August
The chipmunka group is launched at www.chipmunka.com. Look
out for stunning new social enterprises based on the
Chipmunkapublishing empowerment model. The Chipmunka
foundation website goes live www.chipmunkafoundation.org. you
can make a donation to the charity online.
July
Chipmunkapublishing launches 15 new e-books, with a further
100 in the process of editing and proof reading. We also start
asking for more manuscripts of those people who would not be
heard.
June 2005
Chipmunkapublishing goes global. CEO Jason Pegler has
recently given interviews in Spain, Australia and the United
States. Taking on new manuscripts from around the world
including South Africa.
May 2005
The Chipmunka Foundation is now a registered
charity. Charity Registration number is 1109537. The project
has been pioneered by founders of Chipmunkapublishing Jason
Pegler, Andrew Latchford and Paul Brandwood, from KPMG. A big
thank you to everyone including Robert bond from Faegre Benson
Hobson and Audley for his pro bono support.
April 2005
April is a very pro active month for Chipmunka. We have
released 10 newe-books taking our portfolio to 45 books
including paperbacks and e-books. We had e-book launch for
Anne Brocklesby's Move Over Manic Depression Here I am and
Rosamund McCullimain's the Dispossessed. Look out for our CEO
Jason Pegler appearing on the Community Channel in May and the
Discovery Channel. In both films Jason talks about writing as
catharsis and publishing as empowerment. On Saturday 30th of
April there is a double page feature on CEO Jason Pegler in
the Mind body and SOul section of the Times. Don't miss it
March 2005
At an awards ceremony at the Dahli Museum on the
evening of the 2nd of March our Co Founder and CEO Jason
Pegler was announced as the winner of the New Statesman's
Upstarts Award of "Young Social Entrepreneur of the Year
Award". Follow the link: http://www.newstatesman.co.uk to
discover what the judges said about the achievements of
Chipmunkapublishing. At the reception there were nearly 200
people from the social enterprise sector. Channel 4 TV
Presenter announced the winner and Nigel Griffiths MP and Head
of the DTI presented the awards.
February 2005
In February 2005 We moved to new offices in EC4 in Central
London. Chipmunkapublishing's New Office address is Sixth
Floor, Sir John Lyon House Business Centre, 5 High Timber
Street, London, EC4V 3NX. Chipmunkapublishing would like to
thank John Bird and Paul Williams of MLS Business Centres for
making this happen.
January 2005
Happy New Year From the Chipmunka Press Office. Jason
Pegler has been shortlisted for the New Statesman's Upstart
Awards 2005 in the Young Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award
category alongside celebrity chef Jamie Oliver: newstatesman Look
out for forthcoming reviews of our books in the Observer and
Daily Mail. Other features expected include Men's Health
Magazine, Cosmopolitan and Now Magazine. Our CEO Jason Pegler
will be appearing on the Discovery Channel in The discovery
channel will be at 8.30pm on the 24th of February. We are also
on stand bye for Richard and Judy and Breakfast on BBC 1 after
previous cancellations due to breaking news.
December 2004
Chipmunkapublishing has been busily reading through
manuscripts. We have a shortlist of 60 books to choose from.
Competition is fierce this time around. There are so many good
stories to tell. We have been working closely with the book
trade to try and get our books in stock in book shops
throughout the world. This is a tough process but the Mental
Health Survivor's Publisher will not give in and Chipmunka
will become the World's First Mental Health Brand.
November 2004
November has been has been a time of organic growth for the
Chipmunka Foundation, Chipmunkapublishing and Equal Lives our
sister social enterprise. The Foundation has been busily
putting in undressing bids, Equal Lives has been distributing
books on mental health and the publishing company has just
launched Fiona Whelpton's "The Cycle Path" - a remarkable semi
autobiographical story about a woman who suffers from
conversion syndrome disorder and manages to overcome it.
October 2004
In October 2004 we set up the Chipmunka Foundation which
aims to become the world's largest mental health charity. With
three founder members - Jason Pegler and Andrew Latchford,
founders of Chipmunkapublishing and Nigel Kershaw - Chairman
of the Big Issue and a strategic committee of committed people
involved from key circles of influence in the charity, social
enterprise and business sector. Chairman of the board is Paul
Brandwood - Head of Operations at KPMG UK.
September 2004
CEO of Chipmunkapublishing appears on BBC One discussing
patient's right on the mental health bill, visits 10 downing
street and the House of Commons with Mind and the Chipmunka
Foundation launches its first Fundraising bids. £3 million
worth of fundraising bids put in so far. Also global
humanitarian grant application made.
August 2004
CEO of Chipmunkapublishing appears on BBC 1 News
and live on BBC News 24 in a four minute interview discussing
results to the Health Commission's Patients Survey
2004.
The Patients survey interviewed 300,000 people on what they
thought of the NHS. Mental health patients were interviewed
for the first time. This is a welcome step even though the
mental health section had the lowest turnout of 42%. Chipmunka
supports the government and endeavours to change society who
has taken 2000 years to engage mental health patients in
meaningful conversation.
During his four minute live
interview on BBC 24 Jason Pegler made reference to Martin
Luther King. "if Martin Luther King was a white man talking
about black rights nobody would have listened to him". The
same is true with mental health. We will see a shift in world
consciousness as Bob Geldof did at Live Aid. The same will
happen in mental health and Chipmunka will be one of the
driving forces. This is only a matter of time.
CEO of Chipmunkapublishing Appears On ITV London
News
2/7/04
Last week according to the
BBC there was a split between Michael Howard and Tony Blair on
the forthcoming general elections. The split was on the health
service. Tony Blair wants to improve the NHS and Michael
Howard wants "freedom of choice" i.e. to privatise hospitals.
As they manoeuvre for what is traditionally the biggest vote
winner which is The Health Service I was invited onto "The
Week" on ITV today on Sunday. There was a four minute film
about Care in The Community and whether it is working or not
prompted by St Luke's Hospital Group sponsoring the book 21st
Century Asylums in which I write an essay of my vision for the
future of mental health services. I was in the studio with the
Chief Executive of St Luke's Hospital Group Jackie Flatts and
Alison Shea from Mencap. Alison focused on the importance of
good care and raising the profile for people with learning
disability. I discussed the need for patients to be treated as
human beings first and foremost as well as the fact that
mental health is becoming a social norm. What concerns me and
most people with mental health issues is not whether care
takes place in a private or public hospital but but how it is
administered.
When questioned I stated that people
need to be treated as individuals not as inanimate
objects.
June 2004:
Chipmunkapublishing Announces Second
Patron
Chipmunkapublishing is proud to announce a new
patron, Adele Blakeborough‘Co-Founder and Executive Director
of CAN(Community Action Network).
Adele Blakeborough is one of Britain's best
known social entrepreneurs. A former director of the
Kaleidoscope drugs project in Kingston upon Thames, she
co-founded the Community Action Network in 1998.
“I'm delighted to be a patron for
Chipmunkapublishing. This is precisely the kind of social
entrepreneurial project Community Action Network was set up to
celebrate and support. The area of mental health is fraught
with social stigma, fear and misunderstanding.
Chipmunkapublishing is being created by someone with direct
experience of mental health problems to highlight and relieve
these issues.”
Adele joins John Bird(Co-founder of the Big
Issue) as another high profile supporter of Chipmunka's
work.
Chipmunka Latest May
2004:
Chipmunkapublishing Announces
its first Patron:
John Bird: the founder of The Big
Issue.
Chipmunkapublishing continues to work with like
minded organisations. The Big Issue is a wonderful example of
social enterprise. Homeless people are as much human beings
and deserve the opportunity to empower themselves just as
people with "mental illness". Thank you John.
Since our foundation in April 2002
Chipmunkapublishing and its authors have received significant
local, national and now international media coverage. Here is
a sample of some of our success.
Press Highlights
Guardian Society: "Glad to be a mad media mogul" (page 4
col 1)
Manic-depressive author who aims to be the next Branson
Author Jason Pegler, who is behind the first publishing
house entirely devoted to promoting work by people with mental
illness "Pegler, 28, set up Chipmunkapublishing to encourage
and empower other survivors of mental illness, after realising
that writing his own autobiography about living with manic
depression saved his life. And he has grand ambitions for the
project. "I want Chipmunkapublishing to be the brand that the
public associates with mental health, like the Big Issue has
done for the homeless. Ideally, I would want it to go further,
to be the Virgin of mental health."
http://society.guardian.co.uk/societyguardian/story
/0,7843,1190886,00.html
MANIC ATTACK December 2003 – Sunday Times Style
Magazine
Often, manic depression strikes high-achievers, and when
they least expect it. Jason Pegler tells Anita Chaudhuri how
it happened to him.
As I was being driven off in the back of a police van in a
space suit, I thought I was DJ Donovan 'Bad Boy' Smith being
driven to a rave. I could hear music in my head. I thought
back to how, the previous night, I had woken up my stepmother
while my dad was on a night shift. I had entered their bedroom
wearing my father's fire uniform — fully equipped with his
boots, waterproofs, helmet and gas mask. She screamed as I
turned on the light. What happened after that, I fail to
remember. All I recall is my dad telling me I was going to a
place where they would take care of me. This was great and was
all in line with my theory. I found his tears comforting. It
must have been a very emotional experience to realise that he
was the father of God." Meet Jason Pegler, straight-As
student, star of the rugby team and school chess champion. At
17, he experienced his first episode of manic depression.
Pegler acknowledges that before this, he had not had an easy
time at school. "There were psychologically traumatising
incidents. The other boys didn't like me for several reasons.
I had lots of freckles and a bad haircut, for starters. I
would score more goals than everyone else put together in
every football match. I beat them all at chess, spelling,
reading and writing and even Top Trumps: I had a photographic
memory for learning numbers, so I knew which category to pick
on each card." Following his first spell of mania and
subsequent black tunnel of despair, Pegler was eventually well
enough to go to Manchester University to read classics.
Despite showing great academic promise, he soon embarked on a
career of alcohol and drug abuse, bar fights and womanising,
all, he now concedes, fuelled by his fear of having another
episode. "As I saw it, if I was always ‘acting’ crazy, I
couldn't go crazy again. I was a manic depressive with a
classic case of denial. It became difficult for me to
socialise, my university work was being neglected and my
overdraft was steadily increasing." Pegler's excessive
lifestyle ended one night when he realised that he could save
the world from an impending nuclear war. "At 4am. I thought
I'd call Snoop Dogg to ask for his help. There was an
emergency number on the back of the Doggystyle CD cover. I
rang the number and it didn't matter that I couldn't speak to
anyone, as my powers of telepathy had returned. I had never
been so happy — not even during my first manic episode." A
second spell in hospital followed, where his consultant wanted
to try electro convulsive therapy, but Pegler had seen One
Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, where Jack Nicholson is given the
electric-shock treatment; he flatly refused. He was
released, but suffered another relapse after finishing his
finals. Pegler, like the majority of manic depressives, was
being treated with lithium, but without adequate information.
For example, he believes his relapses were caused by the
levels of lithium in his blood dropping too low — nobody had
told him that binge drinking could cause this. After
graduating, he moved to London to pursue a career in the
media, but after completing a journalism course and a brief
spell writing for a magazine, he suffered his most serious
manic episode yet. "My brother said that I was behaving oddly.
I fried and ate 24 eggs and washed my hair with a can of cold
Heinz tomato soup. I also fixed the cat a fried breakfast and
threw all my CDs around the flat, because I thought they were
flying saucers that would act as boomerangs. I thought the
flat was turning into Noah's ark and I was Noah, so I set
about my business. I left the bath water running and made a
bridge down the stairs, throwing everything I could find down
it." Fortunately, Pegler's girlfriend supported him through
a lengthy recovery period and he has since begun to manage the
illness more successfully with a combination of drugs and
anti-relapse therapies. Pegler, now 28, works as a
mental-health activist and has set up his own publishing
company, Chipmunka, to give a voice to young
sufferers. Manic depression is a condition that affects an
estimated 600,000 British people. Like many others with
bipolar affective disorder (the medical term for manic
depression), Pegler has a family history of the disease.
However, there is still a very random element attached to
developing the condition. "Manic depression is like the flu,"
explains Pegler. "It can come and go at any time and it's hard
to say why. There is no cure for it, only a series of attempts
to try and stabilise patients." Most sufferers are prescribed
lithium, which can be highly effective but is also notoriously
difficult to regulate — stress, alcohol and diet are known to
play havoc with its levels in the bloodstream. According to
the mental-health charity Mind, manic depression manifests
itself with episodes of mania or elation followed by a low
mood or depression. Until the first episode of mania, the
condition will generally not be diagnosed. The number of manic
and depressive episodes varies greatly from person to person
and most individuals experience "normal" periods between their
manic and depressive times. It often first occurs when work,
study, family or emotional pressure are at their greatest, but
it can happen out of the blue to anyone of either sex at any
age. Recent research conducted at the Bipolar Disorders
Clinic at Stanford University, California, indicates that
highly creative, sensitive people, with a tendency towards
perfectionism and high achievement — like Pegler — have a
greater incidence of bipolar affective disorder. "It is
particularly difficult for the families and friends of
sufferers, because they have to watch the person going through
a depression, which is painful and distressing enough, and
then mania, where behaviour tends to be uncharacteristic and
unpredictable," says Rhian Thomas, of Mind. During the manic
phase, sufferers often display an inflated sense of
self-importance, have a decreased need for sleep and may
indulge in excessive involvement in activities that can bring
pleasure but may have disastrous consequences (such as sexual
affairs and spending excessively). Pegler would like to end
the stigma surrounding the condition. "The Samaritans estimate
that as many as 12m people in the UK are taking
antidepressants, yet for many, admitting to suffering from
depression is something shameful," he says. This was made all
too clear two years ago, when his close friend Tom Robertson
took his own life. He didn't even tell Pegler, a fellow
sufferer, of his illness. "I didn't find out that he had a
mental illness until the day of his funeral."
PUBLISH OR BE DAMNED Setting up his own
publishing house gave Jason Pegler a way of dealing with manic
depression. Now, with World Mental Health Day on October 10,
he's helping other "mental health survivors" challenge
public perceptions. By Jack Hananuer – October 6 – 12 2003 THE
BIG ISSUE
A few months ago Jason Pegler was sitting in his local pub
when a man approached him, shook his hand, and heartily
thanked him for turning his life around. "I'd never seen
him before, he was a complete stranger," Pegler says. "But he
knew me from my book. He said that he suffered from a severe
personality disorder, and that until he read A Can Of Madness
[Pegler's account of hiss life with manic depression], he had
been so ashamed because of his illness that he'd never worked,
but in the year since then he'd held down a full-lime job. It
was a great feeling." When he started his autobiography, at
the age of 23, Pegler was motivated by a desire to work
through his own pain by sharing it with others. By the time he
finished A Can Of Madness and published it through
Chipmunkapublishing, the "mental health survivors' publisher"
he had set up in 2002, his ambitions had grown. He wanted to
encourage other people with mental illnesses to write down
their own experiences, and now the manuscripts are flooding
in. "We're getting inundated, and I've had to say that we
won't accept any more scripts until next year," Pegler says.
"One of the messages of my book was not to be ashamed because
you have a mental illness. I think that was quite liberating
for a lot of people, and now there are more and more who
realise they're not alone and want to share their experiences.
According to the Samaritans, there are 12 million people on
anti-depressants in the UK-when you think about that it's
actually amazing that no one set up a mental health publishers
long ago," Pegler is convinced that in the same way that
attitudes towards homosexuality have altered dramatically in
the last 30 years, people's views of mental illness are also
set to change. But he doesn't expect the revolution to happen
by itself, which is why Chipmunka's functions are
evolving. "We started out to provide a companion and a
means of expression for people with mental illnesses and that
remains vitally important," he explains "But there's also the
need to select books for publication that will reach a wider
audience, including medical professionals, so that we can stop
this being a taboo subject and also help bring about
improvements in the treatment of mental illness." One
recent example is The Necessity Of Madness Written by American
John Breeding, it warns of the dangers of psychiatry, in
particular the negative effects prescribed medication can
have. Nothing new in that, except that Breeding is a
psychiatrist himself. "All the books are powerful in
themselves, but they also have the potential to improve the
way mental illness is treated in the UK," says Pegler. "Give
John's book to any doctor In the UK and they will be forced to
rethink the old-school idea that pills are the answer.
"MORE AND MORE PEOPLE REALISE THEY'RE NOT ALONE AND WANT
TO SHARE THEIR EXPERIENCES" Pegler's comments are
heartfelt. He was bitter about the way his own manic
depression was treated when he was younger, and although he is
confident attitudes are beginning to change, he concerned
about the establishment's current approach to mental
illness. "Medicine on the whole is becoming more holistic,
but whether that is filtering through to this particular area
is debatable." he says. "It's certainly the case that the
government is trying to exert more control. The new mental
health bill will make it easier to lock up people with
personality disorders, that will just add to the
misconceptions. I recently went to a meeting organised by the
Zito Trust [set up by the wife of Jonathan Zito, who was
killed by someone suffering from schizophrenia and David
Blunkett gave a speech using very strong language that implied
things about people with mental illnesses. I was there with a
friend of mine who also has manic depression and he was so
upset he had to leave. "But at the same time, the
government is trying to increase the number of people with
mental illnesses going back into the community, and it's also
running a campaign to encourage businesses to look after the
psychological well-being of their employees, so it's hard to
know what to think. Perhaps the government itself is the real
mental health problem!" Whichever way the politicians
decide to go, Chipmunka will continue to pump out the volumes
- there are currently 25 new books ready to go to the
printers. Although Pegler is increasingly busy with the
business side of things, he is still managing to find time to
work on his second. And third. And fourth... "I'm writing a
couple of sequels to A Can Of Madness - one that's even
angrier, another that's more reflective - and also a few books
of fiction," he says, "One of them’s about a mouse that meets
a tramp and helps him turn his life around by lots of tiny
kindnesses. Because that's all that's needed miniscule changes
in perception by all of us; everyone thinking for just an
extra half-second about why someone is homeless or has a
mental illness or whatever. I think that would make all the
difference." Chipmunkapublishing titles, including A Can
Of Madness, The Naked Bird Watcher and The Necessity Of
Madness, are available from all good bookshops and can also be
ordered online at wwW. Chipmunkapublishing.com
Projects in the UK – Jason’s Story July 2001 – June 2002
Grants Supplement, Comic Relief Annual Review
My name is Jason and I was born in Gloucester in 1975. I
grew up a few miles away from the city centre. I went to a
grammar school. I was always quite interested in sports and I
used to play chess. I realised I had manic depression when I
was 17. I was working on my A' levels, revising for an Oxford
University entrance exam. I was very bright all the way
through school - that's often closely linked with mental
illness. My parents were divorced and that was quite
stressful. My mum left when I was 14. That was always
something that was playing on my mind. I also used to like
clubbing and I had taken drugs - perhaps that was a
trigger. In November 1993 I had a breakdown for six months
and I went totally manic. I thought a nuclear war was
happening. I thought that everyone in the world was plotting
against me and I was the only one in the world that could stop
the inevitable nuclear war. I had fantasies that I could
create world peace through a European hardcore committee. It
was my interpretation of the chemical generation and what it
meant. I wrote a series of poems on ecstasy and how it changed
the world. It was a metaphorical example of taking five
billion ecstasy tablets - one for everyone in the world to
make them happy. I came down from the high after two weeks and
realized that I was in a mental hospital. I stayed in there
for six months. Manic depression is called bi-polar
affective disorder nowadays. With this illness you go high and
then low. That's what happens to me. I've had five episodes.
I've been in hospital four times from the age of 17 to 25 and
have spent over a year in hospital in total. Each time I go
high, I go low after for twice as long, with suicidal thoughts
and clinical depression. Mania itself is an extraordinary
phenomenon. It is impossible to describe. It is like taking an
imaginary drug that has never been invented. You start to get
this extraordinary amount of confidence in your mind and make
all these links that are not there, yet it seems like you are
making total perfect sense. A lot of people have beliefs that
they are God and they created the world. At the same time you
are very conscious at the back of your mind that things aren't
well, that things aren't normal. You're having grandiose
thoughts (I though I that I could swim to Australia in five
seconds) and your brain is working at a million miles an hour.
It's an extraordinary feeling. One of the reasons people find
it hard to come to terms with manic depression is because that
feeling of mania is so strong. They think that they actually
enjoy it but really they don't. They describe it in certain
literary characters, for example in Greek tragedy. The
humiliation you feel as you come back to normality is
unbearable. In a manic state you do really wild things - you
might have been running around the streets with no clothes on.
The humiliation is the worst feeling in the world apart from
being suicidal. But then you move further into depression and
have to deal with the humiliation and sell-hatred. The
depression in manic depression is the same as the depression
in clinical depression, but psychologically you have to deal
with having gone manic. This is why so many people with manic
depression kill themselves. A large number of people with the
illness will kill themselves. The depression is awful; you
feel like you cannot do anything and you have no motivation to
do anything. You want to kill yourself but you can't be
bothered. If someone gave you a lift to the top of Centre
Point you would jump off but you can't be bothered to get
there. You lack confidence. You feel guilty that you are a
human being, and that you do not deserve to live. You feel
guilty that the friends and family you have are being put
through so much pain and suffering. There is just no way out.
There is a futility to your existence. It's like being at the
lowest ebb- you are the worst of the worst, the scum of the
earth. My family tried to support me but did not know how
to help. My mother felt guilty that she and my dad didn't get
on. My brother was really supportive but didn't know what to
do. Two of my friends came to see me almost every day. My
friend is now training to be a mental health nurse. Ever
since I first went into hospital at age 17, I knew that if I
lived, I would have to write about this experience. I was 17
and my world was completely blown apart. I started writing my
autobiography and did not write anything else for two years. I
wrote for two weeks and it blew my head apart. I knew it was
going to change people's lives because when I showed it to
people who had manic depression and schizophrenia they were
very impressed. The book's called 'A Can of Madness'. It is
my heart poured down onto a page. It gives a unique insight
into what it is like to go manic. It seems that everyone who
has got manic depression loves it. At a conference one bloke
who had read the book said that he has been working in mental
health for 30 years and my book means more to him than
everything else put together. Him saying that makes the pain
of writing the book worthwhile and it makes me realise that I
am an important person in the mental health movement in this
country. It inspires me to carry on and help more and more
people. I see it as my responsibility and my mission in life
to do that. I am going to spend the rest of my life doing
that. I dedicated the book to one of my best friends who
killed himself last year. Before I was diagnosed with
mental illness, I thought that somebody who was mentally ill
was a nutter - someone yon want to stay away from. I think
that perception is changing, but I call mental illness the
last taboo of the 21st century. Society is totally ignorant
and people with mental illness feel isolated. If I was
aware of a group like Steady from age 17 to 25 it would have
had a massive impact on my life. The goal of Steady is to find
more humanity in people and to help them support each other. I
help them out because I think it's so important for other
young people to have that help available. Every couple of
months we get together and talk about the plans for the
future, the budget and how things are organised. We try and
get more people involved. Steady can help people through the
internet not only in London but also in the rest of the
country. Mental illness could happen to anybody. Just think
about that for a second. Summary: 1 in 4 people will
experience some kind of mental health problem in the course of
a year and as many as 1 in 5 of all deaths by young people are
suicide. As well as dealing with their illnesses, people have
to deal with misunderstanding and prejudice in public, at
work, in their communities and families, as mental ill-health
carries with it myths and stigma. Comic Relief is helping
young people with menial health problems to cope with their
illnesses and make positive long-term changes in their lives.
We are also helping people with mental ill-health to ensure
they can participate fully and fairly in society.
THE FACTS 1 IN 4 PEOPLE LIVING IN THE UK WILL EXPERIENCE
SOME KIND OF MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEM IN THE COURSE OF A
YEAR. AN ESTIMATED 1 IN 10 PEOPLE WILL HAVE SOME FORM OF
DEPRESSION AT ANY ONE TIME, WHILST AN ESTIMATED 1 IN 20 PEOPLE
WILL HAVE SERIOUS OR 'CLINICAL' DEPRESSION. 1 IN 100 PEOPLE
WITH MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS WILL EXPERIENCE MANIC
DEPRESSION. 1 IN 100 PEOPLE WILL EXPERIENCE AT LEAST 1
EPISODE OF SCHIZOPHRENIA. AROUND 19,000 YOUNG PEOPLE ARE
ADMITTED TO HOSPITAL FOR DELIBERATE SELF-HARM EACH YEAR
-THAT'S MORE THAN 50 EACH AND EVERY DAY.
CAPTURED MY SOUL – April 21 – 27 2003 THE BIG
ISSUE
For years, Jason Pegler struggled with name depression. To
mark Mental Health Week he explains how he helped himself
through writing and set up his own publishing company
I faced a stark choice: either commit suicide or write a
book as honest as the copy of Prozac Nation that I had just
finished reading. It was June 1998, a rare hot summer's day in
Manchester as I started to write A Can Of Madness, my
autobiography about living with manic depression. I wrote
for two weeks, and I was so affected by what I'd written that
I didn't return to writing it for two years. Ever since I'd
been diagnosed with manic depression at the age of 17, I'd
been desperate to tell the world about how I felt. I needed to
stop other people going through the pain that I'd gone
through, or at least soften the blow. I wouldn't wish manic
depression on my worst enemy. Now, aged 28, I've had four
manic episodes, spent over a year living in mental
institutions, and been suicidal for two years of my life, I
worried every day about why it happened and how it happened.
It took me eight years to accept that 1 had a mental
illness. Having manic depression has made me grow as a
person, and I regard every day as a bonus. I've been stable
for three years now with the medication I'm on, and I focus on
promoting a positive image of mental health. A Can Of
Madness takes you as close to the manic experience as you can
get. The book has two common effects on its readers. Firstly,
it becomes a friend to people who have experienced mental
illness. Secondly, it makes the average person in the street
have empathy for people with mental health problems. In
July 2001, I received a Mind Millennium Award to self-publish
A Can Of Madness. I finished the book in April 2002, and had a
book launch where I live in Vauxhall, south London. I sent
copies to charity organisations across the country and founded
Chipmunkapublishing, the mental health survivor's publisher.
We publish autobiographies, poetry and fiction, written by
people with a "mental illness" and their
carers. Chipmunkapublishing empowers its authors and
encourages them to become self-publicists. Once published,
authors become pro-active mouthpieces for the mental health
movement. They rejoin society and take their place in a new,
mad genre of literature. Last year, I travelled the country
attending mental health conferences and meetings with my book
and a chipmunk hand-puppet that I'd bought for my girlfriend
when I was suicidal a year earlier. As I networked with
charities across the UK, such as Mind, The Manic Depression
Fellowship, Comic Relief, Mindout and Rethink, I realised that
I could take the mental health movement forward ambassadorial
role. I became more media conscious and found volunteers to
help me. Chipmunkapublishing's second author Dolly Sen, was
inspired to write
"I was suicidal for two years of my life. It took me eight
years to accept I had a mental illness" her book, The World
Is Full Of Laughter, after reading A Can Of Madness. Dolly
says, "This book started out as a suicide note and ended up as
a celebration of life." The media perception of people with
mental illness will change in the nest 50 years, and
Chipmunkapublishing intends to be a pioneer in facilitating
and documenting this process. The mental health movement is in
its youth -only 20 years old - and its philosophy will mature
and gain momentum. People will stand up and fight for their
rights. Chipmunkapublishing is dedicated to representing
people with mental health problems and fighting for a
community that is alienated and too often ignored by society.
We will endeavour to support and work in partnership with
anyone else who facilitates these aims and objectives. The
organisation Mindout tells us that one in four people will
suffer from mental distress in any given year. Such a figure
makes it clear that anyone of us could develop a mental
illness. One million people commit suicide every year. This is
because people refuse to talk about the last taboo. We put
this information on the front of all of our publications to
let people know. Chipmunkapublishing was set up
specifically to save people's lives, I wanted to get people
from the mental health system and help them realise their
dreams. Three of our authors are now patrons of one of our
sponsors, a mental health user group in Newcastle called
Launch-pad, and they have all been invited to give talks in
Newcastle and be paid for giving these talks. We have nine
authors at the moment, and we aim to have 40 by the end of the
year. Chipmunkapublishing Is aiming to expand its brief to
include authors from all vulnerable sections of society. So if
you are a writer who is homeless, for example, or a refugee,
or is in prison, then Chipmunkapublishing will read your work.
We are also looking for volunteers and sponsorship, as well as
support from charities and businesses. Anyone Interested
should contact us by email or at the address below. Order
A Can Of Madness and other publications online at
www.chiprnunkapublishing.com, or send a cheque for £12, made
payable to Chipmunkapublishing, to PO Box 6872, Brentwood.
Essex CM13 IZT. Our publications are a/so available from good
bookshops. All manuscripts should be sent digitally with one
happy and one sad photo (it possible) to
info@chipmunkapublishing.com.
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