In 2015 mental health didn’t just come knocking on our front door; it barged in, sat at our dining table, joined us watching the television, in the restroom…. In fact, wherever we went, you guessed it—it came too.

UNINVITED AND UNWELCOME.

You see, our daughter suffered a psychotic episode while she was travelling by herself 14,000km away in Istanbul. The only reason she is alive is because of the kindness of strangers.

Mental health concerns affect many. It doesn’t care where you live, what school you go to or what job you have.

It. Doesn’t. Matter. Who. You. Are.

What it does is leave you in deafening silence, a heavy load of stigma and a trunk full of guilt, regarding all the signs you’ve missed along the way. Well at least that’s what I felt when we returned home from Istanbul with a daughter who heard voices (not just one but hundreds), believed she had microchips implanted in her, and that there was a television listening in on us.

The mental health journey had started, and we (my family) were not talking about it. We would, in fact, remain in silence for several years—until we broke it… no, shattered it. There was no turning back.

I’d decided to write an anonymous article. There was no way our names would ever be in the same sentence as those scary words, “mental health.” Then I realized I had more than just an article—it was starting to look more like a book. But could I do it?

The answer was “no”—not until our beautiful daughter, now diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder, was ready to ‘out’ herself. Is ready the right word? No, it’s not. I’d say it was when she was finally able to recognize that she had a chronic illness. That’s what bipolar is, just like diabetes, heart, or kidney disease.

We needed to change the narrative of how others looked at those with complex mental health concerns. Education is that answer, as knowledge is power.

So that anonymous article morphed into a book thus breaking the silence of all mental health concerns, hoping to stomp all over stigma and reset peoples’ thoughts and ideas of ‘what’ mental health is.

We decided we needed to speak out. That cloak of anonymity was discarded, and our story—our book, Dear Psychosis—was published. It’s the journey of our family navigating life with mental ill health sitting at our table—once unspoken but now acknowledged and openly discussed.

We don’t have ‘shoulda, coulda, woulda’s’ in our house anymore. We have hindsight, insight and foresight. To look back and consider what we might have done differently, to recognize what we can do better now, and to educate others by openly discussing mental health—speaking all the words aloud: depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia. Saying these mental health conditions doesn’t make you have them. You can’t catch mental ill health—it doesn’t work that way.

What we can do is talk about it. Say the words that scare you the most and acknowledge why.

By sharing our story, I hope it opens the door to yours—to talk openly and honestly about mental health, drugs, alcohol, sex, and any other taboo topic. If we don’t talk about them, they remain hidden and silent. Let’s break the silence together.

And Alice?

She’s amazing, my hero. She will always have bipolar, but it does not define her. Mental health is not her full stop; it is a comma or a blip in the radar called life.

She is studying for her master’s in clinical psychology so she can return to the hospital system that once treated her—to care for others. Just. Like. Us.

Sarah and her daughter, Alice.                 Get the book: Dear Psychosis by Sarah Martin