Sarah's Sanctuary Western Isles

by Sheena Crichton McKenzie  As I began printing, I really didn’t know where I was going or what I’d like the end result to be. Printing was simplistic, so very different to my son’s life which had presented so many difficulties. But I wanted to depict his life in all its intricacies, flaws and beauty and my picture wasn’t cutting it. I thought about his poem ‘Turbulent Waves’, written at the tender age of 11 when he should have been carefree, happy and excited about all life had to offer. Instead, my son struggled; trying to take control of his confused thoughts. Life for Hugh was very much a mix of pushing, stopping, escaping and hiding. Under the theme’ Slipping Through the Net’, I imagined how Hugh might have felt, often trying desperately to reach out and fit in, and family, education and health professionals trying in their own way to reach him ... but not quite getting him. I remember holding my darling boy, thin through lack of food, a disordered eating pattern developed as...

  June Graham This is a hard blog to write because I like to be nice to people. I don't like to ruffle people's feathers, but some of the things which happened to my sister when she was suffering from a mental illness were not nice, and so today I am writing about that. I won’t detail all the missed opportunities which occurred during the last months and weeks of Liz’s life. All I’ll say is that when I heard she had taken her life, I knew something had gone very, very wrong, because Liz was a fighter. She loved her children very much and was doing her best to be well enough to be with them. And Liz’s case is not exceptional. I have heard from other families, bereaved by suicide, who feel that if their loved one had received even half-decent medical care then they wouldn’t have lost them. About 6 or 7 months after Liz’s death, the NHS issued a Local Adverse Event Report. An adverse event is a huge understatement for the devastating loss of someone who was a daughter, wife, m...