Linda Gask, "Out of Her Mind: How We Are Failing Women's Mental Health and What Must Change"

Linda Gask is a retired consultant psychiatrist and academic at the University of Manchester and also the author of two memoirs about her own experience of mental illness, The Other Side of Silence: A Psychiatrist’s Memoir of Depression and of moving to live in Orkney off the north coast of Scotland, and Finding True North: The Healing Power of Place. She is also a lifelong feminist. 

About Out of Her Mind, by Linda Gask
Despite advances in our understanding of mental health, women and girls are still disproportionately disadvantaged when it comes to addressing the real causes and consequences of their mental health problems such as depression and self-harm. 

Why are they hurting so much today and why is it so hard for them to find the kind of help they really need? What is happening in a health care system overburdened by demand? Why have so many women and girls lost faith in mental health care? Are women, once again, being forgotten? 

Drawing on many new interviews with women of all ages and backgrounds who tell her their stories, expert commentators, current events, recent history and her personal and professional experience, Linda Gask examines how society, mental health care and even feminism are failing women’s mental health. 

And above all she answers the questions "What must change?" and "What can we all do?"

You can read more about Out of Her Mind on the publisher's website here. Below, you can read an excerpt from the book. 

From Out of Her Mind

"Men are the losers now": Discuss.

Manchester 2016. An email arrived out of the blue asking if I would like to take part in a debate for Women’s Week.

"Why me?"

"Because you know the facts – you are an academic."

But I’m also a psychiatrist.

"OK, so which side do you want me to speak for?"

I didn’t really want to argue for the motion but knew I could make a case for it if I had to. A good one. For two decades we have been bombarding men across the world to try to get them to talk about their feelings before it’s too late. The suicide rate for men in the UK is three times the rate for women. It has always been higher for men but since the crash in 2008 and the recession that followed, it hasn’t just been young men who have been taking their own lives – the greatest rise for suicide is in middle-aged men who not only lose their self-esteem, but also sometimes their will to live when their jobs disappear, and their relationships break down. How we feel about ourselves and the way in which the world treats us has a significant impact on our mental health. It is key to our sense of wellbeing, and it can be very hard for men; but that’s not the whole story. Many women are desperate too and women really are still losing out disproportionately, particularly in the mental health stakes.

"We have speakers for the motion," came the reply. "We’d like you to second on the other side."

Assuaging the slight dent to my ego at not being asked to lead with a huge dollop of relief that I wouldn’t have to speak first, I agreed to do it. Because women are still suffering with their mental health and are not being heard ...

Linda Gask, "Finding the True North: The Healing Power of Place"

 

Linda Gask trained in Medicine in Edinburgh and is Emerita Professor of Primary Care Psychiatry at the University of Manchester. Having worked as a consultant psychiatrist for many years she is now retired and lives on Orkney. She maintains a popular mental health blog, Patching the Soul, and contributes to Twitter as a mental health influencer @suzpuss. She is the author of The Other Side of Silence (2015), which was featured on BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour and serialised in the Times Magazine. In 2017 she was awarded the prestigious President’s Medal by the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

About Finding True North: The Healing Power of Place, by Linda Gask

Finding True North grew out of my desire to try and recover from depression, coming to terms with being diagnosed with a chronic illness, and moving to live, part-time at first, in Orkney. It’s not only about trying to put into practice all those things I spent my life telling my patients to do, and failing to do myself, but also trying to understand what ‘recovery’ from depression means. Struggling to find a way forward meant I had to revisit the past. Gradually, I began to realise that, in my many years of travelling around the world as an academic, I had really been seeking a place where I could feel much more grounded in myself. 

The following brief excerpt describes a scene from my return to Haida Gwaii, a remote forested archipelago off the North-West of Canada which is home to the Haida people … and what I learned about myself on that journey’.

From Finding True North

It is early September and Orkney’s dark autumnal skies are filled with geese in transit, flying in their familiar V formation, which I always imagine is led by a bad-tempered senior with the flaps of his leather hood trailing as he turns to shout ‘keep up.’ Sitting at my desk, I am writing about the climax of the Canadian expedition.

After two days, we reached our furthest point into the wilderness: the world heritage site of SG̱ang Gwaay and a row of totem poles that has stood for over a hundred years, since the inhabitants moved to the modern settlement they live in now. The only audible sound came from the waves as they breached the shore, and a watchman, a celebrated modern Haida artist, who told us the story of each carving.

‘The poles of the houses are slowly being absorbed by the forest. Doesn’t that make you feel kind of sad?’ one of our group asked.

‘Everything goes back to the earth eventually,’ he said. ‘One day each of these poles will fall. It is what is meant to happen.’

We walked back over the crest of the island to the boat, through virgin temperate rainforest of red cedar, spruce and hemlock, drunk with the heavy scent of dark earth and damp, lush vegetation spread with a seamless down of moss. More hung from the trees like tinsel on a Christmas tree and unfamiliar fungi colonised the stumps. Even the light which filtered through the canopy was tinged green. This was exactly as I have always imagined the underworld. It was eerie, not of this world, and I felt disappointed when we emerged into the light because in that other place time seemed to be suspended.

During those few days I began to feel more optimistic than I had since receiving my diagnosis of kidney disease. Having recovered from sepsis, a life-threatening disease, I became more at ease with the future. I have the freedom to make of it what I choose, but the anxiety that has been with me all my life still exists and will probably never leave.

However, there was something about Haida Gwaii that reminded me of the Buddhist concept of the flow of life. Like the forest plants all around them, the remains of the villages will be recycled by nature. This is the reality of our existence. We make the most of the lifewe have, however brief, but the outcome is inevitable. 

What are we going to do with our time? 

What really matters to us?

There is something about caring for others in extremis that touches the core of who we are. It can enhance us through reflection on the profound questions of what it means to be human, but it can, in equal strength, damage us and leave us less capable of responding with humanity.

It is very hard to separate ‘me’ from the doctor I trained to be. My ‘self’ has become altered by being entwined both with my professional persona and the lives of my patients, and it is difficult to tell my story without recourse to the clinical tales that illustrate it. Now, the stories filed in my memory are those of people I meet along the way.

Chris Westoby, "The Fear Talking"

Chris Westoby is the author of The Fear Talking, published December 2020 by Barbican Press. He is Programme Director of the MA Creative Writing (Online) at the University of Hull. Outside of facing down his own fears in his debut book, Chris is interested in the untold stories of others. He leads a Writing from Life module and has conducted narrative research exploring gendered barriers in higher education and how social media impacts the aftermath of a death by suicide. He believes in the power stories have to improve understanding, practice and the wellbeing of the storyteller.

About The Fear Talking
By Chris Westoby

I'm a thirty-year-old who has had a severe anxiety disorder for my whole life. Growing up, I kept my illness secret, even from my parents. Partly through the shame of the things I thought, the things I was afraid of, my hidden behaviours, but also because it was the 00s and nobody talked about these things. I had no idea what was up with me. That secrecy, confusion, isolation, avoidance is what The Fear Talking is all about.

I know there are others out there who feel as isolated as I did, so I wrote the book I always wish someone had handed me. This is not a book about getting better, or turning my experiences into something positive. There are enough success stories out there. Not everyone does recover, and I want that position to be better represented. The Fear Talking is written in the confused and terrified voice of the sixteen-year-old me who didn't know what the hell was wrong with him. It's a book about breaking through that wall, someone learning about anxiety from the very bottom, learning to communicate it. It's about the damage it causes to others, but also the moments of real connection that come from finally understanding each other.

Below, you can read an excerpt from the memoir. 

From The Fear Talking

‘What’s the matter?’ Mum says. Her voice restrains itself. It’s almost formal. She puts two slices of bread in the toaster and pushes the lever down. Tops her cup of tea up with a little kettle water. Every movement faster and louder than usual. 

‘I couldn’t get on the bus.’ 

‘Why?’ 

‘I didn’t feel well. Still don’t.’ 

‘I’ll have to take you in, then.’ She turns over a jumper that’s drying on the radiator. The toast pops up. I keep my head down until she takes her breakfast through to the lounge, then I tread quietly upstairs. 

For ten minutes I hope she might forget me and just go to work. 

‘Let’s go, then,’ she calls from downstairs. I hear her plate and mug go in the dishwasher. The hollow clop of her shoes marching down the hall. The jingle of her keys. My mind is made up. She can’t seriously think I’ll come down. 

‘Go without me,’ I say from the top of the stairs. ‘I can’t go.’ 

Down by the front door, she looks up at me. Her voice coiled and sharp, her eyes shining. ‘Get your bag and let’s go. I’m going to be late at this rate.’ 

‘Then just go.’ 

She looks around, her head doing little shakes. 

‘I can’t, Mum.’ 

The snap I was waiting for. Her voice raises, ‘Then get changed and get your arse down to that workshop, and at least make a living for yourself if you’re throwing your education away.’ 

I don’t reply. 

Her voice cracks into a high-pitched shout, through pressed teeth. ‘I’m wild!’ 

What an odd thing to say. 

She comes storming up the stairs. I move out the way. 

‘I’ve got one son who avoids me and another who’s deceptive.’ 

She does something in her room and then runs past me, down the stairs again. She’s still shouting as she picks her bag up and makes for the door, but it’s the slight muffle through gritted teeth and the wobble in her voice I hear more than the words. The door bangs in its frame. Through the obscured glass, her Fiesta’s little engine revs like a boy racer’s car as it reverses out the drive. 

I sit on the stairs for a long time.  

What do I do? What the fuck do I do? 

The Yellow Book

The University of Leicester's own Yellow Book has just been published. It features positive poetry, photography and artwork by staff and students from the University of Leicester, in partnership with RethinkYourMind as part of the Health Matters initiative. Contributors were asked to respond creatively to the phrase "I Feel Better When ..."

Poetry editors included Jonathan Taylor from the University of Leicester, and Leicester-based poets Rob Gee, Lydia Towsey and Mellow Baku. Poems selected for the Yellow Book include work by current Creative Writing students at the university Shae Davies and Thilsana Gias. 

The book also includes wellbeing material from The Centre of Wellbeing, the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, The Royal College of Psychiatrists and NHS Choices. 5,000 copies of the book have been printed, and are being distributed for free. 

You can read the poetry here.

You can see more details about the book here. 

Requests for The UoL Yellow Book can be sent to Carrie Laverick, email cw411 [at] le [dot] ac [dot] uk.

Call for Submissions: The University of Leicester Yellow Book

The University of Leicester is collaborating with rethinkyourmind to create the first ever university version of The Yellow Book - and is calling for artistic submissions. 

The Yellow Book is a positive, creative resource developed by those with experience of mental health challenges and endorsed by professionals with the aim to educate, aid and support.

The organisers are asking contributors to express well-being by submitting art, poetry and photography that relate to the theme #IFeelBetterWhen. Submissions are open until the 16 November 2018. Submissions are made via the website here. All submitted artwork will be assessed by a panel of local artists, who will select pieces that will form The UoL Yellow Book.

Submissions might be a poem, photo or other visual artwork. You can see examples from other Yellow Book projects on rethinkyourmind.co.uk.

This project is open to all abilities, students and staff alike. 

The UoL Yellow Book will launch at the Attenborough Arts Centre on 15 March 2019, with a prize ceremony for those who created the final artworks for the book. The original pieces will be displayed in the Balcony Gallery and will be open to all.

You can see a short video about the project here.

Please Hear What I'm Not Saying

A new poetry anthology tackling mental health issues, Please Hear What I’m Not Saying, edited by Isabelle Kenyon, is to be published in February. Proceeds will go to the charity MIND.

Isabelle Kenyon is a Surrey based poet and a graduate in Theatre: Writing, Directing and Performance from the University of York. She is the author of poetry anthology, This is not a Spectacle and micro chapbook, The Trees Whispered, published by Origami Poetry Press. She is also the editor of MIND Poetry Anthology Please Hear What I'm Not Saying. You can read more about Isabelle and see her work at www.flyonthewallpoetry.co.uk.

Isabelle writes: "I wanted to spread the word about the MIND Poetry Anthology which I have compiled and edited. Please Hear What I’m Not Saying will be available as an e-book and paperback on 8th February 2018. The anthology consists of poems from 116 poets and the book details a whole range of mental health experiences. The profits of the book with go to UK charity, MIND. The book came about through my desire to do a collaborative project with other poets and my desire to raise money for a charity desperately seeking donations to cope with the rising need for its work. I received over 600 poems and have narrowed this down to 180. As an editor, I have not been afraid to shy away from the ugly or the abstract, but I believe that the anthology as a whole is a journey – with each section the perspective changes. I hope that the end of the book reflects the ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ for mental health and that the outcome of these last sections express positivity and hope."

The anthology includes poems by Leicestershire-based writers, including Emma Lee, Sue Mackrell and Jonathan Taylor, as well as writers from the UK, US and elsewhere. 

For more information about the anthology, visit Isabelle's website, www.flyonthewallpoetry.co.uk.

Featured below is one of the poems from the anthology, by the editor herself:


Social Media invented Self Love

I’m not very good at this self love thing.

I always look for strangers,
thinking they could do it better,
and I don’t post about it online,
I forget,
I’m no use,
that girl with the juice blender and the personal trainer is far ahead of me –
that’s why people pay her
to promote beauty products
so other people can buy them
and love themselves too.

Isabelle Kenyon