Writer Stevie Helps is hoping to shake up the stigmas and taboos that surround mental health with a new hard-hitting play Rachel at the Lowry Theatre.

Rachel, which will be performed on Saturday 13 January,  focuses on mental health and the struggles Stevie went through.

Stevie, 34, said: “I was waking up at three in the morning thinking… I’ve got to write this.”

Through Rachel, he explores his personal struggles of having attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), borderline personality disorder (BPD), and bipolar disorder.

Stevie was clear to not make the play about NHS services, but rather some of the negative aspects that he, and many others, have been through.

“I think to make a true play that you believe in, you’ve got to put your own experiences in, I did try and confront some issues though and put some hope in there in the end.”

But he wants the play to be entertaining as well as educational, without putting people in boxes or stereotyping.

“It is a play, like myself has a borderline personality disorder, ADHD and bi polar of it’s very own. Many of the characters in the play deal with some of my own personal experiences with mental health and psychiatric hospitals and how I experienced people with mental health, in my own mental health states. This is all woven into the play.

“It definitely isn’t all going to be politically correct and serious, it’s my own personal experiences. Sometimes things were big and ‘crazy’ so the play is going to portray some of that. It is definitely a play about the downside of the mental health system because that was what I experienced personally.”

https://youtu.be/F77NvraKBOE

One in four have mental health issues

UK charity MIND say one in four people experience mental health problems and according to NHS England, there were more than one million people in contact with their mental health services in 2017 – more than 10% of those were children and young people.

Stevie added: “I remember once in school my friend next to me was making me laugh, and make me really get excited and hyper.

“He stopped when the lesson started but I couldn’t. The teacher made me go sit in a special room by myself. Then I realised when I couldn’t I stop something wasn’t quite right… A lot of people think it’s just naughty children attention seeking when its actually about attention spans.

“I was diagnosed with ADHD later on in life, when I was about 21, which is quite old really. But I think that’s because my parents wanted to think ‘Oh, there’s nothing wrong with my son’. In fact I heard them say that at school, when I had a fight.”

Rachel at the Lowry is “cathartic”

However, even after diagnosis, Stevie claimed not everyone in hospitals acted as if they to understood mental health issues.

“I was told I was going for a meeting with a nurse but when I went in there was about five other people in there.”.

As he sat on the chair with his legs tucked up to his chest, nervousness consuming him…the nurse threatened to section him.

“They pulled my trousers down, stuck a needle in my rear end and took me to a danger ward, and that was that. Just because I was kicking a door asking to get out.”

He added: “I’m feeling my most daring and creative and it’s definitely my most honest. I guess the play could feel like mental health itself and that happened from me writing it in my different mental health states and creating characters based on personal or surrounding experiences. It’s actually a really cathartic experience. I was worried it could be damaging for me but it’s mostly the opposite.”

Album 1

Tickets for Rachel at the Lowry Theatre on Saturday 13 January at 7pm are available from thelowry.com.