Alex Boardman, 37, painter/decorator

I’m not ashamed of having cut myself because it’s part of me. Cutting is a very visible and shocking sign of what’s happening inside. It was my life-line and now that I’m better I see my scars as my legacy, signs of my survival. To see the flesh cut, to see the interior and the blood, told me I was still alive.

Things started to go wrong in my brain from as early as four years old and continued all through art college and afterwards when I was working as an artist in Norwich. I had a few mini breakdowns but they weren’t taken seriously by me or my family. It was all just waiting to come out. Life for me was about trying to cope.

Then, at the age of 30, I finally crashed. I had a touch of psychosis and was hearing voices. I think I’d heard them all my life but because it was hitting crunch time they were very, very intrusive. They would say things like “Would you leave now... Could you just go”. Finally I went with Helen - my partner of 17 years - to my doctor. By this stage I was crawling around the floor.

I was given medication and told I needed to be untangled. That was spot on. For the months that followed I was in and out of “the looney bin” - I used it for stop-overs. My whole treatment from the NHS has been brilliant but I was also very lucky to have Helen to articulate for me.

From the start of the breakdown I was cutting myself. It wasn’t to do with suicidal urges although certainly at times I wanted to escape from this world. The fury, anger and self-loathing were huge.

It took five years to emerge from it and I didn’t know whether I’d ever be able to come through it healthily. Then, last November, I started feeling very happy which was terrifying. I thought I must be going through a manic phase so I kept very quiet about it. I’d thought that once I was better I’d just go back to being the Alex who’d been struggling from the age of four. But now I was experiencing all sorts of emotions I’d never imagined I could feel - the joy of waking up to another day, excitement about life.

It was a rebirth of sorts because I felt I’d been given a second chance at life. I used to think people were all playing games (which in a way is what my father had done to me) and so I had to relearn how to live. The psychologist literally had to re-tune me.

When someone is cock-eyed it’s easier to keep away which is basically what my friends did. Mental illness is so unremitting and people get fed up because they want to see a result sooner. I needed someone to babysit me, to have patience and listen, but apart from hospital visits my family and friends weren’t willing to, which was a shame because Helen desperately needed time off as my main carer.

FACT: In a survey in 2000 by The Mental Health Foundation, 56% of people with mental health problems reported discrimination within their own family. (Mental Health Foundation, 2000)