Campaigner Profiles
 

Robert Bayley

I have lived with schizophrenia for most of my life and had to endure the layers of torture, the relentless ferocity.  I have spent years in hospital, undergone a profusion of treatments, many being inappropriate, some brutal, as a consequence of being labelled as a chronic case.  The humiliation and frustration whilst overmedicated, as the doors are locked, any sense of liberation removed.  But all along the journey I have assimilated strategies that have evolved, providing me with a greater resilience.  And I have consumed aspects of knowledge that have given me the opportunity to acquire creative release. From this vantage-point, my quality of life has improved. However, I believe that the extremes of the disorder should be articulated, in order to bring about a transformation of society’s ignorance.
Read more of Robert's story

Robert has recently produced an album, and has written a novel. Click here to read more about Robert's creative work.

Find out about Robert's experience of Chipmunka Publishing here.

Tabitha Suzuma

My first book, A NOTE OF MADNESS, is for teenagers and adults alike.  It’s a fictional account about eighteen-year-old Flynn, a top pianist at the Royal College of Music who starts suffering from bipolar disorder, commonly known as manic-depression. My second book, FROM WHERE I STAND, is a psychological thriller about a deeply unhappy teenager in foster care, who self-harms and is bullied. I was inspired to write two books about mental illness, because it’s something I have experienced first-hand, something I have grown up with, something which came very close to destroying me.
Read more of Tabitha's story

Anthony Cleyndert

When I became ill I thought the world was inaccessible and fragmented – I have lost something whole.  I felt as though I had played a game and lost badly.  I felt judged and that I would never regain grace.  I was and still am very religious. I felt I had to come to terms with it and work all my life to become acceptable to God again.  I feel a fraud in a way.  I can stop the fantasies in my head.  I can stop it by deciding to go on an indulgence.  I used to think I was Jesus but now I know I was thinking it as a delusion.
Read more of Anthony's story

Elizabeth Treasure

Recovering from the suicide of her son in a psychiatric ward, Elizabeth saw a SANELINE poster: “I thought there could be someone who would listen to me, who could share the burden and was not part of my family. This was a group dealing specifically with mental health problems.” Elizabeth became a regular caller.

Diagnosed a ‘reactive depressive’, Elizabeth’s lows can be devastating, “like my brain is shutting down and everything is bleak”. At one point, deciding life was too much to bear, she took an overdose of sleeping pills and anti-depressants.
Read more of Elizabeth's story

Elizabeth will be launching a local branch of the self-help organisation: Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide in Weston-Super-Mare, pending enough interest. Click here to learn more.