background
I came from a loving family in Edinburgh, had an active social life, played in post-punk bands - getting a far as a Radio 1 session in 1984. But three years later I ended up in a locked psychiatric ward. Here's the background to 1976 - Growing Up Bipolar
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My story pinballs backwards and forwards, with a lot of flashbacks. And it’s not just focused on mental illness. It's a rich banquet rather than a single dish, serving up Edinburgh’s post-punk scene, Madchester, sectarianism in Scottish football, the routine of a Scottish Government drone, Wallace Mercer’s abortive takeover attempt of Hibernian FC, and much more. |
1976 - Growing Up Bipolar is a memoir centred on my experiences of mental ill health. After succumbing to manic depression in 1987 I was eventually sectioned under the Mental Health (Scotland) Act 1984, diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I spent time in a closed ward at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital. In 1990 I fell ill again, suffering from mania, my moods characterised by constant elation. If bipolar is a rollercoaster I'd been to the bottom, was now soaring higher. I was loving the ride but my family could see how ill I was becoming. I was hospitalised again.
Recovery
As I was recovering from my breakdown I recall being inspired to have a stab at short story writing again for the first time in months, as well as diarising recent events. While most of the other patients were zoning out on daytime TV, a doctor doing his rounds discovered me with a pad of lined A4. I was jotting down some outlandish tale about Airdrie football fans en route to Meadowbank Thistle, encountering local punks. It was raw, but the spark was there and the doctor recognised this, encouraging me to keep at it.
I was discharged in time for Hogmanay. Months later, I was back to reading my favourite Scottish writers, James Kelman, Alan Spence, William McIlvanney, the American short story writer Raymond Carver, and scribbling my own attempts. I never considered using my mental heath experiences as a source of inspiration. In the late 1980s, mental illness carried such a potent stigma.
Writing about mental illness
Fast-forward to the mid-2000s. By now I was in a stable job in the Scottish Government, playing in bands again, and married with a young daughter. I could view my manic episodes objectively, even laughing at the more eccentric antics I'd got up to. It dawned on me that the most poignant writing comes from describing events lived through personally so I decided to write about bipolar disorder, describing the horrible lows, the equally disturbing highs. I dug out the rough diary notes I'd made in hospital, spoke to family and friends. These drafts became the earliest version of what started as a novel. I was also playing guitar in a band, Axidents, a reformed version of a punk band I'd followed to every gig in the late 1970s/early 1980s. Inspired by one of the groups we were all into back then, Punishment of Luxury, I adapted the title of one of their B-sides, Brain Bomb, an exhilarating thrash, and named my semi-autobiographical novel, BrainBomb.
Because there were so many blanks in my story, I resorted to inventing fantasy sequences to fill in the gaps (inspired by Billy Pilgrim's time-travelling jaunts in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five!) I invented an alter-ego for the space cadet described in this fiction, Neil Armstrong, and the novel was released on a limited print-run in 2009. But a key moment came when I applied for a copy of my mental health case notes from the Scottish NHS. Now I had everything in front of me in stark typewriter print or handwritten notes by GPs, psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses. Every proposed treatment was listed, anti-psychotic drugs to electro-convulsive therapy. the medical staff who looked after me. As they assisted me every step of the way towards recovery, they documented my daily routine. Everything. Medication. Mood swings. Manic behaviour - spouting gibberish, phoning an old flame with a marriage proposal, making up sign language, daubing myself with warpaint, doing a Basil Fawlty goose-step through the ward, anticipating a square-go with a guy in the neighbouring ward to determine who'd be top dog amongst the patients, and bolting out of the hospital, escaping into Morningside. This bulging file opened a window into my peak bipolar spell, and during the COVID-19 lockdown I rewrote my story as a memoir.
Recovery
As I was recovering from my breakdown I recall being inspired to have a stab at short story writing again for the first time in months, as well as diarising recent events. While most of the other patients were zoning out on daytime TV, a doctor doing his rounds discovered me with a pad of lined A4. I was jotting down some outlandish tale about Airdrie football fans en route to Meadowbank Thistle, encountering local punks. It was raw, but the spark was there and the doctor recognised this, encouraging me to keep at it.
I was discharged in time for Hogmanay. Months later, I was back to reading my favourite Scottish writers, James Kelman, Alan Spence, William McIlvanney, the American short story writer Raymond Carver, and scribbling my own attempts. I never considered using my mental heath experiences as a source of inspiration. In the late 1980s, mental illness carried such a potent stigma.
Writing about mental illness
Fast-forward to the mid-2000s. By now I was in a stable job in the Scottish Government, playing in bands again, and married with a young daughter. I could view my manic episodes objectively, even laughing at the more eccentric antics I'd got up to. It dawned on me that the most poignant writing comes from describing events lived through personally so I decided to write about bipolar disorder, describing the horrible lows, the equally disturbing highs. I dug out the rough diary notes I'd made in hospital, spoke to family and friends. These drafts became the earliest version of what started as a novel. I was also playing guitar in a band, Axidents, a reformed version of a punk band I'd followed to every gig in the late 1970s/early 1980s. Inspired by one of the groups we were all into back then, Punishment of Luxury, I adapted the title of one of their B-sides, Brain Bomb, an exhilarating thrash, and named my semi-autobiographical novel, BrainBomb.
Because there were so many blanks in my story, I resorted to inventing fantasy sequences to fill in the gaps (inspired by Billy Pilgrim's time-travelling jaunts in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five!) I invented an alter-ego for the space cadet described in this fiction, Neil Armstrong, and the novel was released on a limited print-run in 2009. But a key moment came when I applied for a copy of my mental health case notes from the Scottish NHS. Now I had everything in front of me in stark typewriter print or handwritten notes by GPs, psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses. Every proposed treatment was listed, anti-psychotic drugs to electro-convulsive therapy. the medical staff who looked after me. As they assisted me every step of the way towards recovery, they documented my daily routine. Everything. Medication. Mood swings. Manic behaviour - spouting gibberish, phoning an old flame with a marriage proposal, making up sign language, daubing myself with warpaint, doing a Basil Fawlty goose-step through the ward, anticipating a square-go with a guy in the neighbouring ward to determine who'd be top dog amongst the patients, and bolting out of the hospital, escaping into Morningside. This bulging file opened a window into my peak bipolar spell, and during the COVID-19 lockdown I rewrote my story as a memoir.
The story commences at my lowest point, when I was taken to hospital by ambulance with a police escort, then secured in a closed ward. We flashback to the months leading up to my sectioning where a lifestyle whirling around constant shiftwork, binge-drinking, hash, and promiscuity in Edinburgh night clubs leads to deepening stress, insomnia, agoraphobia and depression. After a complete breakdown, we follow my painstaking journey through the tunnel, back towards the light at the end. As I draw closer to the tunnel's end my passion for music is re-ignited by listening to recordings of the John Peel radio show.
I gradually piece my life together. By 1990 I'm working full-time for the Scottish Government and living in a flat in Dalry. But I'm also back on a slippery slope; paradoxically, an upwards trajectory of drinking and casual sex, becoming ever more delusional, leading into mania. Disturbed by my increasingly outlandish behaviour, my parents take me to see a psychiatrist at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital again. I'm hospitalised for the second time.
I gradually piece my life together. By 1990 I'm working full-time for the Scottish Government and living in a flat in Dalry. But I'm also back on a slippery slope; paradoxically, an upwards trajectory of drinking and casual sex, becoming ever more delusional, leading into mania. Disturbed by my increasingly outlandish behaviour, my parents take me to see a psychiatrist at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital again. I'm hospitalised for the second time.
1976 is about growing up with bipolar disorder. It's sometimes possible to pinpoint elements that lead to the chemical imbalances triggering depression/mania in later life, but childhood trauma is often cited as a key factor. Aged 13, I fell victim to a pedophile. A quiet lad, I retreated further into an introverted shell. But I also latched onto more intense fads. After hearing the Sex Pistols at the age of 15, I embraced punk. I cropped my hair, wore ever-outlandish clothes, bought a guitar, began playing in bands, writing anti-establishment lyrics and composing lurid CND fanzines. A lifelong Hibernian FC fan, I became obsessive about my family's Ulster roots and got into Northern Irish politics, attending Rangers games for a few seasons - but much preferred the travelling and binge drinking in pubs across Scotland to the actual football. In my 20s, I loved the way the demon drink could transform a shy Jekyll into a boorish Hyde, and this fuelled a lifestyle revolving around the capital's many nightclubs.
"Great stuff, but it's mashed my heid."
Irvine Welsh, bestselling author of Trainspotting and numerous literary classics.
"1976 is a welcome new addition to the growing library of mental health books. Well-written and intensely personal, it takes you right into the bipolar mind."
Alastair Campbell, ambassador for ‘Time To Change,’ a mental health campaign aimed at reducing stigma and discrimination.
"Great stuff, but it's mashed my heid."
Irvine Welsh, bestselling author of Trainspotting and numerous literary classics.
"1976 is a welcome new addition to the growing library of mental health books. Well-written and intensely personal, it takes you right into the bipolar mind."
Alastair Campbell, ambassador for ‘Time To Change,’ a mental health campaign aimed at reducing stigma and discrimination.
