THE suicide of her father when she was just 13 had a profound and subconscious effect on author and academic Carolyn Jess-Cooke, with themes of the supernatural, survival and mental illness being prominent themes throughout her work.
The 37-year-old mother-of-four was born in Belfast and educated at Queen's University before moving to England where she took up lectureships first in film studies and then creative writing. As well as being a published poet, Carolyn's novels The Guardian Angel's Journal and The Boy Who Could See Demons, have received critical acclaim and been published in 22 languages.
Currently combining her writing with bringing up her young family and lecturing at Glasgow University, she is working on new research that looks closely at how creative writing can assist with mental wellbeing.
"There has been some research into how different forms of writing, such as expressive and reflective, can help specific kinds of mental illness and I'm really keen to develop that."
In particular Carolyn is planning to develop an app to assist with the research. "The research that has been done around the world has tended to happen as a workshop with a facilitator over a period of weeks. It's all done face to face, so it's going to be restrictive in terms of who can attend.
"The nature of certain mental illnesses mean people don't necessarily want to drag themselves out to some sort of strange place to write about their feelings. They might feel vulnerable and there may be other practical reasons they can't attend such as a woman suffering from post-natal depression. Also it can be damaging if not managed properly as sometimes writing explicitly about a bad experience is not helpful. It's better to use and channel in an indirect way."
It was the death of Robin Williams, who took his own life last autumn that was the impetus for The Writing Depression project, founded by Carolyn, which aims to investigate ways that writing can support mental wellness. Amid the outpouring of sadness, and the expressions of sympathy for a man who entertained and influenced millions, there were many who criticised what they saw as selfishness rather seeing it as being linked to an illness, depression, which affects one in four adults in the UK.
The first part of the project was her seven-part blog series, Voicing Shadow, Singing Light, which included poetry by a number of contributors on themes of mental illness. "The comments I saw on Facebook following Robin William's suicide about how selfish he was and so forth really annoyed me because my dad committed suicide when I was 13 and I had heard it all before. It's not helpful to the family or anyone for suicide to be seen in that light. You can't reduce it to that.
"So I put a call out on social media for people to submit their poems on depression. I was really successful and I got so many that I ran it over seven days."
Carolyn believes growing up in the midst of a family struggling with depression inspired much of her subsequent writing. "There were people who suffered a lot more by the Troubles. I didn't loose anyone in my family in a bomb or anything. But my dad had mental health problems connected to the Troubles and that's one of the reasons he attempted suicide, so [the Troubles] did affect our family.
"I was told about my father's death on Christmas morning. I don't think you can go through something like that and it not affect you even from a subconscious level."
Carolyn, actually started writing as a young child. "My home life wasn't great and I think it was a natural way of making sense of it. I think as a six-year-old child instinctively I was keeping a diary for no other reason than I had to make sense of these things that were going on.
"There is something about the act of writing it down and seeing those words on the page that give you a sense of closure. I didn't set out to write about The Boy Who Could See Demons and pour out my own experience into that that's what happened in the course of it."
The novel explores mental illness in the aftermath of the Troubles through the eyes of 10-year-old Alex, his self-harming mother and psychiatrist Anya, whose own daughter took her own life at the age of 12. It is currently been made into a Holywood movie and although still in the screenwriting stage, Carolyn is being kept informed on progress by the film's producer.
Having herself provided the voice-over for psychiatrist Anya in the audio book of the novel, has she anyone in mind to play the leading roles? "Maybe Sandra Bullock", she laughs.
Her advice to those directly affected by depression, or to the family and friends of those with depression is simply to "give writing a go". "Reading and writing are both important. It's very protective to have your own diary or notebook that no one else can see and you can put your own thoughts in. The healing power of writing has to do with bearing witness. When something traumatic has happened to you, to be able to feel like a human being again you need to see it as external to yourself. I think writing accomplishes that."
Carolyn brings her expertise in this area to Belfast Book Festival today, alongside English broadcaster Liz Fraser, who is seeking to rebrand mental health and encourage people to take care of their brain as well as their body, through her Headcase website.
The Writing on Depression event will also include a 'take-home creative writing workshop' for all participants. "We won't be giving people something that is going to make everyone feel better instantly or something that gets them writing directly about their own experience. It's not so much writing as therapy, but writing to give yourself a voice," Carolyn says.
:: Writing on Depression takes place today at 6.15pm in The Crescent Arts Centre as part of the Belfast Book Festival. Full festival programme at Belfastbookfestival.com.
