In the introduction of The Suicidal Therapist: Confessions of a Wounded Healer, I explain how I write as therapy. I am a therapist who is not ashamed to write about my messy life. I’m always involved with writing groups as a student, sometimes facilitating. The process must not be a lonely one.
Spending so much time listening to client’s stories, writing and performing exposes my own vulnerability, humanness and process of expression. Forever experiencing something new. We’re all on the same page.
I didn’t start writing at school. I hated school (more of that, and everything in the book). It was my therapist who, after many years, found and nurtured my creative spark. Aged 23, and newly diagnosed with MS, I trained as a Samaritan volunteer. I was one of the youngest (I was also one of the first Samaritans to go into HMP Brixton, where one of my boyfriends had been on remand months earlier). I used to joke: “I’m more suicidal than the callers.”
Mid 90’s, I am sat in a circle during a CPD day at the Lorrimore Counselling Service. Subject matter ‘working with Borderline Personality Disorder’ and study of the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria. “I think I tick more than six of those boxes,” I said sincerely. Always sincerely. “So do I,” said another, shrugging her shoulders. The tutor moved on as if nothing had happened, but that student had taken away the tsunami of shame I’d let loose onto the group. After, we went down the pub and got pissed. Maybe not all of us.
Laughter came later.
I became a comedian, not because I thought I was funny. My therapist had told me about Morley College. I began classes, writing short stories and plays. I took a story to a local open mic. It was about a one-night stand, I had many to choose from. Promiscuity was one of my symptoms of trauma. I read it out dead pan. I thought the man in my story a little different, perhaps troubling, but the audience thought otherwise and laughed. They didn’t feel concerned for me, or him. Sometimes audiences find my material sad, or upsetting. We don’t all share the same sense of humour.
Laughter enters my therapy room when coming from the client. Some are naturally very funny. Life is funny. Funny and messy. Politics is Vaudeville, with a dark, darker, horrific side that illuminates the human condition. I refuse to sit in fear and negativity. I feel it, but try figure out what I can do. Viktor Frankl Man’s search for Meaning taught me that.
I get a lot of fun from labels. When I told my mother on the phone I was diagnosed with MS, she would have much preferred to hear I’d got a job at M&S. She was a shopaholic, couldn’t deal with stuff. More of that in the book.
I’m an Essex girl. I swear a lot. When editors of my book wanted to change that, I compromised. I took half of the swear words out. But two of the chapter headings remain F***ing M and F***ing Acid. I don’t swear in sessions unless the client swears and I’m reflecting back serious stuff.
One of my full-length shows Crash Bash Trash (a parody of CBT, Can Box Tick, Can’t Box Tick, Cock and Ball Torture) toured the UK. It included a show at London Literature Festival, the highlight of my performing career thus far. At the time, CBT wasn’t in mainstream awareness. Apart from Compulsive Basic Training for motorcyclists. The material for the show came from working in the NHS when IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies) came in. Southwark Primary Care’s very experienced therapists were sent, like naughty children, to King’s College Psychology (within the Maudesly) to be trained in CBT. It was like being taught Janet and John (primary school learning how to read books of the 50’s to70’s) in a cross between Russian and Arabic. “What about dreams?” I asked one day, as I looked out of the window, watching the clouds drift by. “We don’t do dreams,” our tutor said. I don’t think she wanted to be there either.
One day, coming back from the recurring miscarriage clinic, I was particularly upset. A friend, who was looking after my son at the time with three children of her own, and no time to listen to my woes, handed me a piece of paper.
“Write a song and have a cup of tea,” she said.
Before I’d drunk my tea, I was singing to my new tune, similar to that of Nelly the Elephant:
“Didn’t we have a wonderful time at the recurring miscarriage clinic,
You must admit it’s improved a lot,
With the new consultant Mr Jurkovic.”
Yes, he was called Mr Jurkovic, I just had to AI it, just to check I hadn’t made it up. He was lovely. I performed the song at my next gig in RADA foyer. One of many stories.
Ruby Wax used to point to the one in four audience members with mental health problems, I still might point to the one in four who hate me. It goes with the territory.
Whilst waiting for The Suicidal Therapist to be published I began playing my Casio keyboard in my son’s punk band Pig City Committee. These days it’s not uncommon to have a parent in a band. One of the gigs was called Parent’s Evening. Most of my friend’s kids still live at home. I was lucky and got a council flat when I was in my late twenties. My therapist wrote a letter to housing when I was homeless. My daughter is at Sussex Uni and playing one of the lead parts in ‘Vampire Lesbians of Sodom’ at Brighton Fringe festival. This creativity lark clearly now runs in my family.
Exposing our messy lives doesn’t mean you have to write, or perform. Making a messy cake in the kitchen for others to devour has the same impact. It’s all expression. If it doesn’t come naturally, getting into the de-pression is the best place to start. I’ve had more dark nights of the soul and insomnia than I care to remember, I still get them. I’m still in therapy. I still have MS. No pain, no gain. But the gain is worth its weight in gold.
