Many people have been misled by the negative portrayal of mental illness in the media – such as headlines in the national newspapers that imply that all people with schizophrenia are prone to violence – and this means that people who experience mental illness either try to hide their mental health problems or are affected by stigma and discrimination.

Early in 2009, mental health charities Rethink, Mind and Mental Health Media launched an ambitious campaign to break the stigma surrounding mental illness. With imput from celebrities such as Stephen Fry, Ruby Wax and Alistair Campbell, the Time to Change Campaign has taken to the streets of the United Kingdom in an attempt to bring to the attention of the general public the truth about the experience of mental illness. One of the main messages of the Time to Change Campaign is that people with schizophrenia are not dangerous – there are a number of insightful videos on the Time to Change Website portraying the true story of schizophrenia.

I wanted to make my own contribution to the Time to Change Campaign, but instead of just putting up posters or distributing leaflets, I wanted to do something more, something unusual.  So I wrote my debut novel, The Fire in Your Eyes to capture the experience of Bipolar Affective Disorder (formerly known as Manic Depression). Chipmunka Publishing, the mental health publishers, released The Fire in Your Eyes in paperback in August 2009. The novel is also available as an e-book.

The stigma of mental illness isn’t going to be easy to break, which is why I’m going to keep on writing novels that explain the truth of mental health problems. The sequel to The Fire in Your Eyes, Legacy of Lies, is now available as an ebook from Chipmunka Publishing. My third novel, Wading the Waters of My Mind is also available as an ebook. Both Legacy of Lies and Wading the Waters of My Mind will be published as paperbacks early in 2011.