Catherine Queen

I was fourteen and going through a messy argument with a school friend. You know the sort. The final straw for me was when she said, with real vitriol, “Your mum forced me to wear eyeliner to the disco!”

Now, you can come for many things but come for my mum and our friendship is done.

What my mum had done, generously, was offer to do our makeup for the evening. She did a nice green eyeliner for me, with mascara and a coral lip to go with my blue halter top and pleather flares. It was 2001, man. Dark times for fashion. But whatever, I looked fly and a guy I couldn’t see properly without my glasses tried to put his hand on my bum when we slow danced for thirty seconds, so I guess someone else thought so too.

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Content warning: mental illness

This year, I was unwell.

It’s a simple phrase, right? And if I’d had a broken leg, or the flu, or even some tropical disease, I would feel fine about admitting it. I’d brush it off. “Yeah, I lost June through August to a nasty bout of gastroenteritis. I’m taking some drugs for it. Feeling better.”

But it wasn’t a physical illness. It was a mental one, a three-month climax to a much longer suffering, that finally forced me to seek help. There are many people doing fine work to destigmatise mental illness, and attitudes are shifting, slowly, but still: it feels frightening to confess.

Hence this post. I’m not writing for sympathy – as I said above, I’m much better now. I’m writing to let you know hey, this happens, to all sorts of people, in all sorts of ways.

And I’m still here.

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There’s a gym in the basement of my new office building. I’ve been going at least twice a week for over a month, hauling myself out of bed an hour early to burn some calories. I’ve even been working with a personal trainer. Where once I was intimidated by the grunting and groaning of the singlet-wearing weight lifters, now I waltz into the strength area with confidence. Well, not quite. But getting there.

Stepping into the gym is like entering another world, replete with harsh fluorescent strip-lighting, a non-stop Rihanna soundtrack and posters that urge us to ‘get fit or die trying’ (!). But there is another, hidden place nested within this one, like a matryoshka, or more fittingly, a harem buried deep within the sultan’s palace. I’m speaking of the women’s changing room.

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