It OK to be Blue – and that’s the truth It’s Not OK to Feel Blue (and other lies), published this autumn, is hope, experience and understanding all wrapped up in a beautiful, blue-hued book. As the end of the year approaches, curator and major contributor Scarlett Curtis shares her hopes for those who read it, and for the future of mental health and illness conversations in 2020 and beyond... Writing | Lucy Donoughue
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fter a particularly tough week, feeling listless on a long train journey, I dig the new anthology curated by Scarlett Curtis, It’s Not OK to Feel Blue (and other lies), out of my bag and open a random page. A quote from editor and model Jamie Windust leaps out at me. “We are all allowed to fail and make mistakes. We are, at the end of the day, only human.” Amen to that. This is one of many times I’ve dipped into Blue ahead of my chat with Scarlett. Each time, I read three or four offerings that have led me to think about different experiences or perspectives on mental health, and to reconsider my own. “The thing that I love the most about the book is that hopefully whatever you’ve been through there will be something in there that speaks to you,” Scarlett shares with me.
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“What’s amazing is that everyone has a different piece that speaks to them – it’s not like there’s one piece that jumps out. Everyone finds something in a different essay, and that’s been making me very happy.” There are a huge amount of personal experiences to choose from – including one of my favourites from Professor Tanya Byron (‘Fabulous and F*cked Up’), Alastair Campbell, acclaimed writer Candice Carty Williams, mental health advocates Jonny Benjamin, Bryony Gordon, Poorna Bell, and singer Sam Smith, to name but a few. Each of the six chapters start with a piece by Scarlett, and she’s deeply generous in sharing the very low lows she’s encountered throughout her life to date, as well as giving hope to readers who might be in the middle of a similar episode themselves. Scarlett was told that she was “crazy” at the age of 17, and
encountered panic attacks that floored her, and left her unable to leave her home for the majority of the next two years. Diagnosed with depression, anxiety and PTSD, Scarlett has worked hard to understand her mental illness, with therapists, medication, and by reading and developing her knowledge around mental illness. As a teenager, however, she recalls the sadness she felt initially when day-to-day activities felt beyond her. “I was 19 and trying to work on a project with my friend, and I realised I couldn’t get out of bed. “I just remember thinking, ‘Oh wow, this might be the rest of my life. I might never be able to participate in society in the way I thought I was going to.’ And actually, that’s OK. My life will be a different kind of life. “We’re obviously all told when we’re younger ‘you can be anything you want’ and ‘your options are limitless’, but as a >>>
