Victoria Health

Last year, I spent a month in hospital, which was fine by me, or as fine as any severe illness can be, but it was a psychiatric unit and the moment you utter those two words, a hush falls across the room and then, like the faintest breeze, the whispers begin.

I have been in four psychiatric units, so I know those whispers well, although they bewilder me, because I am very open about my illness, which is bipolar disorder. If I have already spoken the words, what is there to talk about, what is left to say?

I was standing in a changing room the other day, struggling to get into a dress. It was one of those changing rooms in which high street stores seems to delight – the fat mirror imported from the funfair; the harsh, overhead light that picks out every lump and bump and dimple of cellulite. You know the ones? I guess every woman does.

Here is one of my favourite quotes from the always irrepressible, Mark Twain. “The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up”. I love it because it’s so simple and so true. Or perhaps that should be the other way around. No matter, whichever way you put it, it works.

I am a great believer in kindness. It is the virtue I hold dear above all others. Besides being central to Mark Twain’s cheering-up philosophy, which has to be the ethos of a happy society, it is also one of the best ways to individual happiness. Win, win.