Juliette Burton: ‘Philosophical tools’
By Camilla – OCD Action
Juliette’s first experience of mental health problems was at the young age of eight years old. OCD was driving her to compulsively dry her hands, leaving them constantly chapped and bleeding. By 14 she was severely anorexic and was admitted as an inpatient for the first time at 15, just before she was due to sit her GCSEs. At 17 she was sectioned for her eating disorder and continued OCD, when she experienced a psychotic episode. She described believing her mother was bringing her a coded message when she brought her AS level results – which she had sat in an attempt to re-join education after her initial treatment – as well as time travelling, believing she saw God, the Devil, angels, aliens and more. Things did not appear to improve as her eating disorder took a new direction, forcing her to eat compulsively. Juliette was 19 and suffering from compulsive overeating disorder, sufficient to take her from a size 4 to size 20 in less than 6 months. Agoraphobia, body dimorphic disorder and depression also began to set in. The once high achiever was now hiding on her parent’s farm with no A levels and a total of four GCSEs.
Yet on interviewing Juliette years later I was struck by an overwhelming sense of her happiness. Despite her continual mental health problems and disrupted childhood Juliette is one of the most optimistic and strong people I have ever met. Her response to my asking if she wished she didn’t have an anxiety disorder was ‘I’d love to experience one day maybe but no’. She described her experiences as ‘philosophical tools’; the hardships which gave her insight and inspiration to do something she is truly passionate about and to help others by it. Juliette is now a comedy writer and performer and has recently starred in her first solo show ‘When I Grow Up’. ‘When I Grow up’ is a comedy but it is based on her life and experiences. The show has been received fantastically with a stream of 5 star reviews and directors interested in working with Juliette, but to her, the best review she will ever receive was being told by a member of her audience that watching her show had taken him away from a point of suicidal despair.
To Juliette, it is when you are alone that mental health becomes a danger. Her ambition as an actress and writer is to make sure others suffering from mental health problems know they are not alone. She talked of the ‘voices’ calling you back toward illness, and the constant temptation to keep it a secret and allow yourself to regress. By performing her show she forces herself to confront the world at her most vulnerable every day. She explained that there is never a day when her anxieties and depression are not there, but it doesn’t matter. On the worst days, her body dismorphic disorder still forces her back into old habits, but these she said are the days when it is most important to go out and face her fears.
Over the years Juliette has received a variety of different treatments and medications, and while she believes that medication can be a necessary stage in recovery she does not think it can be the cure or long term solution on its own. She has also benefited from CBT and art based therapies and has found the combination of the 12 step program and counselling very effective. It was overwhelmingly clear on speaking to Juliette that, despite her disrupted education and childhood, she had not and would not let her mental health hold her back. She attained a place on a journalism course at the University of London on the basis of an essay she wrote and explanation of her extenuating circumstances, which had left her without A levels. Graduating in 2007 she successfully carved a five year career in journalism, even with a continued and increasingly out of control eating disorder. With the pressures of the recession work was getting more difficult to find and this prompted her move from journalism to acting and comedy writing, something she has always loved and has now been doing for three years.
Juliette’s story which she now bravely shares with the world through her comedy is truly inspirational. To me the message she brings more strongly than any other, is never to just sit back and let mental health problems prevent you doing what you want to do. As Juliette said, ‘we are all learning every-day and it is my experiences which have taught me to know that nothing really matters but people and the love we share with them.’
Follow Juliette on Twitter and Facebook, or find out more about her show ‘When I Grow Up’.
