Storytelling saves lives – how art is helping people on their mental health journey
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Throughout all human history, we have sung, danced, drawn, and told stories.
We have always created art. And now we know that art can save lives. The World Health Organisation found in a recent report that “Art can help us to emotionally navigate the journey of battling an illness or injury, to process difficult emotions in times of emergency and challenging events”.
In Canberra, Tim Daly and Ian Drayton are tapping into the arts to give people with mental health issues and PTSD the time and space to tell their stories.
For Tim, the journey began with a sudden snap after being laid off from work due to a mental health diagnosis. “They didn’t know how to deal with someone who had mental health issues, so they paid me off,” he said.
At the time, he remembers wondering “where to next? Are there others in the same position?”
Tim and Jane of This is My Brave
He describes the cage many people get trapped in once a diagnosis is pinned to their forehead. It’s like society can read only that. All that you once were falls away and suddenly you’ve become a label; bipolar, anxious, depressed, PTSD, ADHD.
Ian is a veteran and now director of Enterprise Partnerships at the University of Canberra. He went along to see Daniel Keene’s acclaimed play, The Long Way Home, featuring veterans among the cast. While watching, he had what he describes as a sudden “brain bubble”, a realisation that something needed to be done.
“I was sitting there thinking, we have the expertise, (even though) I don’t have a background in trauma or creative work, but I did my research and spoke to academics”, Ian said.
Out of that epiphany arose Arts for Recovery, Resilience, Teamwork and Skills. ARRTS runs a four-week program at the University of Canberra for army personnel transitioning into civilian life (usually due to a medical diagnosis).
This sudden jolt to the system can be traumatic.
“In World War 1 you would’ve finished up at the Somme and have three months to get home. Now you could be in battle on Monday and home by Wednesday,” he said.
When people enter the program, they’re offered a choice of three different streams—creative writing, visual arts, or music.
Ian Drayton founded Art for Recovery, Resilience, Teamwork and Skills
Tim is the Founder of the Australian Branch of This is My Brave, a charity that gives people the opportunity to tell their mental health journey. They can perform this any way they see fit, on stage. He ensures they’re surrounded by a cushioning of community.
In 2017, Tim started to work on helping others share their mental health journeys, at first in Canberra, then nationwide. The events take three months to plan. People share their stories on stage. They sing, act, paint—at one show in the Central Coast he even had someone dress up in an armadillo costume.
“She explained that, throughout her life, she had been like an armadillo. She’d curled up to protect herself from her trauma,” Tim said.
It’s freeing and unifying. He tells one story of a woman who, whilst on stage, admitted for the first time how close she had come to ending things.
“She said she had had enough, and she wanted to finish it. She’s never said that before but afterwards she said it was the best thing she could’ve done because she realised, she needed help,” he said.
It’s through storytelling and communicating that people see past the diagnosis to the person on stage.
“Unfortunately, when people hear bipolar, they don’t know how to relate. Our events make the audience see this person as a peer, not as a patient.”
As well as these events,Tim has created the Canberra International Mental Health Film Festival. This is enormously helpful in allowing people to express their journeys through documentaries, animation, or drama.
The most recent winner was Solstice. It tells the story of Mary, who passed away at 15 from an eating disorder. Her grief-stricken parents faced an ugly reality.
“They were confronted with shame and stigma surrounding suicide. They felt isolated,” Tim said. They needed to tell their story and decided to do it through film.
Both Ian and Tim believe that the use of art and talking about mental health issues has saved lives. Ian is quick on the numbers, saying “I’ve had at least a dozen people come to tell me that this has saved their lives”.
The creation or reconnection of a community is the main priority at This Is My Brave. The realisation from participants that they aren’t the only ones, that whole sections of society are facing the same issues, is of enormous benefit
Tim says it’s simple: “Storytelling saves lives.”
A special showing of Solstice is coming up on February 6th, to buy tickets click here. To donate to This is My Brave click here.
