It sounds cliché to say that a journey begins with a single step, but there’s no one who knows that better than Peggy Hickman.
She has found unique ways to convey a message of hope as a mental health advocate, an avid runner, public speaker, and now, through the design of a prize-winning poster.
Hickman has ventured far outside of her comfort zone, met new goals, and is an inspiration to many.
Her passion for running started at an unexpected time in her life. Hickman was recovering from open-heart surgery when her psychiatrist at The Royal, Dr. Tomas Fogl, suggested she take up running.
She was 58 and also dealing with her mental illness.
Schizophrenia is a chronic but highly treatable brain disease. It’s a complex and frequently misunderstood mental disorder that affects about one in 100 people. Common symptoms include: disorganized speech or behaviour; difficulty concentrating or remembering things; decreased participation in daily activities or a general lack of motivation; and thoughts or experiences that alters a person’s sense of reality such as hearing voices, hallucinations or delusions.
Hickman describes her voice as “frightening.”
“My voice, it zaps me of self confidence,” describes Hickman. “It’s a big struggle.”
It didn’t take Hickman long to realize that running had a profound and unexpected effect on her mental health: When she runs, she has more control over the voice.
“We’re always looking for tools that help us manage our symptoms better, and that is one of mine. When he decides he wants to bug me when I’m running I’ve figured something out, ‘I can run faster than you, bud!’ And that’s when you see me speed up,” she laughs.
She made the leap to marathons three years after taking her first steps as a runner.
“The more I ran the more I loved it, it was this feeling. Running gives me confidence and this sense of peace, it takes me into a different zone. I just kept at it. And when I don’t run, I don’t like it.”
Today, she runs regularly, fundraises for the Schizophrenia Program, and participates in speaking events.
Most recently, she shared her experience with psychosis at the ISPS Conference in The Netherlands and presented a poster she designed that illustrated her journey with psychosis and as she puts it, the “power of a passion.”
It was Fogl who first brought the idea of the conference to Hickman.
“I really think that finding a passion is a big step to dealing with whatever you’re going through,” says Peggy Hickman. “It gives you a sense of purpose – everything. It makes you feel better about yourself.”
She had never actually left the country before, but for Hickman, who had found it so helpful to attend conferences and workshops at The Royal, the theme of the conference was too appealing to refuse: The circular relationship between alienation and psychosis and the healing power of human reconnection.
“And that, for me, that was something very true,” says Hickman. “I’ve made so many positive human reconnections through my running which have really helped me.”
Fogl and Hickman submitted two abstracts, one for a joint workshop about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and its connection with exercise, and another for a poster submission (posters are customary way to present information at medical conferences). Both were accepted.
“I was so over the moon when we got those emails,” reflects Hickman, whose new goal was suddenly to teach herself the digital tools she needed to design her poster (which is exactly what she did).
Knowing Hickman’s love of running, it’s easy to see why she used it to illustrate her journey in mental health and form the underlying theme of the poster. She hopes the poster will help other people understand what she goes through, and for those dealing with a mental illness, to see there’s light.
Hickman’s journey is represented by a map-like image of a curvy road. (She says if she’d had the space there would be a lot more peaks and valleys along the road as well.) There are dead ends and side roads, and roundabouts to get stuck in – like a cycle of fear, shame, and isolation. There are “bad spots” as well as good ones. “Sometimes I go off track,” says Hickman, pointing to an illustration of an ambulance. “That was not a good time…”
A small figure at various points along the road symbolizes Hickman. The larger figure in white is Fogl, although it can represent any source of support. The voice Hickman hears is portrayed as a floating head, thickly outlined in orange with curved lines coming out of his mouth.
The road begins with mile markers that might seem familiar to anyone who lives or works in the realm of mental health: “onset” and “support”, through to “acceptance” and “engagement.” Closer to the end, “discovery” turns into “passion” when she is no longer running alone, but with other people. The floating head, so frightening and overwhelming at the beginning of her journey, fades at times but never entirely disappears.
Hickman explains: “The journey still goes on but it doesn’t mean everything’s better. I can still do things, just like everybody else…. I can still participate in my running, and participate in society even with this voice. Yeah, there’s times that I do have to step back a little bit. I don’t want people to think that everything’s just hunky-dory because that’s not the way it is. That wouldn’t be a true picture.”
Hickman’s poster was well received by the conference participants and was recognized with an award.
“To win one as a person with lived experience was pretty cool, it was quite an honour,” she says.
A full size version of Hickman’s poster now hangs in a high-traffic area on the third floor at The Royal, where it’s seen by a steady stream of clients, families, and staff members.
Although her poster illustrates how running has helped her mental health journey, one can substitute any activity.
“I really think that finding a passion is a big step to dealing with whatever you’re going through,” she says. “It gives you a sense of purpose – everything. It makes you feel better about yourself.”
Hickman’s road to understanding and discovery now has a new detour, and it’s a good one this time: advocacy.
She wants people to understand that her journey doesn’t belong to her alone. She believes that sharing her experience helps others, and by talking openly about her illness, she is not only changing people’s understanding of what it means to live with schizophrenia, but also reducing stigma and giving hope.
“When it comes to schizophrenia, there’s a lot of false information out there. To have a true understanding of it, people need to educate themselves about it, and what better way than by way listening to the people who live with it. Understanding leads to acceptance and that’s a good thing. Sure, it won’t make the illness go away, but when you feel like somebody cares and that you have a place in society, that goes a long way in lessening its impact.”