Mental Health Reading: My Friend Fox, Heidi Everett
Heidi Everett is an artist, musician, comedian and mental health advocate based in Melbourne, Australia. My Friend Fox is her first book.
Part parable, part memoir, My Friend Fox explores Heidi Everett’s experiences within the mental health system. It’s the most unique and candid account I’ve read concerning the Australian mental health system. Everett’s poetic voice and imaginative writing style made it a fascinating and memorable read.
I identified with many of Everett’s experiences — especially how the health system is focused on medicating and curing rather than understanding and empowering. I also appreciated the author’s reflections on identity and dealing with health professionals fixated on her “mental health record” (schizoaffective, major depression, juvenile autism). It bordered on déjà vu reading observations of the lifeless and whitewashed hospital ward and her need to learn a new language to leave. Again, it circles back to how we view illnesses and worth.
The author’s decision to include thoughts on how animals and pets can help mental health was also helpful — it was lovely to read about her connection with Tigger.
The illustrations add to the depth of thought and experience.
I recommend this memoir to anyone who has struggled with mental health. It’s also a worthwhile read for anyone who wants to consider the complexities surrounding mental illnesses and the health system.
My meeting with the fox that painfully long winter gave me insight to the way I see and experience mental illness, and the lowly place in the health system it bestows me. A fox knows what it’s like to be outlawed in the normal and abnormal scheme of things. Despite his wild beauty, he’s destined to be a lingering side effect of the past. And, just like my psychic distress, he is a symbol of both disease and determination, of a curse and of hope. But unlike the wolf, the lion or the tiger, all noble symbols of pride and honour, it seems the fox is fated to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, for all the wrong reasons. - Heidi Everett, My Friend Fox
