BIOGRAPHY

  Matilda Heindow is an artist and mental health advocate based in Stockholm.

  She founded the much-loved Instagram page @crazyheadcomics, using it as a creative outlet for her colourful cartoons that cleverly skewer our collective experiences of mental health. She has shared over 700 unique pieces of art to her global following and her work is often used by mental health professionals and schools.

  In 2021, Matilda delivered a TEDx talk on ‘The Art of Mental Health Advocacy’.

  The information in this book has been compiled as general guidance on the specific subjects addressed. It is not a substitute and not to be relied on for medical, healthcare or pharmaceutical professional advice. Please consult your GP before changing, stopping or starting any medical treatment. So far as the author is aware the information given is correct and up to date as at October 2022. Practice, laws and regulations all change and the reader should obtain up-to-date professional advice on any such issues. The authors and publishers disclaim, as far as the law allows, any liability arising directly or indirectly from the use, or misuse, of the information contained in this book.

  Introduction: This book is for you

  Mental illness and me

  CHAPTER 1

  ‘Is there something wrong with me?’ (No)

  CHAPTER 2

  ‘Will I ever get better?’ (Yes!)

  CHAPTER 3

  Your mental health toolkit

  CHAPTER 4

  The road to recovery

  CHAPTER 5

  You can thrive, not just survive

  My message to you

  Useful resources

  Acknowledgements

  For all the people who love me as I am, and through it all

  INTRODUCTION:

  This book is for you

  I wrote this book for you – yes, you. Perhaps it was a gift from someone who loves you, or maybe it was a gift to yourself. You might have picked it up because you’ve struggled with your mental health, or are struggling right now, or maybe you haven’t felt like yourself in a long time. You might be feeling hopeful or hopeless. Whoever you are, whatever you are going through, you have mental health to look after, so this book is for you.

  This book chronicles my own mental health battles, from the first symptom and the first therapy visit to the positive place I’m in now – an honest recovery journey scattered with highs and lows, setbacks and victories and everything I learnt along the way. I wrote it because as common as my experience is, very few people talk about their mental health struggles. I have used my experience as a starting point to speak to you about your mental health and what you may go through too, in the past, present or future. I want to show you that, even in your own low moments, you are far from alone and you are certainly not lost. Your highs are on the horizon.

  In these pages I describe what I’ve learnt on my journey (and what I’ve unlearned). In pictures and words, I share the tips I’ve picked up along the way that have made it possible to heal, the self-care tools that can truly help, the coping mechanisms that can provide a life raft on the road to recovery and the new perspectives that come when you make friends with yourself again. In short, I share how I learned to thrive (not just survive), so you can take from my experience anything that’s useful for you.

  This book covers sensitive topics including suicide, trauma and grief. Do not feel obligated to read anything that might feel too heavy for you right now. Those parts are there because I want to share the realities of my journey, and I believe these topics shouldn’t be taboo. Those sections will be there for you when you’re ready to read them, and they are marked with this symbol:

  I invite you to read this book however you need, whether that is from start to finish or dipping into the sections that might help you at a difficult time. Each chapter is short and accompanied by my illustrations, so I hope it will be easy for you to take from it what you need, when you need it. I encourage you to highlight and scribble in the pages that speak to you, to lend this book to a friend who hasn’t been feeling good lately or keep it close by for those moments when you need it most. I would love for you to use it in whatever way most helps you and your loved ones.

  I hope this book can be a reminder that there are millions of people who have felt similarly to you and that there are hundreds of ways to heal. My greatest wish is to provide you with a little hope whatever you’re going through – like a hand holding yours, even when the world feels like it’s collapsing around you. The perspectives, tips and tricks in these pages may help even when you aren’t sure what you need, or when you don’t have enough energy to know where to start. Use what speaks to you and leave aside the rest for another day.

  Most of all, I hope this book serves as a reminder to look after your mental health and treat yourself like someone worth taking care of – because you are.

  Mental illness and me

  I can’t remember exactly when I first started feeling like there was something wrong with me. I suspect that feeling was there for a long time.

  My mum tells me I was extremely easy-going as a baby – perfectly content and calm most of the time. It made her wonder what all the fuss of parenting was all about. I learned to talk and I never stopped talking. My favourite thing to do was to ask my grandparents questions about absolutely everything. I loved their old handbound books, which they would lift down from the shelves to answer my many questions. I had a rich inner life; I would tell myself stories that built into complex internal worlds, with imaginary people, places and events that overlapped and expanded over years of daydreaming. In my early life, my mind was a sacred space that I loved inhabiting. How things change.

  The more I saw of the world, the more new experiences I encountered, the more wary and fearful I became. Those feelings intensified in school. Most other children seemed free of worry, but I was too nervous to even climb trees with them. I would often cry quietly in the middle of third-grade math class because I didn’t understand a single thing. I got my first nose-bleed in that class; I hid my face in my hands, too embarrassed to draw attention to myself. When the teacher asked me to put my hands down, the blood had smeared onto my face and palms, sticky and thick. I was intensely ashamed. I was later diagnosed with dyscalculia, a learning disability that makes number comprehension very difficult, as well as ADHD which makes concentrating in general rather tricky too, unless I am interested in the topic.

  I felt I was ‘wrong’ – partly because I was told so. Adults chastized me constantly for being too sensitive and for not trying hard enough in school. It upset me, because I was trying as hard as I humanly could – and it wasn’t enough. By the age of 14, I was consumed by anxiety and something else I couldn’t quite explain. I noticed I didn’t experience curiosity, joy or contentment anymore. I wasn’t sure when that had stopped, but by that point I don’t think I cared. I was a teenager and teens are supposed to be hormonal and full of angst, right?

  But this didn’t feel like the usual teen angst. It felt more like the part of my brain responsible for happiness had been surgically removed. I experienced prolonged periods of utter disinterest and despair – a dissonance between me and everything else.

  I drafted several wills in my diary but I never asked myself why. I didn’t own anything important anyway – like a house or a car – so they weren’t even useful, but it felt like a thing I needed to do. My moods disturbed my parents, who were growing increasingly worried as I withdrew further into myself.

  When I was 12 or 13, my mum booked me an appointment with a therapist. Her office was bright and cluttered with low-lit plants; a bowl of fidget toys sat on a little table along with a freshly opened pack of tissues with one sticking out slightly, like an invitation or a reminder to use it. The walls were lined with white IKEA shelves with neatly arranged psychology books and a big Matisse print in a frame.

  I asked if she was allowed to choose her office art herself and she told me that nobody had asked her that before. She was quite ‘matter-of-fact’, in a way that made me feel uneasy, but when I asked her things like that, things that amused her, she became a little warmer. She asked me to fill out forms about depression and asked me personal questions about my home life. She asked me if I wanted to die. I didn’t want to die, or at least I hadn’t considered it, despite drafting the wills.

  She wondered if I had been depressed for a long time and I explained that it came in waves. ‘Do you experience moments of happiness?’ she asked. I never thought long about the questions before answering. ‘Yes, some days I’m so happy,’ I said, ‘it almost feels like too much, but it never lasts. I always get depressed again.’

  This made her pause, like a lightbulb turned on in her mind, and she scribbled something in her notebook at a speed I hadn’t seen from her before. She started asking how long I’d get happy for, if I slept less then, if I became impulsive or spoke fast during these days of happiness. She made me fill out new forms, did more in-depth psychological evaluations and told me she suspected bipolar disorder. I didn’t know exactly what that was, only that it was probably bad.

  Later that night I googled ‘bipolar disorder’. Afterwards, I cried hard into my pillow until I had a headache and the pillowcase had an imprint of my wet eyeliner. I cried because I knew she was right, and I knew that my life had changed forever. A few weeks later it was confirmed and I was referred to a bipolar and psychosis unit. I had a team composed of a doctor, therapist, psychiatrist, occupational therapist, caseworke r and nurse. They put me on medications that had long, unpronounceable names. The medications gave me vertigo and shaky hands and rashes and auditory hallucinations right before bed, but they also made me less moody, which was the point.

  I felt like a science experiment, like my youth and privacy were being taken from me – like a person who was sick, worrying everyone. I was still as ‘wrong’ as I was before, but now the wrongness had names like bipolar and generalized anxiety and social anxiety and panic disorder, and I was ‘hard to treat’ because of the complex comorbidity of disorders all playing off of each other.

  Looking back, it was a huge adjustment that felt like the end of everything. I was grieving the previous versions of me; I was aching for the chilled-out baby version of me, or the inquisitive toddler version of me, or even the obliviously depressed 13-year-old me.

  The ‘me’ I am now wishes I could go back and tell myself that I was never wrong or bad or defective. The ‘me’ I am now has learnt so much from those difficult days – about myself and about how each of us needs to look after our mental health. To not be consumed by my darkest thoughts and heaviest feelings, but to let them inform me of what needs to change or adapt or process. To not give into the little voice that sometimes tells me to give up, but to find ways to prove it wrong. My recovery started as a slow reprogramming of my mind, dissecting and looking deeply into the parts that I pushed aside for so long. It was about finding the courage to endure the healing process, as I endured living with mental illness for so long. I wish I could put this book into the little hands of my younger self and say, ‘Look at what you’ve learnt! Look at what you can do when you cheer yourself on. Look at this version of yourself – she loves you!’

  When I was twenty, I started an Instagram account where I scribbled about my struggles with mental health and the lessons I’d learned trying to make sense of what was happening. It was cathartic, and I hoped my drawings would reach someone who struggled like I did. It became my safe little corner of the internet, and to my surprise, it grew fast. Apparently, hundreds of thousands of people could relate. I was met with comments like, ‘It’s like I wrote this!’ or, ‘You put into words something I felt but didn’t know how to explain’. Seeing that made me realize that my story wasn’t as unique as I’d thought. So, I continued sharing it, and I found a purpose – to help others and help change how we view mental illness.

  My illness used to be my biggest limitation – the reason I felt like I didn’t fit in anywhere – but it has propelled me in a new direction, one that motivated me to get better so I can show other people that it’s possible. I thought my vulnerability and sensitivity were weaknesses – turns out they are superpowers. Now I spend most of my days in a little apartment in Stockholm, making my art, working to raise awareness of mental health, feeling and healing – soaking in the light that I didn’t think I’d ever feel, and moving through the world a little lighter day-by-day. Some days are still dark, but that darkness doesn’t swallow me anymore, because I have trained the muscles necessary to pull myself up again.

  At my worst, I didn’t think it would ever get better. Today, I have days where I wake up with a heart full of joy and excitement. Inside this little book, I have written about some of the things that make this possible for me.

  ‘What’s happening to me?’

  Let’s take a moment to check in: how are you feeling right now? Maybe you picked up this book because you feel something is wrong with you, or you’re worried about someone close to you. I want to reassure you that you are not alone in these feelings and there’s nothing weird about what you’re going through. Take a big breath, stretch out your legs, unclench your jaw and get comfortable. Are you ready?

  Before my therapist said the words ‘bipolar disorder’, I thought I was ‘too sensitive’ and ‘too moody’. Acknowledging what was really going on opened up my understanding of how I could help myself, with the right support. The feelings and thoughts that surround you when you’re struggling with your mental health can be confusing. You may not understand that you have a problem and that help is out there for you.

  Anybody could struggle with their mental health, and anybody could develop a mental illness. So how can we tell when ‘normal’ sadness or stress have become a bigger problem? The first step is knowing the common signs of declining mental health. The sooner we notice this, the easier it will be to work through what we’re feeling.

  See the signs below and ask yourself:

  Are you finding it hard to cope with everyday stress?

  Has your sleep changed?

  Are you eating differently?

  Are you finding it harder to concentrate?

  Are you withdrawing from social activities?

  I know how difficult it can be in the moment, especially if this is the first time you’re going through it, but acknowledging the early warning signs is your first step towards feeling better.

  We all have ‘mental health’

  We all have mental health; it is the sum total of our psychological, emotional and social wellbeing. Tending to it is vital, but often isn’t prioritized. I believe it’s because most of us were not properly taught to do so.

  When I first got sick, I felt like a failure, but I realized recently that I was failed by a world that isn’t accessible to those of us with disabilities or illnesses. I wonder how different my life would have been if I didn’t have to deal with the disorganisation and executive dysfunction of ADHD, or the whirlwind of my mood disorder. Many of us don’t have access to mental health resources and treatment, many of us grew up in homes and within communities where mental health problems were stigmatized, where questions or worries or warning signs remained unaddressed. I think society isn’t exactly set up to nurture our collective mental health, but instead often makes it worse.

  Not too long after my first set of diagnoses, I watched a lot of friends develop problems in high school: kids getting burnt-out or strung-out at the age of 16, going to inpatient facilities or switching schools because the pressure was too much. Since then, I have seen colleagues at work break down from stress, having to take extended sick leaves. Many people I’ve met have had skewed, negative relationships with their bodies and some form of disordered eating. Poor mental health, in some form, isn’t that unusual.

  Between genetics, generational trauma, unequal societies, poor working conditions, high academic expectations, lack of access to healthcare, and stress, it’s not surprising that so many of us struggle with our mental health. So let us never forget: if you experience problems or struggles with your mental health, it is not your fault.

  The rhythm of our daily lives doesn’t always leave room for us to tend to our emotional wellbeing. In between obligations and responsibilities it can be hard to find time for self-nurturing. But to simply set aside a moment each day to perform a therapeutic exercise, do a mindfulness activity, or check in with your feelings, forms a habit that can strengthen mental health, even on good days. The state of our mental health is fluid and can change rapidly – to create a solid set of coping tools builds a foundation we can fall back on when we’re struggling. Trying different self-help strategies and finding ones that work for you is like decorating a living space, building it piece by piece until you’ve got places to rest, to create, to converse, and to move your body in ways that are comfortable to you. Your brain is your permanent inner home, so furnishing it according to your own needs really makes a difference.

  What mental illness feels like

  Even though we have diagnostic manuals for mental illness, the way each person experiences mental distress can never fit into any one box. It’s as individual as our fingerprints; our unique experiences are shaped by nurture, culture and daily life. But the one thing every mental health disorder has in common is that it negatively impacts our day-to-day life. One in four people will at some point in their lives experience a mental health condition, but everyone has mental health, which can decline or increase, just like our physical health. Looking after our mental health can help us prevent mental illness in the long term.

 

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