Anna was nearly qualified as a psychotherapist when she learned, first hand, how "psychiatric patients are treated with fear and suspicion by the rest of society, discriminated against and written off".
When she was diagnosed with "manic depression", Anna had been training for nearly six years to be a psychotherapist in group analysis. She was considered "an exceptional student", was already practising as a therapist as part of her training, and was less than a year away from qualifying. Her breakdown was brought on by a cascade of deeply emotional stresses.
She was dealing with strong feelings being brought up by the therapy process which all training psychotherapists must undergo. She was grieving over the death of her father, an emotion heightened by the fact that she had also lost two trusted mentor/teachers on the psychotherapy course. As if this wasn't enough, she was under extreme stress due to financial worries because she was the sole breadwinner in the family at the time.
Her work was in an extremely disadvantaged area of Dublin - a stress in itself. At the same time, she also had a young baby to care for, while continuing to study and work. At the time of her breakdown, she had invested five years of her life and £15,000 in tuition money (not to mention lost earnings due to her studies).
Despite all these mitigating circumstances, she was told that as a result of being diagnosed with manic depression, she would never qualify as a psychotherapist on this particular course.
"The experience taught me that there is only a minority of professionals working in the area of mental health who are not afraid of mental illness," says Anna. "There's a fear within many people in the profession about mental illness because, I believe, those of us who become involved in it are close to recognising in ourselves the vulnerabilities of those with mental illness." Her experience also cast doubt - for her and her psychotherapist - on the faith her course directors had in the psychotherapy process itself, since their rejection of her seemed to indicate that psychotherapy could not help her to recover to be mentally healthy enough to be a psychotherapist.
Since her rejection by a group which, she thought, should be best able to empathise with her situation, Anna has done a lot of searching, not only within herself, but also concerning the way in which the psychiatric system operates.
During her six-week stay in hospital she agreed, after much persuasion, to take lithium, which many hail as a wonder drug - but which damaged Anna's thyroid and made her feel "life was not worth living". No other treatment was offered. In hospital, "I have seen - or endured myself - patients being held down, sat on, stepped over, isolated, punished, threatened, ridiculed, ignored and violated and for what reason? Because they were sick."
The trauma of being rejected by professionals who did not have faith in her ability to get better, added to the difficulty of recovery for Anna.
ANNA sees a breakdown as a potentially positive thing where people can examine their lives and purge themselves of unbearable pain and unmanageable feelings. Breakdown is only a matter of degree in how we react; some people are better than others at defending against these feelings.
"I was put in an isolation unit and was so terrified that I pissed myself. I thought I was being stripped, but they were just taking off my boots. The glass in the isolation unit is so thick that the patient cannot be heard from outside. . . It seemed as if I could be there forever without anyone knowing."
People experiencing mental and emotional distress are being scapegoated by the rest of society for their failure to cope, she believes: "I look forward to the end of a system which has locked away, or knocked out, a portion of humanity which is trying to understand itself," she says.
"When there is no belief within the profession that people can grow through the experience of breakdown and get better, it is very difficult to hold on to that belief within yourself. I think that people who have been through breakdowns have a lot to offer, and that it's important to include their own understanding of their illness in finding a way through. I believe that it is very important to include in the mental health services people who genuinely hold this belief and not just people who pay lip service to it."
Anna can be contacted at fruitcake-s@hotmail.com