Published By: Fledgling Press
Publication: 1 October 2018
I.S.B.N.: 9781912280070
Format: Paperback
Price: £11.99
ISBN 9781912280087
Format: Ebook
Price: £5.99
Blurb
Graham Morgan has an MBE for services to mental health, and helped to write the Scottish Mental Health (2003) Care and Treatment Act. This is the Act under which he is now detained.
Graham’s story addresses key issues around mental illness, a topic which is very much in the public sphere at the moment. However, it addresses mental illness from a perspective that is not heard frequently: that of those whose illness is so severe that they are subject to the Mental Health Act.
Graham’s is a positive story rooted in the natural world that Graham values greatly, which shows that, even with considerable barriers, people can work and lead responsible and independent lives; albeit with support from friends and mental health professionals. Graham does not gloss over or glamorise mental illness, instead he tries to show, despite the devastating impact mental illness can have both on those with the illness and those that are close to them, that people can live full and positive lives. A final chapter, bringing the reader up to date some years after Graham has been detained again, shows him living a fulfilling and productive life with his new family, coping with the symptoms that he still struggles to accept are an illness, and preparing to address the United Nations later in the year in his new role working with the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland.
My Review
I received a copy of this book in return for an honest review.
Oh my! This is a lyrical, heartbreaking description of a life with schizophrenia, anxiety and depression. I struggled with this book, not because of the writing, which was beautiful and easy to read, but because it brought up so many of my own mental health problems. I could only read it in short stints, which was disappointing to me, because I just wanted to go on reading it, page after page.
I want to shake Graham and tell him “No, you’re not evil, you’re not taking joy from people. Ignore the sickness, it’s lying to you!” And I know it probably won’t help, because as much as intellectually I can see I’m not in danger, my anxiety tells me otherwise, as much as I know my family loves me, my depression tells me I’m a burden. There’s no logic to mental illness, it can’t be reasoned with and it is debilitating. Not in the same way autism is a disability – using the social model of disability – in that refusal by society to include and accommodate neurodivergent people disables us, but in the same way influenza or varicella can – knocks you down, keeps you down, but medication and medical care can get you back up and running, although there might be long term consequences from having the disease. And it can always come back. And without proper care, it might just kill you. Unfortunately, unlike the flu and chicken pox or shingles, there’s no vaccine for mental illnesses.
Navigating the routes to proper care and treatment is difficult, not to mention getting the right support, and getting long term support, is difficult if your brain is saying all sorts of vile things. Graham talks about his support and being detained, as well as his delusions and work to improve the care of people with mental illness in Scotland. He writes so movingly, and in such a way that even those never afflicted can understand something of what it feels like.
If you want an insight into mental illnesses, please read this book.
Author Bio
Graham was born in 1963 in York. He went to university as an angst-ridden student and was quickly admitted to one of the old mental asylums, prompting the work he has done for most of his life: helping people with mental illness speak up about their lives and their rights. He has mainly worked in Scotland, where he has lived for the last thirty years, twenty of them in the Highlands. In the course of this work he has been awarded an MBE, made Joint Service User Contributor of the Year by the Royal College of Psychiatrists and, lately, has spoken at the UN abouthis and other peoples’ experiences of detention. He has a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia and has been compulsorily treated under a CTO for the last ten years. He currently lives in Argyll with his partner and her young twins. Start is his first book.
Twitter Handles
#GrahamMorgan @FledglingPress
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Everything Is Better With Dragons 
I kept talking to the author when I was reading. I wanted to thank him for sharing all of this, I wanted to persuade him that it was not all his fault… I loved this book but it was not an easy read!
It definitely wasn’t easy to read but worth it.