So my story, when it comes to mental health, is this … psychosis (once), addiction (a few things along the way, some better for me than others) and depression (comes and goes.) Then there was my big brother Donald, diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was a young soldier in the Scots Guards. My Mum once said: ’That phone call telling us he was ill changed my life, and it never changed back again.’
Donald was the main reason I became involved in mental health campaigning when I worked in Downing Street. The thing was that my Mum didn’t want me to talk about him publicly. It wasn’t that she was ashamed - far from it. She hated having one son in the media spotlight, and worried that giving Donald a public profile around his mental illness would merely add to his problems.
So I talked, as I still do, about my own issues, as part of the campaign to destigmatise, and also to fight for better understanding and better services. When my Mum died, Donald and I talked about making a film about his life living with schizophrenia. But then he died too, aged 62. Our Dad, also Donald, was 82 when he died. This is significant. Because people with schizophrenia live on average 20 years less than those who don’t. Can you imagine any other illness where it would just be accepted that the medication for an illness - diabetes or asthma, say - would take two decades off your lifespan?
No. Nor can I. So that is why the fight goes on.
Alastair Campbell was director of communications to Tony Blair from 1997 to 2003.