Writer Heather Grace on crushing mental health stigmas

Heather Grace, an author and an artist, is a vivacious soul, who lives in Dubai. She writes on the run, in between listening to her existentialist six-year-old daughter. Cloudraker is her first collection of published poems.

Kindness and empathy are a recurring theme in her writing, which strike a deep chord with her readers, especially amid the Covid-19 induced hard times.

She was a participant at the recently concluded Emirates Airline’s Festival of Literature.

Excerpts from an interview with the author:

How do you crush mental health stigmas?

I believe that by living an honest life and not being ashamed of talking about my personal mental health conditions and experiences with my friends, family and work is the first step. Secondly, by educating and busting the myths around mental health topics in workshops and of course by writing about it in my book and in all my press I do. I try to use any platform I can to talk about mental health because that is the only way it will become part of our daily conversations. I also am the Founder of a non-profit mental wellness centre, Word of Life Wellness, in South Africa and my book and my work as a mental health advocate supports the establishment of the centre.

What’s the central theme of Cloudraker?

In a collection of raw, honest, and sometimes amusing poems, I reflect on my delightful and sometimes depressing existence and contemplate all that life gives and takes away. While exploring my childhood, love, heartache, motherhood, marriage, addiction, divorce, and my small chats with God, I hope to offer others the chance to reflect on their own lives and to see the pain and joy in it all and embrace that.

How do you reconcile your past and present through a literary form like poetry?

You can only write honestly about yourself if you know yourself. I love the quote by Ernest Hemingway: “Write hard and clear about what hurts.”

My book took me full circle from my first memory in 1980 as a baby, lying and watching the sky, to all the poems of my turbulent life and finally to the memory of looking into the eyes of my seven-month-old daughter in 2014 and deciding to end a very toxic marriage. In that moment my life changed as it had changed many times before. However, a new phase of my life has started that of a mother. That brought me a sense of grace and joy and a different way of living.

How has empathy taken centre stage even more than ever because of the Covid-19 pandemic?

Gratitude is very important to me in life, but along with Covid-19 came this wave of toxic forced “positivity”. Quotes about what Albert Einstein invented in the pandemic, putting pressure on people to make use of this time for “great things.”

There are people crippled with anxiety, unable to feed their families, elderly people with pre-existing conditions who are isolated, addiction depression and domestic violence on the increase. Top that with a lot of subliminal and overt media telling us to be the best version of ourselves and learn new skills is a lot to take in. Some days I can barely play with my daughter or face my inbox for work.

We need to have less pressure put on ourselves and absolutely realise that the pandemic has devastated many people’s lives and only with empathy and true kindness are we able to support each person in the place each person finds themselves, most importantly, starting with ourselves first.

Yes, I learnt a lot of skills the last 18 months when I felt good. Yes, I had to practice a lot of self-care. Yes, I also had a three-month depression and terrible anxiety and yes, Dubai ran out of my medication four times. It has not been easy. Empathy all the way for myself and as much as I can extend to others.

The UAE has come up with landmark reforms last year by decriminalising suicide and a bid on one’s life. Why is it important to talk about mental health especially in one of the worst years of mankind such as 2020 when the world was roiled by Covid-19?

I really admire how far the UAE has come in terms of the out-patient mental health facilities that are available and I am so happy about the decriminalising of suicide in 2020. We are moving forward, but much can still be done. Especially being able to have access to world-class in-patient treatment for psychiatric conditions and addiction etc.

Covid-19 has and still is wreaking havoc globally on people’s mental wellbeing and brought along with it waves of people in dire need of mental health support. I applaud Dr. Saliha Afridi and Lighthouse Arabia for all the free support they are offering through their webinars and all the other mental health professionals who really has worked tirelessly since the onset of Covid-19 to support those who are suffering.

• Dubai