The Big Mad Experience 2013

     Around 2 months ago, Wednesday 30th October (to be precise) saw ‘The Big Mad Experience’ come to Bradford – a jam packed day full of music, dance and more; all in aid of busting the wall of stigma that surrounds mental health.

     Hosted at the Norcroft building at the University of Bradford, the day saw people from all walks of life (in either fancy dress or everyday clothing); whether they were students, doctors, lecturers, mental health professionals, volunteers, mental health service users, or the average person on the street. The day saw us all come together and talk about anything and everything under the sun about mental health.

     The day started at around 9am, but certainly a lot earlier for those putting in the tremendous hard work preparing the centre for the day. After registration there was a brief meet-and-greet before all heading to the auditorium, being greeted again by the Drum Machine; of which I was part of.

Oops - it appears that I've dropped my stick!

     The first talk of the day, led by Justine Raynsford, was on pharmacy – focusing on anti-psychotics; how they work/or don’t work, as well as debating their effectiveness and suitability. Whilst for some people these have been the light at the end of the tunnel, for others they are nothing but a living nightmare. Unfortunately, when it comes to mental health and treatment, one size does not fit all.

     The wonderful Flo Bellamy, dressed as Mary Poppins, delivered the second talk. Here she shared with us her experiences of hallucinations and what it felt like for her to be on medication. Flo spoke about how instead of being treated as a number, or a ‘case’, the importance of just being listened to and being treated with respect and dignity like any other human being; rather than being shifted around from doctor to doctor and given a cocktail of medications.

The wonderful Flo, aka Mary Poppins

      After a short break, the third talk was delivered by Steve Williams (dressed as The Doctor), a professional mental health nurse and a lecturer here at the University of Bradford who teaches in nursing. Steve, in his early 20’s, has lived with experiences of psychosis, anxiety and depression. As a lecturer he teaches his students constructive critical recovery-orientated nursing approaches that are based in cognitive therapies; he believes that a key part of nursing should encompass compassion, warmth, gentleness, kindness and acceptance, and how important these aspects can be to patient’s wellbeing and recovery. Following his talk, he conducted (in what was probably the worlds-largest ever) mindfulness session. Personally, I found the experience very relaxing and releasing – certainly a technique I’ll be adopting in future when it comes to preparing for exams!

My favourite tweet of the day

     After the relaxing mindfulness session, Dr Rufus May, dressed as a tiger on the day, re-awoke us all and got our blood pumping, before settling down again and discussing the effects of support networks. Rufus, who has also had experiences of psychosis and being a psychiatric patient, believes that if someone has the right support behind them they can grow, develop and flourish; rather than just surviving on the over-prescribed use of psychiatric drugs.

Rufus the Tiger gets our blood pumping!

     All that moving around had made us all hungry, so it quite right to call a break for lunch. Lunch was served by the lovely people from Zaara’s, as to which I thoroughly enjoyed their chicken tikka masala, rice, naan bread, and onion bhajis. I should perhaps add that I am not being endorsed in any way whatsoever to write this – however, a few cheeky naans wouldn't go amiss!

     Towards the end of the lunch break there was a jam led by Aid Todd, from Drum Machine, in the Norcroft auditorium. Here everyone experimented with iPads, keyboards, drums, tambourines etc. In what was an exhilarating 20 minutes or so, before progressing on to the second half of the day.

 

 

     Following the jam, United Voice (the staff and patient choir from Lynfield Mount Hospital), gave us a spectacular performance before leading on to the final event of the day. 

     The last event of the day was in our hands, we could talk about anything and everything about mental health – collectively, we came up with around 12 topics with which we could discuss and debate upon. Such topics included: the effects of social isolation on mental health; ways to tackle the stigmas that surround mental health; religion and their effects on mental health, plus many more. We split off into groups for around 45 minutes before all feeding back to the room as a whole. My interest was in tackling mental health stigma – the group collectively agreed that education is an antidote to the poison that is stigma; that we should do more educate others about mental health and mental illness, with suggestions that more should be done in schools to educate its pupils, rather than having the media fill us with (more-often-than-not) prejudicial, stereotypical, insensitive, offensive content that you may typically find in the tabloids (*cough* Daily Mail *cough* The Sun).

     The day ended on a high with one last outstanding performance from the Drum Machine (even if I say so myself)! I can safely say that the day was enjoyed by all, even my balloons! All I can say is: roll on The Big Mad Experience 2014!

Even my balloons enjoy today!

BMNM.