12/03/2021
Dear readers,
Today it is exactly three years since I uploaded the first post on my mental health blog, The Disinfectant Project. I want to thank everybody who has read and supported it over this time.
I have talked before, years ago, about where the inspiration for this project originated. I was in my second admission to the hospital, in 2016, and surrounded by other patients of similar ages and circumstances. Even then it was clear to me that my passion and future lay in writing and I became something of a scribe in this unique situation. The idea of me publicly recording our experience was born as a group decision. It was a matter of when. I knew that it was not the right time at that juncture, but with the encouragement of my little hospital family I stashed the idea away in my mind’s library for future use.
On the day of my discharge I sat at the dining room table with the group and was presented with a parting gift. It was a beautiful designer pen. The friend who placed the box in my hands gave me a shy smile and said, ‘This is so you can write our story.’ I have never forgotten it.
I was admitted again 18 months later; see previous posts. I journaled copiously and it was after my discharge that I plucked the idea from the back of my mind, knowing that it would soon be the time to share the story of that hospital experience. I was discharged at the end of December 2017 and on the 12th of March 2018 I published four posts, beginning with ‘1. Introduction’.
I remember first hovering over the ‘post’ button on social media and the blog itself, nervous that people would dislike the writing and aware of the potential consequences of making myself this vulnerable on the internet. My therapist also warned me, ‘You have to be ready for people to call you crazy.’ It took a lot of thought but eventually, and with the encouragement of loved ones, I decided that sharing my story - particularly in my occupation as a writer - was a positive thing. The outpouring of love then, and since, has been overwhelming in the best way and fuelled my passion for what I do. This has been one of the most fulfilling things I have ever done and that passion only grows.
Nobody has ever told me that I am ‘mad’. Accusations of lunacy over the years have only ever come from inside of me, a bad habit of my earlier years of illness originating in internalised shame. I would like to think it has been thoroughly exorcised by now. I do have low self-esteem sometimes, and in dark moments I am more vulnerable to the insanity narrative, but I feel blessed that as time goes on those moments lessen in frequency. In this vein, I attempt to reflect this progress in the tone of my writing, as I increasingly look to a more hopeful future in my arc of recovery.
For me the joy in writing is not just in the content but in the form. Modernist literature, a love of mine, always prioritised form over content, and while I am not claiming to be equal to the legions of modernists over the last one hundred years, I understand why this is the theory. I am dedicating my life to writing, and so it is important to me that the plot of this blog does not overwhelm the vehicle that is my prose. This particular project is a source of passion, and I think it only further explains the inside of my mind to reflect that writing in and of itself is also the point; the exercise of writing is therapy for me as well as the content I am expressing. So, this blog has brought great joy to me through both the ‘what’ and the ‘how’, and I hope you can see that come through.
I will continue writing The Disinfectant Project. My ambition is to eventually approach the right people to turn it into a book, and I know that this may take a long time, but please be patient with me. I will remember my original readers, always. Watch this space, and thank you again. I hope you have enjoyed it. Let’s keep on keeping on, together.
Isabel
