My mum died, extremely suddenly and unexpectedly, on the 23rd of June 2023. Although I don’t really write here anymore, it feels weird not to record this here, after 16 years of this blog. We thought she was pretty much immortal, like many of the women in our family. She smoked like a steam train. She was deaf as fuck and blared Law and Order episodes loud enough to wake the dead. She had COPD and a serious Nescafe addiction. She used swearing as punctuation, like many West Belfast Mas (including myself). She had lived through difficult years with an alcoholic husband, to an emotional renaissa ..read more

Have a listen to Emma Tracey Spinks, Nikki Fox and me as we talk how to survive the festive season. Featuring… How shit Christmas is if you have an eating disorder! The joy of Christmas with an alcoholic parent! The difficulties of grieving at Christmas! Why I’m a boring bastard! And some actual practical tips including GET YOUR REPEAT PRESCRIPTION RIGHT THIS SECOND Also, why medieval Christmas cookery programmes are the best part of Christmas. I know this time of year can be so hard so I’m sending love to all reading and listening. If you’re finding it tough, someone else is too, an ..read more

Death! I talk about it a lot, don’t I? In my defense, there’s been a lot of it about. My last but one entry talked about two peoples’ deaths – David and Lyra. Two different people with two different – and two violent – deaths. So forgive me, it’s been on my mind. It’s always on my mind, really. I’ve talked at length in this blog about my death anxiety – thanatophobia for the Greeks out there – and its vampiric impact on my life. I’ve been in therapy for it before, but it was the wham-bam-thank-you-mam CBT, which did nothing to address the elephant in the room. Or, in Phillip Larkin-speak, the ..read more

https://www.huckmag.com/art-and-culture/derry-girls-taught-me-the-joy-of-feeling-seen/ Hello! Long time no write. This isn’t a mental health post but I wanted to share an article I’ve written and am quite proud of on a subject I’ve been struggling to articulate for a while – what it’s like to finally see your own experiences as a Northern Irish girl growing up during the Troubles. Please do have a read and tell me what you think ..read more

Jack’s 9 months old tomorrow. I had a scroll through some of those early days photos to reminisce. But they’re hard to look at. I don’t look miserable – but I was. I don’t look anything. My face was frozen by medication side effects. I was on a high dose of aripiprozole, diazepam, propranolol. The aripiprozole caused two horrible side effects I could barely bear to live with – akathisia, where I couldn’t keep still, and Parkinsonism, which stole my face and gave me a mask, and where my feet felt like dead weights to drag, aimlessly, from room to room to undertake a futile task to try and kill ..read more

When I had my son in January, I went from fine to being in a mental health crisis within 12 hours. In this BBC Ouch Mentally Interesting episode, I talk about what happened next, and why perinatal MH services are vital. Click below to listen! https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09f6gzf ..read more

Listen to me and @MarkOneinFour tackling mental health and shame during Covid in a hopefully funny and interesting way! Our new BBC Ouch podcast #MentallyInteresting episode & transcript below https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p096lv30 ..read more

I had my baby! He is beautiful and called Jack Daithí and also possibly Cantona if Robert decides to settle on that. Unfortunately, I’m in the grip of severe postnatal anxiety. I’m with the crisis team and taking pretty much the maximum dose of aripiprazole and also diazepam and zopiclone. This isn’t how I hoped these days would be. I can literally not imagine ever feeling normal and myself again at the moment. Please tell me your survival tales of postnatal anxiety ..read more

Hello! I haven’t blogged about this largely because life has been busy working full time around a 5 year old in a pandemic. But I’m 20 weeks pregnant and wondering if anyone took aripiprozole during and after pregnancy? I’m under the perinatal mental health here – luckily, as Belfast Trust in Northern Ireland is the only trust in the country which has one. I was under them in London as well. I am well, largely – their main concerns are me developing post partum psychosis, and I’m being fairly closely monitored for relapse during pregnancy. So far, so good, aside from a little bit of low mood b ..read more

Hey! How are doing during this GLOBAL PANDEMIC? I’m alright. You can find out more in the BBC Ouch Cabin Fever podcast with me and Mark Brown, where we talk the impact of Covid-19 on mental health, lost bras, panic attacks, zombies, interminable Zoom calls and the radical concept of kindness. Listen here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p08dtkp9 ..read more