What Other People Say

The other day I was lucky to run into an old friend who I had not seen for years. She used to work at the primary school my children attended, and so she had known Julie quite well when she was a little girl. When she asked how Julie was, I felt I should tell her the truth. I do try to be honest about Julie's situation, although I just talk vaguely about "illness" with people who do not know my daughter personally.  If they know her, I try to give a little information, as much as I think they can cope with, partly because I believe that it is only by talking openly about mental illness, that the stigma attached to it will gradually lessen.

Her reaction was the familiar question: "What could have brought that on then?". At one time, when Julie had first gone into hospital I heard this question so often I started to get a little cross when I heard it. How could anyone imagine that the two of us sitting on a sofa, or standing in a supermarket aisle, were going to be able to fathom the root causes of a illness so devastating, so shattering? The only people who never ask this question, are those who have had their own experience of mental illness, and who know that it is not just an extension of the normal feelings you have when your pet hamster dies. I don't feel cross now when people ask, though it does make me smile at the gap between our different understandings.

It is not just laypeople who ask this question, of course. I am aware that there is plenty of research that suggests that people who experience distressing psychosis are much more likely to have experienced earlier trauma - physical illness, loss of a parent, child abuse, witnessing violence. As a parent, this puts you on the back foot - often it is only your word that you have not allowed your child to be exposed to trauma while they were in your care. There has never been any suggestion that Julie is reacting to something terrible in her past, but there are books, and leaflets and websites which state categorically that psychosis is a reaction to previous trauma. Inevitably, as you make your way through the health system, you do meet health professionals who believe this, and who look at you askance.

A lot of people who ask you the question, are pretty keen to answer it themselves. The most popular explanation is "the stress of modern life on young girls". This starts a conversation that will either be about exam pressure, or sexualization of young children. I usually join in the conversation - I worry about these things too - but I don't think they actually caused Julie's illness, at least not in a straightforward way. Performance pressure - on marks or looks - is unhelpful, and I have certainly redoubled my efforts to counter-balance the messages that Julie gets from school and television as she slowly ventures out of her shell. Try as they might, her school teachers cannot help themselves - the instinct to encourage her to work harder, or aim higher, is too strong for them to turn it off just because she is very fragile. I have a homework ban in place at the moment: she has enough to do getting through the day! If they don't like it, they have to talk to me. But they are good and well-meaning people and they are not the reason for her illness. Nor is the make-up that used to come with the girls magazines she bought at primary school. There has not been a surge in admissions to CAMHS units because a supermarket is selling T-shirts for little girls with dubious logos, or because a magazine is airbrushing its models. Children's brains are not vending machines - what comes out does not simply reflect what buttons you pressed.