Dolly Sen was on October 23^rd 1970 in London, the oldest of five children. She is from mixed heritage: her father is Indian and her mother is Scots-Irish. Her childhood was not a happy one: Physical, emotional, mental, sexual abuse, racism, poverty, neglect, bullying were daily occurrences. Despite this, she excelled academically and had very close bonds with her siblings.

When Dolly was 14 in 1984, she had her first psychotic episode and had to drop out of school. She was under the care of child psychiatry and social services but felt that they exacerbated her problems by trying to force her back into the school system, without addressing either the volatile home situation or the psychosis.

Dolly attempted to work but was unable to, lost in a world of psychosis, self harm and suicide attempts until her 30’s. Dolly has been in hospital four times, and  has had a variety of diagnoses.

Three things changed this darkness into light: the decision to recover and take personal responsibility, her creativity, and a course of CBT at the PICup Clinic at The Maudsley Hospital (Psychological Interventions Clinic for outpatients with Psychosis).

This enabled her to dream to make up for three decades of painful sleep, and now Dolly is an accomplished and published writer and her works include, “The World is full of laughter” and “Am I still Laughing?” which have been published by Chipmunka.

And the dreams keep coming and dreams keep being lived. She is a writer, director, artist, film-maker, poet, performer, raconteur, playwright, mental health consultant, music-maker and public speaker, which include a succession of performance roles around Europe and places like The Young Vic, Trafalgar Square and The Royal Festival Hall; has undertaken a poetry tour and won a poetry award from Andrew Motion; directed two plays and several films, appeared on TV, and has done spoken word at City Hall and Oxford University. She has appeared over twenty times on TV and radio talking about mental health issues

This is quite staggering, because she was told she would never amount to anything but would end up in jail or Broadmoor and she believed this and was on her way there when she changed her belief into the one of believing she could do anything she wanted to do.

This proves that the mind is an amazing thing; it can drive you mad and inspire you in the same breath. And that you can do anything if you believe you can do it.

But it was not plain-sailing.  To find dreams in the midst of the nightmare that is paranoia, depression, delusion of evilness, and horrible, tormenting voices is hard. That is a journey in itself, and I think I spent a decade of my life (my 20s) doing just that. In the fabric of hell that enclosed me like a straitjacket, there was an infinitesimal tear, a hole which unraveled my hell, thread by thread, until the constraints became more hole than limitation.

To me recovery is a hugely personal journey. No other person can tell me what recovery is and how to do it. Recovery is not a prescription given to a patient by a doctor. Recovery is a letter of hopes, dreams, songs, peace, hurt, chaos, transcendence, night and light. Recovery is to be able to dream and live those dreams. To shine my brightest, and live my fullest. To seize the day without the weight of the past. To lose any negativity in my life. To find the Dollyness of Dolly.