Mental Health Awareness Week 2019 – A Storied Mind
Short Film – A Storied Mind
A Storied Mind is a short film depicting the realities of mental health illnesses. The focus of the film is to give hope to sufferers and their loved ones. The narration and poem in A Storied Mind are by Nia Modley. Videography produced by Lottie Barrett.
Lottie’s story…
Six years ago to this day, I was lying in bed, completely bedbound. I used to ski race and one evening during slalom training; I had a big crash. Little did I know that was the day that would turn my life upside down.
Suffering from post-concussion syndrome and whiplash, I struggled to walk for more than a minute at the start, due to the pain, dizziness, sickness, and drowsiness. Day after day in bed, I couldn’t see the end of this nightmare. After about 3 months of being bedridden, I began to feel physically a lot better.
However, that’s when the flashbacks, hallucinations, and voices entered into my head.
I was 15 years old when I was admitted to a child and adolescent psychiatric hospital for my first admission. What followed was six years of battling mental illnesses and hospital admission after hospital admission. I couldn’t see an end to it all.
It started with depression; a deep, dark, endless hole had consumed me. I lost all interest in everything. The voices and flashbacks were far too intense, they were terrifying. Life began to feel pointless. I didn’t want to be in the world anymore.
After two years of battling with depression, I began to feel a huge lack of control, so I turned to food for control. My anorexia nervosa manifested extremely quickly, and within five weeks I was admitted to an eating disorder unit.
Lottie’s Last Thoughts
Things do get better, though. I never believed that in the 6 years of being unwell. But it does happen. The dark stormy night has to eventually turn to blue skies and sunshine again.
While being bed bound due to my post-concussion syndrome, my dad decided to buy me a camera to try and get me to go into the garden, and on a good day, to the park. This was the start of my love for photography. I started with black-and-white documentary photography. I then went on to take more conceptual, fine art portraits. A drastic change in style, but I loved what I was doing. I believe photography is what has kept me alive. Even in the darkest times, I could look at my photos and feel proud.
Along with my recovery, I met Nia. We battled our illnesses and eventually overcame our anorexia. Nia, who writes poetry, had written a poem for mental health awareness week. She asked if I could create a film to go with the poem. I was absolutely overjoyed and so excited to start this project together.
Nia’s story…
I was an 11-year-old who believed the world was my oyster. I could achieve anything I wanted if I put my mind to it—I was gregarious, outgoing, and a lover of life. However, from the age of about 12, this outlook started to crack. What began as a niggle of not feeling ‘good enough’ (whatever good enough is), being unseen and out of control, developed into full-blown anorexia at about 15 years old.
My anorexia, for a brief while, made me feel in control, like I didn’t need anything else in the world but it. It allowed me to tell the world that I wasn’t ok, without needing to say anything. People began to notice me, and at the time, I mistook their caring as love. I believed that people saw me as a lot more loveable than being sick.
However, my anorexia quickly began to stop working. It was my tool to deal with life, and that tool stopped being effective.
Fast forward a few years and it developed into bulimia, which was also accompanied by high anxiety. Despite the help I had received, I wasn’t fully willing to get better. To this day, I don’t believe until you have fully surrendered will recovery be possible.
After many a rock bottom, I decided that I really didn’t want to live like this anymore.
Nia’s Clarity
My eating disorder was destroying everything in its path. The people around me were moving forward with their lives and I just felt like I was stuck in sinking sand. It was then that I found the courage that the 11-year-old me had effervesced in her and decided to embark on recovery. I would love to say it’s been straightforward, but it’s been far from that. I hit a few more rock bottoms in my recovery, but I took it a day at a time and never gave up.
Throughout my recovery, I realized that I needed to put words to how I felt. I could no longer use my body and mental health illnesses to explain it. Even if it wasn’t to share with anyone, instead simply validation to myself that I wasn’t feeling so great. Half the time, I felt like I didn’t even properly know what was going on inside.
How could I try to explain this?
One day, I simply put pen to paper and let my heart unfurl.
It was an instant love affair. Poetry gave me words and allowed me to express myself when I couldn’t find the words. It had no rules; I could end a sentence without a full stop and choose not to put a capital letter in the beginning, and I loved that. In the beginning, I wrote poetry just for myself, an acknowledgment of how I was feeling, something to be proud of.
Nia’s Last Thoughts
It’s only in the last year or so that I have begun to share it with people around me. The kindness and identification I have received with it have been unbelievably heart-warming, and it makes me so inspired to share more.
I’m grateful today for my journey. I wouldn’t have the outlook upon life, the deep connections and friendships, and my poetry, had I not been ill.
The journey, I believe, will never be a linear one, but I’m in a place today of contentment and happiness that I know my 11-year-old self would be proud of, and just a few years back I never believed possible.
Background of A Storied Mind
Lottie and Nia have both battled mental health illnesses for a few years. They met through recovery. They put their poetry and filmmaking together to create a short film—A Storied Mind—to give hope to sufferers and their loved ones.
Website: https://www.lottiebphotography.com
Twitter: @a_storied_mind
