Finding HopeBehind The Scars
Posted on September 9, 2017
A little while ago, I discovered Sophie Mayanne’s Behind The Scars photography project. I was scrolling through Instagram, probably procrastinating, when I saw a photo of a young woman unashamedly showing off her scars. I was intrigued by the story behind that post – while I’ve never been actively told to hide my own scars, it often feels like I’m expected to cover them up. This is particularly true of self harm scars, I think. As I said, I’ve never had someone specifically tell me to hide them but I still feel that there is an expectation that I should, either because I should be ashamed of them or because they might upset people. I protest this and so does Behind The Scars. This ever-growing collection of photos allows people to show their scars and tell the stories behind them. I don’t think I can describe it better than Sophie herself does: “Behind The Scars is a celebration of beauty, of flaws, of battles won and obstacles overcome. It is about survival, living beyond that and capturing the memories. It is a truly honest depiction of how our history, shown through these scars, does not define us but compels us.”
I was instantly a fan and applied to take part. It took a bit of planning and rearranging but come the day of the shoot, I arrived with only a little anxiety. I’ve had photos taken before, for my music projects, but they’ve always been taken by people I already know. So I was a bit nervous about that. I had also been nervous about my difficulty with eye contact (thank you for that, ASD) but Sophie was very reassuring and put that fear to bed very quickly.
The shoot itself was a very positive experience and made much easier by the presence of a little dog, Carla. Animals always put me at ease (to the point where both my cat and my dog frequently accompany me to therapy sessions) so that was a lovely surprise and did make me feel less anxious. Anyway. I had expected to feel very self-conscious but I didn’t. In fact, I felt strangely in control and comfortable in my body and that is something I’m really grateful for, grateful to this project for. And even though I often get very anxious about not knowing how to do something, I didn’t feel that as strongly as I sometimes do: Sophie was great, telling me where to stand and what she wanted me to do. I never felt judged and if a particular pose felt unnatural, we were on to the next one straight away. And suddenly we were done.
The other part of the project involves writing a little bit about your scars or your experience of having scars. I thought a lot about what I wanted to say and eventually, I came up with this:
“I’ve struggled with self harm on and off for about eight years but it’s gotten worse as my mental health has worsened. The compulsion, for me, is two fold. Because of my Autism, I feel emotions really strongly and when it gets completely overwhelming, the only thing that helps is self harming, like all the emotions can escape. It’s like my version of a pressure valve. I also do it when something very upsetting happens, like I’m trying to represent that distress in a tangible way and show that it’s changed me. I think a lot of people don’t understand it and almost don’t want to because it’s a hard thing to think about but I think the only way to help someone who is self harming is to try and understand it. I didn’t talk about it for a long time because I didn’t have the words but then I realised how much it would’ve meant to my younger self to know that other people were struggling with the same things. So it’s time to find the words.”
My lasting impression of Behind the Scars, and of Sophie, is sincerity, and personally, I can’t give it higher praise than that. It’s been a couple of weeks now since the shoot and I love the photos. They look like me. I know that sounds odd, but how many photos have you seen of yourself that just don’t look like you? But these do. These photos look like me.
“If these images help us to think differently about scarring, and for those that “wear” these scars, to look differently at not only the imperfections, but the individuality these marks might engender, then for me, I would deem the project a success.” – Sophie Mayanne
A massive thank you to Sophie for taking these photos and for the Behind the Scars project as a whole. You can see more of the photos from the project here and here and, if you’d like to help her get Behind the Scars to New York, you can find the Kickstarter here.
Farewell Phenelzine
Posted on August 26, 2017
It’s time for a change.
I’ve been taking Phenelzine, also known as Nardil, for almost three years now and while it’s been a great help to me, I need to try something else. The last few months have been very difficult and to cut a long story short, I’ve been diagnosed (for the second time) with Clinical Depression. I’ve been finding it really hard to take my medication, knowing the effects it will have on me. It might sound strange but, when I take the Phenelzine, my mood lifts and feeling the way I do at the moment, I’m really struggling with that. I find it really hard to try and feel ‘okay’ when everything is ‘not okay’. To me, this makes complete sense but I can also recognise that I’m waiting to feel better while avoiding things that actually might help.
I think my problem with Phenelzine is how familiar I am with how it affects me. Having taken it for so long, I know exactly how it changes my mood. That used to be a good thing but now… Now, the ‘happiness’ it makes me feel just feels fake because I know it’s caused by the Phenelzine. I think it’s important to point out here that, objectively, I know that there is no difference between ‘real’ happiness and happiness caused by medication, and that I have always been a real advocate for taking medication (if you need it and it’s recommended). That belief hasn’t changed. But my familiarity with this medication is now making it difficult for me to take it so I need a new approach. It’s time to try a different one. Hopefully not knowing whether it’s the medication affecting my mood or the world around me will make it easier to take and therefore help myself feel better.
So I thought I’d do a little review of Phenelzine as a goodbye.
I started taking Phenelzine in the summer of 2014, after meeting my current psychiatrist. I’d taken various medications before (I’ll write about those at some point), all of which I’d had bad experiences with. So my Psychiatrist suggested Phenelzine, a drug not commonly used (in the UK at least) because of the dietary restrictions but one used when the other options haven’t worked. I’d never tried an MAOI (a monoamine oxidase inhibitor, one type of antidepressant) so I was optimistic that I would react differently than I had to SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, another type of antidepressant). And I really did.
Almost straight away, I felt completely different. I had previously been almost unable to get out of bed, let alone do anything else, and suddenly I had more energy than I knew what to do with. My thoughts were like fireworks going off one after another after another after another. It’s the closest to mania I’ve ever experienced and my family were genuinely worried about me. I could barely sit still and I couldn’t shut up. I’m not kidding, I couldn’t stop talking and that was pretty embarrassing as I was just starting university. It was a bit scary but at the same time, I was absolutely ecstatic to be feeling so much better.
It took a bit of messing around with the dose (with my Psychiatrist’s supervision) but that did calm down. After a couple of months, I felt a bit more normal: I had more energy, I could concentrate and complete tasks, and my anxiety wasn’t as overwhelming as it had been. On a lower dose, I wasn’t so manic but I could still function a lot better than I could before. My almost perfect attendance in my first semester at uni is a testament to how much it helped.
Since then, with the exception of the last few months, it’s been a massive help to me. I’ve managed to complete my degree and graduate with a First, while commuting up and down to London. I mean, it was freaking exhausting but it would have been impossible without the Phenelzine. As I said, before I started taking it, I could barely get out of bed. The exhaustion that I experience with Depression is awful and I didn’t have the energy to walk my dog around the block. So Phenelzine was a godsend.
Side effects wise, there was only one that I struggled with (although I was initially a bit light headed and nauseous but that passed pretty quickly). My main battle was with the insomnia the Phenelzine caused. It’s has an alerting affect so it’s not that surprising that I had trouble sleeping. I struggled to get to sleep and when I finally did, I never slept more than four hours a night. It was exhausting. On multiple occasions, I fell asleep on the sofas at uni during my breaks and I’m pretty sure I fell asleep during a lesson once or twice: I have a very vivid memory of ‘blinking’ and finding the white board covered in writing…
This has been an ongoing difficulty. I ended up going back to the psychiatrist and left with a prescription for Quetiapine. I still have to take it every night to get to sleep and while I’m definitely grateful for that sleep, it also has it’s own downsides. It’s incredibly difficult to wake up; it feels like my eyes are glued shut, like I’m swimming through deep, dark water with no idea where the surface is and it can take hours to shake off the drowsiness. And it’s scary to feel like you will not sleep without it. I’m hopeful that, when I stop taking the Phenelzine, the insomnia will disappear and so I can stop taking the Quetiapine. That’s both exciting and scary. I haven’t slept unaided in almost three years; I’m going to have to learn how to do that again.
It’s going to take a little while to wean myself off Phenelzine and I have no idea how the new medication will affect me. So the next few weeks are going to be interesting.
In Colour at Fabrica in Brighton
Posted on August 22, 2017
This isn’t strictly mental health related but it was a really great experience, one where I felt completely accepted, as I am, as I process the world. That gave me some emotional energy back. Plus it was just really cool.
If you know Brighton, you should know about Fabrica, a little gallery on Duke Street. It’s a beautiful building and I’ve seen a number of really cool, really interesting exhibitions there. But the one running at the moment is my favourite. It’s called IN COLOUR and it’s an interactive light installation by Peter Hudson. The room is filled with coloured light and by interacting with a series of gadgets (a microphone, a small dome that’s reactive to touch, and a ball that you can move around), you can affect the colour of the light. You can use each of these separately or they can be used together and you can’t help but feel quietly connected to the people you’re sharing the experience with, the light reacting to your presence individually and as a group.
Here’s what it says on the website: “This site-specific work has been created in collaboration with people with complex needs, resulting in an immersive piece that invites audiences to interact with it and each other, non-verbally. The work has been developed to appeal to people who are highly sensitive to their environments and to sensory stimuli. As such the work is accessible and inclusive, exploring themes of communication and consciousness and how environment affects behaviour.” I did a bit of reading on Hudson and it’s apparently inspired by his experience at Project Art Works, an organization in Hastings providing art therapy to people with learning difficulties and Autism and is based on what Hudson describes as the ‘spectrum of neurodiversity’.
It’s pretty spectacular. My favourite was, unsurprisingly, the microphone. I was the only one there during most of my visit so I sang some of my own songs, watching as the light changed. I loved it. I’ve always loved colour and it’s really important to me when it comes to how I process the world so to combine that with my own songs was really special. It was kind of amazing to see what my music might look like. I don’t think I’ve ever sung anywhere so beautiful.
It was a great experience that really encourages creativity, connection, and communication, in whatever way you’re comfortable. I definitely want to go back again before it closes on 28th August. Definitely check it out if you can!
