Sorted Magazine

Category: Slideshow

  • From the archive: Successful and psychotic

    James Macintyre was a successful young man at the top of his game – until a breakdown unexpectedly hit him for six.

    A serious psychotic episode led to him being sectioned and subsequently spending three years in and out of hospital.

    A high-flier in the world of political journalism, James was a staffer on well-known titles like Prospect, New Statesman, and The Independent as well as the BBC’s flagship current affairs TV programme Question Time. Not so long ago, he also co-authored the biography of former Labour Party leader, Ed Miliband.

    A decade after the breakdown, James discusses it, and his eventual recovery, with his friend, Iain Dale, on LBC’s All Talk podcast. It is a fascinating insight into a very painful period – and one I wholeheartedly encourage you to listen to.

    In a very honest conversation, James and Iain try to piece together the dramatic events that led to James being hospitalised. What follows is the most honest conversation about mental health I’ve ever heard, and it’s given me a better understanding of how and why things can go so desperately wrong.

    In his role as a political journalist, James became entangled with right-wing bloggers.

    “It was a horrible period really, it got me down, and at that point, I was on anti-depressants, and also frankly, drinking too much alcohol at times and the combination was not a good one,” he says. “Things began to spiral, though there was a very specific moment where… the breakdown really happened. There is a division between how I was – a bit out of control beforehand – and then what happened, when there was a sort of serious psychotic breakdown.

    “I had had depression and mild anxiety in the past but slightly thrived on pressure… but at this point, I just stopped functioning. I can remember walking out of the office for the first time in my life [it was a sunny day in central London] and I was just weeping in the street. Obviously, I realised then I needed help.”

    It wasn’t long before James became suicidal, and that’s when he phoned Iain.

    “I vividly remember your response which was ‘If you ever have thoughts like this again day or night call me’, and that was hugely helpful and I’m eternally grateful for that,” he recalls. “Despite your help, and [that of] others, I declined, and eventually I stopped eating, then stopped sleeping and basically started hallucinating, and it turned into full-blown psychosis and I went wandering around London trying to escape what I thought were SWAT teams.”

    Thankfully, James has now recovered, with the help, support, and love of family members. And today, he now volunteers at the Iona Community, which is located on the remote Scottish island of the same name.

    “How has your faith helped you through this? How can you believe in a God that’s enabled you to go through what you’ve had to go through?” are key questions Iain asks in the podcast. The response is very enlightening.

    “I think it’s true that at times I felt, and I don’t use the word lightly, that I was in hell… but my faith has helped me,” responds James. “I’m deeply grateful to have retained that faith and actually nowadays I look back and think God has always looked after me and been with me

    “It could happen to anyone, I do want to stress there is hope and recovery. I do feel it’s right to speak out and I guess, witness to the fact that people can go through quite extreme breakdowns and psychosis, and come out of them; and it is great to be well.”

    To listen to the full podcast, please click here:

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  • Lest we forget…

    Five years after 23 people lost their lives, Sorted’s Val Fraser shares her personal memories about the Manchester Arena tragedy and reflects on an act of terrorism that shook the world.

     

    In 2017, I was assigned to a journalism gig in Manchester. A colleague and I were briefed to create multimedia coverage which would tell the stories around two Suffragan Bishops’ walkabouts. “My” Bishop was the Rt Rev Mark Ashcroft.

    Meetings were scheduled. Itineraries were mapped out. Tea and biscuits were stock-piled. It all promised to be very jolly. But then, just before the first stop on our 12-day tour, tragedy struck at the heart of Manchester, sending shock waves across the world.

    LENDING SUPPORT: Bishop Mark talks to police officers who are on the beat near Media City.

    On 22 May, at around 10.30 pm, as concert-goers were leaving the Manchester Arena following a concert by American singer, Ariana Grande, a suicide bomber detonated a homemade bomb. The act killed 23 people and injured more than a thousand others, many of whom were children.

    It was the deadliest terrorist attack and the first suicide bombing in the UK since the 2005 London bombings. Emergency services worked incredibly hard. The whole nation seemed to be on edge, prompting fraught discussions in high places.

    LENDING AN EAR: The Bishop talks to people shocked and alarmed by the bombing.

    The walkabout, or ‘pilgrimage’, had been prepared well in advance as part of a Church of England initiative called Thy Kingdom Come. In the aftermath of the bombing, it was deemed more important than ever that a comforting Christian presence should be visible, so the decision was made to go ahead as planned. Not really sure what to expect, I loaded up my gear and prepared to follow Bishop Mark around various Manchester locations.

    I zoomed, clicked, filmed and tweeted as he received warm, well-planned welcomes at schools, hospitals and churches. But in between these vicar-friendly venues, Bishop Mark took to the streets. He walked through shopping centres, busy markets, parks and towns. He rode trains and buses. And it was here, off-plan, with no script, in unchartered waters as it were, that he engaged with total strangers. It’s my observation that a man with clearly recognisable Christian markers such as a clergy collar, a large shepherd’s crook and a massive cross and chain, was able to elicit an interesting variety of reactions in public spaces.

    REMEMBERING THE FALLEN: A message speaks loudly for those who perished.

    Watching these encounters up close, it quickly became apparent to me the bombing had caused the public’s mood to shift quite significantly. Many people were reeling from the shock. There seemed to be a heightened awareness that humans are capable of unbelievably horrible acts. Andy Burnham, the city’s mayor, described the act as “evil”. I for one felt he’d summed it up accurately. 

    Knowing that it was possible for any one of us to be in the wrong place, at the wrong time, was deeply disturbing. This disturbance seemed to generate some degree of openness towards God, towards goodness, towards hoping for things to be better than this.

    DEEPLY MOVED: Bishop Mark reads some of the tributes left for those who died.

    And it was in this atmosphere that Bishop Mark was able to pause and pray with, for, and over people. Some requested a blessing. There were lots of these essentially private moments, when I switched the camera off, retreated to a suitable distance and gave him the space to minister to some confused and fearful folks. I think he just wanted to meet with people and offer them some hope.

    As well as being kind, Bishop Mark is also very fast on his feet. On one leg of our journey, he somehow managed to give me the slip. I was hot on his heels, following the trail when he seemed to double back and disappear into a rabbit warren of hospital corridors. I started to panic, thinking I was going to miss the ‘Bishop visits hospital’ story. But when our paths crossed again I learned he’d been praying in the chapel. In that sanctuary, he met with hospital chaplains. They told him about the doctors and nurses who had cared for patients that were seriously injured in the bombing. And I was glad not to have been there.

    MAKING SENSE OF THINGS: The Bishop talks to school children about the tragedy.

    In truth, I was glad that those moments had been just between them and God. I was glad that I missed that particular story because I don’t think it was ever mine to tell.

    Val Fraser is a regular Sorted columnist and a Manchester-based freelance journalist

  • Merson on a mission

    Full disclosure: I’m not into football – but I accept that ‘the beautiful game’ is a burning passion for many of my friends.

    It’s clear to me, apart from the sheer entertainment value, allegiance to a team gives them a sense of belonging, an outlet for emotions, and an exciting highlight. I am, however, into walking. So it was with great interest that I settled in front of the telly the other evening to watch A walk through my life with ex-England and Arsenal footballer, Paul Merson.

    Merson enjoyed an illustrious football career, and now finds himself a resident pundit on Sky Sport’s popular Saturday afternoon show. Capped 21 times by his country – and a member of the squad that contested the 1992 UEFA European Championship and 1998 FIFA World Cup – he has openly and honestly talked about his mental health struggles and addiction issues.

    PARTY ANIMALS: As players, Merson (left) and Paul Gascoigne lived life to the full.

    The programme (which can be viewed by clicking here) is an extended version of the original BBC Four series Winter Walks where a well-known personality meanders for five or six miles through beautiful landscape alone while carrying a 360° camera on a selfie-stick.

    Unscripted dialogue, straight to the camera, gives a surprising sense of closeness as if you are walking alongside the narrator. The simplicity of the format is pure genius. Close-up scenes are punctuated by stunning drone footage. Production values are off the chart. It’s worth watching on the biggest telly you can find!

    Merson, a Londoner who still lives in the capital, says he has never walked alone through the open countryside before. This appears to be his first real encounter with nature on a grand scale. Perhaps that’s why, as a grown man of 54, he experiences it with the intense awe and wonder of a child. He becomes freshly awake and aware. The silence, the solitude, and the sense of space seem to wash over him like a refreshing balm. As he walks alone, and “sits with his feelings” away from the “hustle and bustle”, revelations about his life unexpectedly bubble to the surface and spill out.

    UNFULFILLED POTENTIAL: Merson and England didn’t quite live up to expectations at the World Cup.

    Deeper thinking generates surprising new thoughts about his family relationships, his career as a footballer, and his 30-year battle with addictions.

    Alone in “the middle of nowhere” he pauses to process some of these, often harrowing, realisations. There are touching moments of deep gratitude, alongside crushing regrets at having not expressed this adequately to the people he loves most in all the world. His narration is raw, succinct and bold. He pauses to pray for a few moments in a church. It is a heartfelt cry directed toward God.

    The day’s walk ends with long views over Yorkshire God’s own country – as it’s known to those who come from the White Rose county.

    ADDICTION AFFLICTION: Merson has revealed he was an alcoholic while playing for Arsenal.

    From a well-placed bench, Merson enjoys a well-earned rest. There have been both physical and emotional efforts throughout his journey. He reflects on the experience with astonishing openness. I’m no theologian, but to me, the whole of Merson’s informal narration has a richly honest prayer-like quality. He’s speaking his own personal truths out loud, bringing them into the light as it were. In so doing, he begins accepting how things have been, how things currently are, then declaring and avowing his clear intentions to be a better man. That old-fashioned churchy-word ‘confession’ gets a bad press but this troubled soul found peace through the simple act of prayer and pacing ancient pathways.

    Val Fraser is a Sorted columnist and a freelance journalist based in northwest England