Member profile: LEC member Marsha McAdam

Responses prepared by Marsha McAdam

Something Personal About Me – What Lights Me Up

Eek, I really struggle with questions like this – it’s hard to think about myself – so I phoned a few friends. So here goes.

I’m a white woman, born in Scotland. I spent part of my early life in Africa after my parents emigrated there in the late 1970s. I returned to the UK in the early 1990s and live in England.

I’m also the proud mum of a 30-year-old son who has grown into such a kind and caring person – something that brings me deep joy and I am so thankful that I am alive to see the person he has turned into.

People say I come across as warm, approachable, and confident. The truth is, I’m really quite shy and a bit of a recluse. But the voluntary work I do helps bring me out of myself. It gives me purpose and a sense of giving back to society. I love being out and about – whether attending conferences or in-person meetings. My “Fairy Godmothers” (my carers) help me get ready and support me to live life as fully and independently as I can.

I’m a survivor of suicide. I identify as someone who has had Borderline Personality Disorder, and I was very fortunate to receive life-saving, life-changing Mentalization-Based Therapy (MBT) in 2010. It quite literally saved me from myself.

I continue to live with both physical and mental health needs – some caused by the harm of multiple overdoses over the years. Following a near-fatal overdose, I now use a mobility scooter to maintain independence, as I live with chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, and other ‘bits and bobs’. Despite these challenges, I feel alive through the connections I make, especially in volunteering, and in both the support I receive and the support I offer.

What am I most proud of in my contribution to others with lived/living experience?

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) didn’t just rob me of my 20s and 30s – it also took from my son the childhood he deserved as he became the adult/carer in our relationship. I lived in persistent distress, with unbearable emotional pain. Everything felt chaotic, with a thousand racing thoughts going through my mind at the same time. The only thing I felt in control of was harming myself.

I was often labelled attention-seeking or manipulative and received judgement and poor care from the very services meant to help me. It wasn’t until a near-fatal overdose in 2008 – after which I was in an induced coma – that I finally received compassionate care and empathy from services.

In those darkest times, I experienced both good and bad care. I was frequently seen as ‘complex’ and for a long time, I had no stable sense of identity. But in recent years I’ve started to feel proud of who I am. I can hardly believe I’ve almost made it to 50.

Over the last few years, I have gone on to become:

• An Ambassador and Peer Consultant at the Centre for Mental Health
• Peer Ambassador and Vice-Chair of the Mental Health Network
• An Honorary Expert by Experience for MBT/SCM at the Anna Freud Centre for Children and Families
• RCPsych’s President’s Medal 2023

In 2023, I was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to undertake international research under the theme of: Suicide Intervention, Prevention and Postvention for Young People with Borderline Personality Disorder. I am now able to speak out with conviction (shakily) for the importance of early detection and intervention – especially in adolescents who may go on to receive a BPD diagnosis.

The ongoing social injustices and inequities faced by young people and their caregivers should be everyone’s business and not just mental health services. Sometimes, I feel like Cinderella – amazed to find myself in these spaces. And yet at the same time I carry real anxiety about raising my head above the parapet. But I know I need to pull on my big girl pants, especially now –  as well drawing on my lived experience, I can now also stand with conviction being able to call on vast internationally recognised, evidence-informed research and services – like those I witnessed at the University of Houston and the HYPE (Helping Young People Early) program at Orygen in Melbourne – that can change a young person’s life trajectory. Before they become very unwell. Before they die by suicide.

It is an absolute honour being one of the inaugural Lived Experience Council members of the Global Leadership Exchange. Please do get in touch if you would like to collaborate.

Keep an eye out for my Churchill Fellowship report: From Hopeless to Hopeful: Listen! Believe! Act!

Members of GLE can contact Marsha by getting in touch with Jenny Wolf, Lived Experience Council Lead.