A Series of Unfortunate Stereotypes: Naming and Shaming Mental Health Stigmas

Description

From a young age, Lucy Nichol has always been on edge. Whether it's because of her fear of beards, a general sense that she can catch a disease from anything, or the belief that she's going to throw up at any given moment, she's never really felt safe. In A Series of Unfortunate Stereotypes, Lucy explores the different lenses through which she - and other people - have viewed her mental health problems. She tackles a number of different stereotypes placed on people living with mental illness, including the idea that they are narcissists, hypochondriacs, and psychos. After writing a blog post about her journey, Lucy realised that she wasn't alone in feeling this way. And so she began to talk more about her experience, eventually becoming a columnist in Sarah Millican's magazine Standard Issue. In writing about her life in such an open way, Lucy has been able to claw her way out of her anxiety. A Series of Unfortunate Stereotypes is one of the most fortunate things you could read!

Lucy Nichol is a writer and mental health campaigner and former columnist with Sarah Millican'sStandard Issue magazine. Her work has also appeared in theIndependent, thei Paper,Metro,Huffington Post, The Mighty and All Mad Here. She is passionate about challenging mental health stigma and, as such, is a Time to Change volunteer who has appeared on theVictoria Derbyshire Show,Woman's Hour and many regional programmes. Lucy has worked with the media in PR and marketing for over 15 years and has experienced anxiety for even longer, meaning she is well-placed to comment on the issue of mental health stigma.

'Written with humour and intelligence' -- Denise Welch