Chrysalis

I work with a group called Mad Pride Ireland, you may have heard of us!  It was started by my father John Mc Carthy as a way to battle stigma in Mental Health through community, laughter and love.  We have a simple message ‘Celebrate Difference, Stop Loneliness’.  I have been away from the Blog for a while but I was inspired by my dad to write this piece.

You see Dad had a breakdown; he spent time in various institutions, had various diagnoses and took lots of medications.  He went so low he tried to take his own life, luckily for all of us he didn’t.  As a result of his experiences of the system, the people he met along the way and the lack of understanding and empathy in among many of the public that led him to become the campaigner he is today.  Mad Pride Ireland is simple, and its success is a result of its simplicity there are no speeches at our events, no protests or information, there is simply the joy of community and the understanding through laughter that helps chip away at the stigma that surrounds people with ‘so called’ mental illness.

What makes me more proud of Dad is that he has a new battle now; he was diagnosed last year with Motor Neuron Disease, a degenerative disease that is slowly paralysing him and that will eventually kill him.  Yet even with this burden he goes on, speaking in the media, meeting families and individuals in need and running Mad Pride Ireland.  He has energy and drive I can only aspire to, he has a sense of humanity that we should all aspire to and seeing him getting on and off the stage in Tullamore yesterday made me so proud.

In three years he has established Mad Pride Family Fun Days in the public psyche, we have had 40,000 people attend our events in Cork, Killarney, Portlaoise, Tullamore and Uganda. We have been asked to make it an annual event in Cork and been invited back to both Killarney and Tullamore in 2011.

Dad is building a legacy that is and will continue to touch the lives of many, I am proud to be his son.