The Diamond Ring (Guest Post: Gershon Brooks)

I have been asking various people over the past few months to write about their experiences with mental health, particularly within the Jewish Community.  You would not believe how many people are out there suffering.  On the back of one of my posts, I received a particularly amazing response from someone within the community who suffers with a mental illness. I asked if he would mind my sharing his email on here and he very kindly agreed.

The email was from Gershon Brooks, a 20 year old diagnosed with Bipolar just over a year ago. From my conversations with Gershon I can see that he is doing his utmost to accept, fight and speak out about his illness, to be able to let go of the fear of being stigmatised. I think his post holds depth and strength. It isn't easy to open up the world, but I am so glad he has done this! Any questions you would like to ask Gershon can be done either on the Comments section of this blog post, or you can contact him via email.

THE DIAMOND RING 

(GERSHON BROOKS)

I want to share a positive experience I had this month whilst attending a Jewish Care/JAMI Bipolar information day. On this day I finally managed to share parts of my story in a group where I knew a few people. Everyone in the group came from different backgrounds; some being service providers and some fellow sufferers, all united by a desire to attain more knowledge of Bipolar. 

At first I wasn't comfortable sharing, but I soon realized that by sharing my story I was helping people become more aware of mental health issues in general and specifically bipolar, from the point of view of a sufferer. This in turn would allow service providers to understand more, and fellow sufferers to realise that they are not alone. 

I recently read a book called 'Dollhouse' by Miri Sonnenfeld. She describes a divorce through the eyes of a five year old girl who had to get used to concepts such as 'Mummy's Kiddush' and 'Tuesday afternoons'. What interested me was a letter in the front of the book regarding the original Hebrew edition; the letter writer said she was originally angry over the discussion of these issues in such a public forum.  At first she said "We never discuss these things in our family".  However when her own sister in-law told her that the book had made her rethink her decision to separate, she realised that these things can happen even to the 'best' of families. 

When I read this it struck me that the same attitude prevails in our community over mental health issues and how even after diagnosis some people remain in denial, petrified of the communal reaction to their plight and, consequently unaware of where to get help. Others are aloof, they believe that our community is immune to such issues and that people who have them are 'different'. 

I would like to share a story I once heard:

There was once a king who had many exquisite jewels. One day his most precious ring fell on the floor and a deep crack appeared on its surface, ruining its majestic beauty. The king was deeply upset and his advisers summons the most skilled jewellers from all over the world to fix the blemish, but none could see a way, "It's far too deep and ugly" they claimed. The advisers had all but given up, yet the king held strong to his notion that the right person could make it beautiful once again. 

One day a young jeweller appeared with the most basic of tools and proposed to fix the ring. He worked long and hard and finally called in the king to present his work: a striking diamond with a flower engraved on its surface.

When asked why he believed he could fix a blemish so bad that his senior colleagues had written it off, he replied, "Where others saw an ugly crack I saw potential beauty, all it needed was some tender care to reveal it.”  

The diamond represents each one of us, our lives and character traits are like the beautiful yet individual colour and texture of every diamond. None are the same yet each is a treasure in its own right. The crack could be an event or an illness or anything really, the common denominator is that it detracts from our quality of life, changes how we view ourselves and even affects how others see us. You could even say it becomes a label. 

Then you have the different reactions, unfortunately, as with the ring, many people see the label and nothing else; they forget the original beauty and zoom in on the crack. This is the stigmatising or stereotyping effect, which has many negative effects. Consequently people become afraid to ask where to go for help, worried about losing friends and lose confidence in their own abilities. 

Thank G-d there are still those few people who cling to the belief that the crack can be used as part of the person’s development as an individual and that the results can still be beautiful. Like the young jeweller who saw past the crack, they help us bring out our potential and use it to its fullest. They help us build a strong support system, find coping strategies and help us to become aware of ourselves and our limitations in an empowering way rather than a debilitating one. For those who still only see the crack, I hope that by hearing peoples’ real experiences with mental health you will, in time, come to realise that there is potential too. 

Finally there is the King, our Creator. He sees past all labels and cracks, no matter how ugly, He believes in us more than we can imagine and never sends us a challenge that is too big for us to cope with. 

I hope that by sharing my story I can help to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health in our community and that people will realise that it’s okay to go for help.

I would just like to end by saying thank you to Gershon for being so open and for giving us insight into the world of stigma, mental illness and the Jewish Community.  Please feel free to email me if you would like too contribute a post.

Post by me coming at some point soon - once I finish the next law assignment!