Mental Illness

 I don’t know if ‘enjoying’ is the right word but I have been impressed by BBC3s ‘What is an adult?’ season. It’s taken some hard hitting issues and shown how young people are affected by them. As a children/YA author I am always interested in the child’s perspective.  I was fascinated by last week’s programme about 14 year old Georgia, daughter of glamour model Alicia Douvall (no, me neither) in Glamour Models, my Mum and Me. Georgia was just like Saffy in Abfab – way more together and mature than her mother. What was brilliant about Georgia was how she dealt with her mother’s insecurities (Alicia has had tons of plastic surgery as she has body dysmorphic disorder, where she feels ugly all the time.)  Most 14 year olds would have been mortified by Alicia’s antics, such  as hoiking her out of school so she could fly to LA with her for another boob job) but Georgia remained calm, patient and logical throughout. ‘You can pretend you don’t know me,’ Alicia told Georgia after she’d warned her that she was going to be in the tabloids for being caught in the back of a car with the then England captain John Terry. ‘I’m not going to pretend I don’t know my own mum,’ Georgia told her, aghast.

Even more moving was last night’s programme featuring Tulisa Constostavlos, the 22 year old lead singer with N-Dubz. Tulisa’s mum has suffered from mental illness all Tulisa’s life. The singer’s early memories are of coming home from school and finding an ambulance taking her mother away after another manic ‘episode’  and suicide attempt. Tulisa was breathtakingly honest and open about her early years, talking about how what was going on at home had a serious impact on her school life. She rebelled at school, skiving lessons to smoke dope in the grounds and leaving before she took her GCSEs; she self-harmed. Teachers told her she’d never amount to anything. At one point, she read from the diary she kept of that time, holding up for the camera a page splattered with her blood.

The programme followed other young adults who were the main carers for their mentally ill parent (there’s always only one parent in the house - partners having scarpered, leaving the kid to grow up far too fast and deal with the distressing situation). 15 year old Megan talked about how she was bullied at school for having a ‘weird’ mum and how she lost herself in books to escape. She had every Stephen King novel on her shelves. I wished she’d had a copy of Jade’s Story as well, my book that deals with children going through this very same family situation. Oh, she can’t – it’s out of print…. ho hum.

                  Help was available to these young carers if they knew how to access it. There are help groups in most main towns where young people can meet others going through similar experiences. It’s a matter of trust, though. One mother had gone ot Social Services to ask for help for her son and they’d immediately put him on the ‘at risk’ register. Little wonder she wouldn’t go back. The threat of losing the only person in her life who loved her unconditionally must have been unbearable.

But hats off to Tulisa and N-Dubz. In a world where image is everything, to be so open and candid about the unfashionable topic of mental illness took a lot of guts.  Check out the blog responses to the different programmes on BBC3′s website. The stories told are humbling, to say the least.