Pendulum

Kylie Harrison is a community peer worker, writer and comedian. In Pendulum Kylie writes about her journey and experience with bipolar mood disorder, which she has been exploring in her creative writing for twenty years. She relishes any opportunity to express herself. She loves the variety in her writing and has a vision that her poetry, comedy, speech writing and short film writing will all come together. Kylie’s aim is to enhance community awareness about mental illness and make a positive impact on society. She brings hope and encouragement to others in similar situations by sharing her own experiences. It is her passion to stand up for people who feel they don’t have a voice or that no one is listening. By revealing her own experiences on her journey to gain insight, she has written a poetry collection that is educational and inspiring, while focusing on trying to combat stigma. Three years on and she is ready to share with the world this eloquent collection. She believes that if you take one line of her story that changes the way you think about mental illness, or remember one of her poems, she has done her job and her experiences have been for a unique purpose. A section in Pendulum is about peer work and this book is a celebration of this rewarding career. Kylie feels that every company providing mental health services should employ peer workers and she wants this book to promote how the lived experience is an invaluable resource. She says, ‘It is about learning to take control and find stability. This will help the sufferer and their friends and family to find happiness that is not mania, optimism that is realistic and not delusional, and hope for the future.’