“The reason I started writing the piece was because I was angry. Angry at the system and angry at myself. In the first draft I ripped the system, the doctors, and the whole structure of life on the wards to shreds. Years of repressed rage bubbled to the surface as I felt a safe enough distance away from being placed back in a locked space. I think I needed someone to blame. Yet in the end there wasn’t anyone. Calming down I began to remember and feel something for that scared kid who I was in the beginning. The kid who didn’t know just how deep down the rabbit hole from wonderland could possibly take her. I wanted to reach back in time and give her a road map. I couldn’t do that. What I could do was offer one to other young people who were finding themselves in that same position. I created lessons. Words I had wished that someone had whispered to me. I still have nightmares of being restrained, and my heart races whenever I see a police car, whenever the cold comes it reminds me of nights spent in the woods hiding or roaming dangerous streets. The lessons weren’t easy to tell and they were even harder to film…but I knew I had to simply for one reason. In my later admissions as I would see new, terrified and stubborn women brought through the ward doors all I wanted to know was how much noise and chaos they would bring to the ward. I was too self-involved and I felt old and I just wanted quiet. I stayed away. When they screamed I wished someone would just come and shut them up. I didn’t care they were in pain. I didn’t help them. I couldn’t help myself. I can’t change that but I refuse to sit back now and close my eyes when there is slight possibility that this one film or one piece of writing just sets in motion a smallest change in one person’s thinking. ”

Vanessa Findlay

To read the full accompanying piece ‘deciphering the system’, click here