Mental Health Day Exhibition

25 Oct 2011 1 Comment

by malindilovegrove in News Stories Argus Tags: Mental disorder, Mental health, World Mental Health Day

A woman who overcame severe agoraphobia and depression through photography, organised a photographic exhibition at the Brighthelm Centre on Monday for World Mental Health Day.

Nicola Proud, 58, from Hove, was a parole officer in the Midlands until three years ago when mental illness took over.

Ms Proud said: “I describe it like my head being full of wallpaper paste.  I couldn’t finish sentences, I couldn’t find words to articulate what I wanted.”

She found it hard to leave the house and couldn’t answer the telephone or door.

Ms Proud said:  “Going to the supermarket was just horrendous, just crowds of people and I couldn’t manage.

“I almost felt like I just want to close in and disappear in to nothing.”

She lost her job, then her house.  She moved back to Brighton and Hove to be with family and found solace in a photography class which she attended at the Bridge Education Centre in Moulsecombe.

She said:  “It is almost a barrier between you and society, you can hide behind the lens.  But you can also use the lens to focus and rediscover the world.”

When funding for the courses was cut last year, the class, many of whom had mental health problems, decided to start their own group called ‘Clickers’ and to reach out to others with mental illness.

To get funding, they entered a “Dragon’s Den” contest organised by Brighton and Hove Link in October last year.

Ms Proud said:  “It was £5,000 in total and the understanding was, when you made your bid, you had four dragons who would decide how much to give you out of 250 they each had.  But if you didn’t get the entire amount you bid for (in total), you got nothing.”

The group, inspired by Chris Brown, winner of the positive image contest run by Sussex Trust, played out her photograph of 3 tomatoes and a lime on Brighton beach which represents the one in four people who suffer from mental illness.

Ms Proud said:  “If we don’t have limes, like in our drink, it would be a very dull drink.

“So we invited the dragons to the land of tomatoes to help them try to understand what it was like.“

The group won the £1000 they bid for.

Twelve people attended the workshops referred by different agencies or word of mouth.  The ‘Reflections’ exhibition included 20 photographs, some accompanied by soundbytes from artists about their work.  The images symbolised how they felt about their illness.  The aim was to give people expression and to challenge stigma.

Ms Proud’s daughter, Rachel Fricker, 28, from Coldean, was one of the contributors.  She said her mother’s recovery was amazing.  She added:  “It’s almost like getting my Mum back.”

Reflections may be seen again at the Bridge Community Centre; the Allen Centre, Hove and at ‘Mind’ Headquarters.  This is to be confirmed.  The group will also be looking for funding to do future workshops.  For more information you can contact the Bridge Education Centre, Moulsecombe.

BREAK OUT BOX:  According to Mind there can be enormous value in using the arts for recovery. Sometimes art therapies can provide more profound and long lasting effects than standard treatments.

Arts therapies can help release trauma because they give people a way of expressing their feelings and are particularly helpful for people who feel disengaged or who find it too difficult to address painful experiences in words.

According to the Mind website:  “The arts can enable people to express emotions, not with the aim of getting rid of them, but helping to accept them and to come to terms with events or to live with the memory of difficult experiences.”

Nearly nine out of ten people with mental health problems still say they face stigma and discrimination.

For more information go to www.mind.org.uk.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) World Mental Health Day raises public awareness about mental health issues and promotes open discussion.

This year’s theme is “Investing in mental health”.

According to WHO: “The majority of low- and middle-income countries spend less than 2% of their health budget on mental health.

“Many countries have less than one mental health specialist per one million population. Even a considerable part of the limited resources is spent on large mental hospitals and not for services delivered through community and primary health care.”

“Eye See” – Rachel Fricker

“Medication for me has always been a big issue.  I have always had to take it for physical problems.  And that can put a lot of pressure and a lot of feeling guilty if you are not taking it properly.

“I also have mental health problems which sometimes require medication.  There are lots of questions like should I be taking this medication if I have mental health problems, it’s not quite as clear cut.

You wonder which parts are you and which parts are the medication.”

“I am” by Doreen

“For me, (it is) the mental hospital, I am a person, I am not a number or a lable, I am a human being, and I feel you lose your identity when you are caught up in the system.”

“For people with no mental health problems they might be able to understand where we are coming from, and not see us as certain types of people, we are human beings.”

“Memory” – Diane

“During my life I experienced bouts of depression (as a teenager).  I have been there in a room, and then not there.  It was the only way I could cope at the time.  The footprints are, as a young child, I think I was quite happy, but I don’t really remember it.

“The footsteps signify happier times, being younger, as I grew up to get to the teenage years, it gets a bit darker.

“I never found out what was happening to me until I was pregnant with my first child and was hospitalised.  It was my past history and they wanted to keep an eye on me (in case of baby blues).”

“New Dawn, New Day” – By Nicola Proud

“I got up very early one morning and took this picture.  You often hear “it’s darkest before the dawn” and when you are in that very dark place you exist, you don’t see that there are any tomorrows.  I also think sometimes for people with depression, there is no future, you get your label sometimes stuck in the system.

“I felt, that this is a new dawn, a new beginning.

“If you do go and get help, through your GP, and through the mental health services, and you get the right support in place, then anything is possible.”