
is full of hope and completely devoid of bitterness.It
resounds with the message that things can be different. Even in the
poem entitled “Arrested Under Section” describing her detention,
this emerges:
“Never give
up Hope
There are
two ends to every tunnel
It’s just
sometimes you have to go through Hell to find Heaven”
The author talks about the “opportunity “ of
illness. In the introduction she writes “ The second chance at life
that my illness has afforded is to me a privileged opportunity
which this work is part of”, and in what follows she ably
illustrates that what she is now would not have been possible
without her experience of illness.
Another crucial element in this journey is the
way in which the author takes responsibilty for herself, there is a
real feeling of her gradually assuming responsibility as she
became able to do so and the importance of allowing those
recovering from mental illness to do this stands out.
Lorraine’s recovery was not a smooth
one. There have been relapses but the experience of having
recovered made her more robust and able to see that
relapse didn’t mean “being back to square one”.
For psychiatrists, especially
those who have never themselves been depressed, anything
which increases our knowledge of our patients’ inner world is
valuable. This book certainly does that. It adds to our knowledge
of things outside of medicine which are essential, and help
complete recovery for those we treat. This book should be read by
many doctors , nurses, patients and carers alike. It is an
uplifting book which could usefully be left lying around any
in patient or outpatient facility. Lorraine’s journey
continues. She is now about to start studying time based media at
Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee,further evidence that there
can be life and hope after severe mental illness.
Tom Brown
Consultant Psychiatrist