Writing cracked
Perspective from playwright nicola baldwin
In 1997 I began writing a play about mental illness for Y Touring's
theatre-in-education project developed in partnership with the Wellcome
Trust. The Trust commissioned this project as part of its understanding
mental health initiative, the aim of which is to challenge the stigma
surrounding mental illness and to increase awareness and encourage debate.
I began with a simple analogy with physical health. We all get ill -
from viruses, accidents, genetic factors, environmental stresses or
a combination of these. Sometimes we recover quickly, sometimes the
illness is disabling or requires a lengthier treatment.
Most of us are aware of the importance of looking after our physical
health to protect ourselves against illness. But what is mental health?
Is it our ability to function successfully in the world? Is it just
'being happy'? Is mental health simply the absence of mental illness?
In that case what is mental illness? Feeling down? Or is it when one
exhibits behaviour or thinking that is out of step with how others perceive
the world?
"Psychology which explains everything explains nothing, and
we are still in doubt."
Marianne Moore (1887-1972) US poet. Collected Poems, Marriage'
With this in mind I began talking to experts - psychiatrists and psychotherapists,
clinicians working in hospitals, adolescent units and the community,
people who had experienced bouts of mental illness, historians and writers
who have studied how society constructs and labels our notions of mental
health.
Cracked is the result of this exploration through this fascinating and
difficult area.
"If you talk to God, you are praying; if God talks to you,
you have schizophrenia. If the dead talk to you, you are a spiritualist;
if God talks to you, you're a schizophrenic."
Thomas Szasz (1920-) The Second Sin
It is fascinating because it has to do with our heads - that ragbag
of the general and particular that makes each of us unique - shaping
our personality and our sense of self and affecting how we relate to
those around us - friends, family and people we meet.
It is difficult for the same reasons. Although in any given society
we may broadly share the same factors: variations in the DNA that make
up our myriad of similar genes; life events such as bereavement, family
break-up, loss, specific pressures to conform or do well at school or
work, moving and settling into a new environment, the effects of racism,
sexism or other negative social pressures such as unemployment and poverty
- none of us is guaranteed to have the same combination of factors in
the same way. Each of us is an individual.
And our mental health and our mental illness are as individual as we
are - a complex and unique synthesis of what is outside us and what
is within. So whereas we can all have a blood test to identify the presence
of a virus, or trust an X-ray to explain that the agony we are feeling
is a broken leg, it is infinitely more difficult to unravel the multitude
of factors producing a mental condition.
Mental illness can take many forms, such as depression, schizophrenia
and eating disorders. Commonly people may not exhibit illnesses in a
clear-cut way. Even schizophrenia -which remains for most people a kind
of 'limit case' of mental illness, and represents the popular notion
of what 'madness' is - is notoriously hard to identify. Clinicians use
a diagnostic 'checklist' of symptoms observed over time. Although internationally
recognized, this checklist is broad and sketchy. If you exhibit a certain
number of these symptoms you are probably suffering from schizophrenia,
but you may have some of these symptoms and not others - or additional
symptoms of anxiety and depression.
Even 'pure' depression is rare - it may be accompanied by anxiety or,
like Toni in the play, disruptive behaviour ('acting out') which can
mask the underlying feelings of sadness and despair.
Cracked is the story of Toni (TJ) Caister, a 17-year-old girl. Until
recently she seemed a happy, 'normal' teenager. Lately she has changed.
She truants from school, ignores her school work and alienates her friends
and family. Toni is depressed. Her depression is so severe that it has
taken away all pleasure in her life and threatens to engulf her. She
is troubled by thoughts of suicide and self-harm.
Finally persuaded by her friend Joe to seek help, Toni has a short stay
in hospital with medication to help her over the immediate crisis of
her depression. This is followed by sessions of cognitive therapy and
some family therapy to help her find a way 'back in' to her life again.
By way of conclusion, I would like to address some of my initial questions
about the nature of mental illness. Peter Wilson, Director of Young
Minds, a mental health charity working with young people, has talked
of mental health being a capacity to develop, to form mutually satisfying
relationships, to cope with adversity and learn to grow from stress
- a fluidity of growth where there is freedom to develop, be spontaneous,
be imaginative.
Mental health is not about feeling 'happy' all the time. Depression
is a part of life and -like pimples - an inevitable part of growing
up. In the course of life we all experience set-backs, bereavements
and disappointments that cause us to grieve.
Mental illness becomes a problem when we become 'stuck' in these feelings
so that they take over our lives and become an obstacle to regaining
our mental health. Toni is not mentally ill because she feels sad or
angry but because her feelings are making it impossible for her to live
her life.
In writing Cracked I was constantly questioning where you draw the line
between the normal intensity of emotions, the desire for freedom and
independence, the questioning of our parents' and teachers' values,
the rebellion, anger, frustration and dreaming of adolescence - and
the onset of mental illness. I decided that the answer must surely be
that you know where to draw it, if like Toni, the fault line feels to
be cutting across your very heart and soul, threatening your sense of
self when it should be spurring you on - not energizing you as it should
be, but ripping you apart.
There has been some discussion over the title of the play. Cracked is
how Toni feels in herself. It describes also how she feels about the
break-up of her parents into two separate households, where - passing
from childhood to adolescence -she no longer feels she has a place.
Cracked also describes the dilemma of Toni's rock star idol in the play
- Mickey Mitch.
You don't have to look far for real-life parallels for Mickey - Richey
Edwards of the Manic Street Preachers, Kurt Cobain , Ian Curtis to name
a few. Talented, creative individuals whose desire, whose neediness
drove them to the peak of their profession, and into the public eye.
They seem to have cracked it with fame, money, success, adoration, the
apparent freedom to shake the small-town dust from their boots and live
out the lives most of us can only dream of.
The point is that you can make all your dreams come true and still not
make it any better. That 'it' is still there - no-one's fault, not our
parents', teachers' and certainly not our own. But the 'it' looms large
and cannot be run away from. We all have 'it' inside us. Recent developments
in neuroscience, brain chemistry, and genetics are helping us understand
better how the 'it' takes shape.
For many of us this will not be a problem, but for some of us this will.
As I said, the life of the mind is a fascinating and difficult topic
- but one that concerns us all. Mental illness is not about the mad
and the sane, not 'us' and 'them' but 'me' and 'it'. That is the starting
point for Cracked.
This shouldn't be frightening, but exciting. The more we know, the more
we understand. The more we understand about ourselves through being
aware of mental illness, the better we can appreciate the quiet miracle
of our own mental health.
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