Playwright's depression battle

The author spoke candidly about the issues surrounding manic depression and mental illness. 'Why Am I?' is autobiographical and details Vin's experiences with manic depression and his attempts to survive an illness where many have succumbed to suicide.

He explained how the play came about: "It is about my experiences with mental illness. I first experienced it when I was 18. At that time it was very acute. I was in and out of hospital, but then I got respite from it for a long time.

"In 1991 it came back, I attempted suicide. I was working out in Gransha, in the hospital as a nurse. I had to leave the mental nursing because my wife was unwell but then i started to write about my experiences with manic depression. I joined the Derry scriptwriters here at the Waterside Theatre, in this building and 'Why Am I?' came out of that."

He adds: "The emphasis of 'Why Am I?' is to let people see that mental illness can come along and affect anybody.

"Most people in society make themselves feel safe buy saying 'aye things are alright, I have a job, a car, a wife, an apartment'. But that isn't the case. The World Health Organisation say that one in five people will have some sort of problem with their mental health in the course of their lives.

"It appears to me that one of the major difficulties with mental illness is that you don't know that it is coming. Physical illnesses have symptoms, and indications that it is coming but with mental illness, society as a whole seems to block out the possibility of it coming. But when it does come, it comes without you realising until you are really deeply in to it."

"There is a particular line in the play, when i am on a mountain road, it is a beautiful summers morning: 'That morning I remembered the lonely mountain walk, isolated from my family, on that black bitumen strip, on this beautiful summer's day. I was crying, and I didn't know why.' My crying heart is sore, but i don't know why. This illness is there, it is recorded in medical textbooks but i don't know why i have it."

He spoke about the social stigma that surrounds mental illness: "The stigma associated with mental illness can sometimes cause problems that are greater than the problems of the illness. That stigma is huge and people can sometimes remember the stigma long after they have recovered and forgot all about the episode of depression. That stems back from hundreds of years ago, and the stigma is still there now, but it is hidden."

"The way i can explain it is, that a mental illness, the same as a physical illness is an incapacitation of sorts. You are incapacitated to a degree in what you can do and what you can't do.

"Obviously if you have a broken leg you can't go and play football, but if you have a mental illness there are certain things that you can do and certain things that you can't. Like going into big crowds or being with other people. But the incapacitation when it is a mental illness, a lot of the time it is invisible.”