Blog Title: "Psychotic, Hysteric, and Still Bloody Hilarious"
Let’s talk about losing your mind, shall we?
Not the cute kind where you forget where you parked the car or put the milk in the cupboard instead of the fridge (although I’ve done both, twice this week). No. I mean full-blown, talking-to-the-clouds, police-calling, chosen-by-God actual psychosis.
Mine came roaring in after a miscarriage and a marriage breakdown because when it rains, my darling, it bloody pours. One minute I was crying over a bowl of cornflakes, the next I was convinced the telly was sending me secret codes, and that I’d been personally selected by the Almighty to save the world (and possibly do a duet with Cliff Richard). God help us all.
I saw signs in everything. Road markings. Song lyrics. A potato. I once stood in a garden preaching forgiveness to a pigeon. I walked into a police station with no shoes, full of divine certainty, and demanded to speak to the Queen. Spoiler alert: she wasn’t available.
Within days I was sectioned. Locked up. Scared, stripped of dignity, pumped full of meds, and babbling nonsense to a nurse called Steve who definitely deserved a pay rise. But I wasn’t just mad I was funny. Barking, yes. But cracking jokes the whole way through. I cried. I laughed. I hallucinated. I saw God in a lamp post. And then I came back.
And here I am, years later, still standing, still oversharing, and now writing books about the whole debacle because let’s be honest if you can’t laugh at your own psychotic break, what can you laugh at?
My book A Comedy of Errors spills the whole lot. The madness. The mess. The men. It’s not polished, it’s not pretty but it’s real, and it’s mine. And if you’ve ever felt a bit broken, a bit lost, or a bit like the voices in your head could really do with shutting up, (I normally tell just too fuck off now) you might just find something in there that makes you feel less alone.
We don’t talk about mental illness enough. Not the ugly bits. Not the scary bits. And definitely not the funny bits. But I do. Because I lived it. And if there’s one thing I’ve learnt?
You can be psychotic and fabulous. You can fall apart and laugh. You can survive the unthinkable and still come out swinging with smudged eyeliner and a great story to tell.
Now go buy the bloody book, will you?
Love,
Julie x