By Amanda
The ways in which living with bipolar led me to rethink making a difference – was slow. But because I have found writing a useful way to process my growing and changing reflections, over many years there are plenty of short speeches and pieces of writing that make it possible to see how the ideas grew.
The Sydney Alliance’s apology in December 2019 was a watershed moment for me, as it gave me an opportunity to speak publicly and frankly about what I had experienced making a difference while living with bipolar. It represented a dramatic shift in how I talked about its impact on me; instead of casting my bipolar and psychosis as challenge I faced in the past, I decided to be more frank and honest about how bipolar had played an ongoing role affecting my work, life and relationships.
Hours after I delivered the speech I shared the text online, it was titled “Hey non-profits – it’s time we talked about mental health.”
Not long after that first speech, and to honour the reaction I had set myself – to keep writing about my experience – I gave a speech at the Wayside Chapel’s Side by Side Conference in February 2020. It was called “We are so much more than others can see: the battles of mental health and making social change.”
In November, David Barrow then Lead Organiser at the Sydney Alliance, invited me to a meeting of community leaders to explore how we might work together around mental illness. David and the Alliance Board had expressed that they wanted to “embody forgiveness” not just speak it, but the pressures of COVID meant that they needed time.
In this speech you can see me trying to use the concepts of community organising to express my new thinking about difference and mental illness. Ideas such as public and private, and disorganising and reorganising feature throught out. It was called “If all organising is disorganising and reorganising – let’s reorganise how we think about mental illness.
A few months later, I spoke about similar ideas in a talk with the Citizens UK Guild of Organisers in January 2022. That was called “The public dimensions of mental illness.”
I spoke about and further developed these ideas with mental health researchers and practitioners. With the University of Sydney’s Matilda Centre I explored “Using social change thinking to transform how we think and act about mental illness.”
Then a few years later in August 2024 i spoke to the mental health community more broadly at the – with more than 700 people including those with lived experience, service providers, doctors and researchers.
A peak moment for me in this journey was when the Sydney Alliance hosted an event about Mental Health and Neurodiversity. Below you can read a summary of what happened (including David Barrow’s powerful speech) and the speech that I gave.
