Sometimes a person says something, a few words either off-the-cuff or perhaps more thought through, that takes root in my mind. 'Just be yourself' was one of these phrases, said to me when I was on the brink of adulthood by someone I admired deeply. I was impressionable at that time and even small things (a conversation, a book, a few text messages) felt ripe with significance. This was never more true then when I was on the cusp of doing something that felt big and scary; I needed someone to believe in me to help me believe in myself. Those three words, 'just be yourself', a platitude on a greetings card or a t shirt to some people, breathed fire into me: 'it's okay to be who you are', 'don't change', 'show them what you're made of. The flames spread. I did the big and scary thing and it all worked out. 'Just being myself' had illuminated my goal.
It wasn't always straightforward like that though. There were days throughout my twenties when I hated myself for feeling different and, moreover, for being different. I felt alienated from different groups that I found myself in and often I felt like I didn't fully fit. These were times when I didn't want to 'just' casually, even flippantly, 'be myself' because it felt lonely to exist in this world in a skin so thin. But no matter how often the world stung me as I navigated it without a protective shell, I forged ahead regardless. I can't fault myself on my resilience.
Recently, London Arts in Health Forum released a report called 'Understanding Creative Health in London'. This pioneering report details the 'scale, character and maturity' of the creative health sector in London. The report states: 'Across London, people are practising creative health by animating hospitals and care homes, transforming social work, activating creativity in the community, enlivening culture and nature and providing professional development for healthcare staff.' It traces a history of creative health in London and attempts to map some of it.
Reading this report last week, I was transported to 2014 and the years between then and the pandemic, when I was interacting with creative health in London. This was a turbulent time in my life, both difficult and exhilarating, when I was 'trying out' this becoming 'myself' thing. I took myself to spoken word events in cafes, bars or theatre spaces, meeting people who became friends or stayed significant strangers with whom I shared fleeting moments of connection. Here I shared my poetry for the first time and listened to others who, like me, were airing unseen parts of themselves through words they launched into the air like little missiles. My poetry was part of a couple of theatre shows, in a couple of festivals. I wrote ferociously, as if I needed to do it to keep breathing.
I dallied in the zine community, going to events for making and exchanging these informal, energising publications, and a bit later on I formalised my fascination with the arts and health by enrolling in a Master's degree in Medical Humanities. During this degree, I met friends for life as we discussed and wrote about topics like illness narratives, poetry about illness, consciousness, disability and more.
Engaging with arts in health afforded me playful opportunities and chances to forge connections with likeminded others, the shaky, nebulous wings that I had been trying on in various guises started to feel more permanently attached. My friend Dr Sabina Dosani, who is a child and adolescent psychiatrist, an Honorary Research Fellow in Medical Humanities, independent expert witness and a writer, has been a continuous source of inspiration and also a wonderful friend. You can more about Sabina's professional and personal appreciation of creativity in 'Life in Colour', published in The Doctor.
Around the same time as enrolling in this Master's degree, I started Dialectical Behaviour Therapy. After years of different talking therapies having little to no impact on my urges to self-harm and feel suicidal, this type of therapy significantly reduced my distress. I understood the patterns of my emotions and learnt how to reduce the pain associated with them. 'Just being myself' went from being agony, to more a constant discomfort, like rubbing up against a world made of sandpaper. I felt like most other people glided through the world as if it were smooth as paper, but of course this wasn't true. Lots of others were feeling just as abraded as I was, but how was I to know when nobody was talking with me about how they felt? Then again, I wasn't talking about how I felt either.
I was aware of how guarded and censored I felt all the time, and I didn't like it. I grew my blog and tested out words, trying to find the ones that like they articulated an experience accurately. I owe a lot to arts in health in London, its importance so far-reaching as the report attests, because seeing others putting their experiences into images, performances and texts helped me do the same with mine. I remember watching a show called Fake it ‘til you Make it by Bryony Kimmings & Tim Greyburn at Soho Theatre with my closest friend at the time. She held my hand in the dark as I weeped with recognition at people talking about the things I wanted to talk about too. I saw artworks created by people with learning disabilities at an exhibition called Souzou: Outside Art From Japan that has made me question ever since then why some forms of expression are seen as of greater value than others. I've been to the majority of exhibitions at the Wellcome Collection, the museum and library in London connecting science, medicine, life and art, since 2014.
The discomfort with 'just being myself' has been wearing off with time. I've taken so many risks in what I say, and how much vulnerability I show, that taking little leaps of faith feels familiar, albeit still scary sometimes. Constantly reflecting on authenticity and honesty, simply by virtue of having a stigmatised and contested diagnosis like BPD, has become my modus operandi. I feel embarrassed that I expend so much mental energy on questions like:Did I say too much? Did I show too much? Did I cross an unseen boundary? Sometimes I think: why can't I just be myself and not care what others think? Then I remember that it's not that simple because stigma has real world consequences like exclusion from healthcare services, not being listened to, not being taken seriously, not being promoted in a job, the loss of friends. Courage plays a part in my little leaps, but it's not the only motivation. I have to feel safe and that safety is built in tandem with others.
The other day I wrote this Hallowe'en inspired poem. I thought it relates to the themes of this post, so here it is.
-Rosie x
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