The title of this recording is "Blue - Rainbow Touchstones". It is described as: Mary talks about growing up and dealing with depression. It was recorded in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand on the 3rd August 2010. Mary O'Hagan is being interviewed by Gareth Watkins.  Their names are spelt correctly but may appear incorrectly spelt later in the document. The duration of the recording is 5 minutes. A list of correctly spelt content keywords and tags can be found at the end of this document. A brief description of the recording is: In this digital story Mary talks about growing up and dealing with depression. The content in the recording covers the decades 1960s through to the 1980s. A brief summary of the recording is: The recording titled "Blue - Rainbow Touchstones," featuring an interview with Mary O'Hagan conducted by Gareth Watkins in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand, provides a five-minute glimpse into O'Hagan's personal journey with their identity and mental health, particularly during the 1960s. Captured on the 3rd of August 2010, this digital story addresses the challenges and societal pressures faced while growing up, the struggle with depression, and the path to self-awareness and recovery. The narrative begins with O'Hagan recounting the dissonance felt in childhood, where there was a marked departure from the gender norms expected of little girls at the time, such as wearing rose-bud dresses and playing with dolls. Instead, O'Hagan possessed a more active spirit, not fitting into the designated stereotype and instead identifying as a 'tomboy,' a term that led to a later self-questioning of their sexual orientation. During the 1970s, society held a stigmatized view of homosexuality, considering it an indicator of a 'screwed up' individual if not outgrown after a phase. This stigma played a significant role in O'Hagan's internal conflicts and mental health struggles that surfaced at the age of eighteen. The recording continues with O'Hagan's account of their descent into depression, compounded by various stressors, including leaving home, the passing of their grandmother, and the inner turmoil arising from reconciling their sexual identity. This entanglement of life changes signaled the beginning of their mental health struggles. Seeking professional help, O'Hagan was diagnosed with depression by a psychiatrist. However, due to the fear of judgment and misdiagnosis, O'Hagan withheld discussing their sexual orientation, opting to talk about more comfortable topics instead. Despite continued talk therapy sessions and medication, O'Hagan's condition led to hospitalization, which brought with it the indelible label of being a psychiatric patient, further entrenching the identity of 'madness.' The recording poignantly reflects on the depths of despair faced by O'Hagan, culminating in the death of their elder sibling, which catalyzed a dramatic shift in their perspective toward life. This event, coupled with a change in medication and a newfound resolve, initiated a change in O'Hagan's outlook, allowing them to become receptive to the prospect of life ahead. The journey to recovery was also attributed to the change in societal attitudes and personal acceptance of their sexuality. Moving to Auckland marked a significant milestone in O'Hagan's life, where they came out as a lesbian. O'Hagan draws parallels between the liberation movements of lesbian feminism and the 'mad' movement, both calling for liberation from systemic subjugation - whether by heterosexual society or the mental health system. These movements reinforced each other and contributed to O'Hagan's understanding and acceptance of their identities. O'Hagan's self-reflection poses questions about the potential connections between their mental health and other aspects of their identity, including confusion about personal abilities and life's meaning, feelings of isolation, and the quest for authenticity. They conclude that embracing one's true self is fundamental to recovery, reinforcing that the resolution of identity issues can provide stability. Accumulating positive experiences is also cited as crucial for individuals who have faced prolonged periods of instability, leading to a deficit in life's pleasures. For O'Hagan, embracing authenticity proved to be both stabilizing and a source of positive experiences, ultimately promoting a sense of success and well-being. The full transcription of the recording begins:  I grew up in a time when little girls where supposed to wear nice little rose-bud dresses and play with dolls. But I just couldn’t fit into that stereotype - I wanted to be active and run around playing with guns. I grew into a real tomboy and began wondering if that meant I was also a lesbian. The traditional thinking in the 1970s was that lesbianism might be a phase you go through, but if you remained homosexual in your adulthood you were a very screwed up person and that really scared me. My mental health issues started cropping up when I was eighteen. I started getting deeply depressed and then after a while I started developing highs as well. I had a whole lot of stresses - I was just leaving home, my grandmother had just died and I was sorting out my sexual identity. All of these things became entwined with my mental health problems. I went to my doctor and said I’d lost my appetite and that I didn’t feel very good emotionally. He referred me to a psychiatrist who told me I had depression. I went to see him twice a week for about six months. I only talked about the things that were easy to talk about. I was too terrified to tell him about the struggles I was having with my sexual orientation because of the fear of being judged. I thought he would try to label my feelings as a medical condition and think I had a sick personality. Over the next couple of years I continued going to these talk sessions as well as taking anti-depressants but nothing really seemed to help and so I ended up in hospital. As soon as I crossed the threshold of the hospital I was labelled and identified as a psychiatric patient. Once you’ve been in hospital you can’t escape that label. I was a mad person and to this day ‘mad’ has become a key part of my personal identity. The lowest point for me was facing the prospect of becoming a chronic psychiatric patient. Nothing seemed to be working for me. I’d been in and out of hospital for several years and I was losing all hope for the future. Then my elder brother drowned. When Sean died it jolted me out of my self-pity. I thought gosh, here’s this man of twenty-eight, his life was going along fine and then suddenly he’s dead. And then I thought I might have another fifty or sixty years to live. I suddenly felt that I was the lucky one. His death really helped change my whole outlook on life. My medication was changed and I began to stabilize. I saw several other psychiatrists but I still didn’t feel that I could talk to them about my sexuality. At the same time my own internal attitude towards lesbianism began to change and I began mixing with people who thought it was ok. After I left hospital I moved to Auckland and that’s when I came out as a lesbian. I had gone through similar experiences earlier coming out as a mad person. I guess what really helped was that the politics of lesbian feminism in the 1980s had exact parallels with the mad movement - they were just a template of each other. Lesbians and feminists were being subjugated by men or heterosexual society and mad people were being subjugated by the mental health system. They were both liberation movements, they reinforced each other. So I fed off each of them in my understanding. Sexual identity was one of the cluster of identities I had at eighteen that fed into my mood swings. Would I have got depressed if I hadn’t been confused about my sexuality? Been confused about my abilities? Confused about the meaning of life and I hadn’t felt lonely and isolated? I don’t know. I do know now there’s nothing to be afraid of - you just have to be who you are. Recovery is very much tied up with your identity. Going through mental health problems shakes the whole ground of your being. I felt that coming out as a lesbian was a resolution to part of my identity, it stabilized me. Another part of recovery is about accumulating good experiences. If you’ve had instability that goes on for years you end up with a deficit of good feelings about life. And even though coming out as a lesbian was traumatic and confusing and mind-blowing, in the end it enabled me to have some good experiences. If you start succeeding in life or you start doing the things that make you feel good then you gather a bit of momentum and that tends to continue. In the early years of my recovery it was about building up that store of good feelings and coming out was definitely a part of that. The full transcription of the recording ends. A list of keywords/tags describing the recording follow. These tags contain the correct spellings of names and places which may have been incorrectly spelt earlier in the document. The tags are seperated by a semi-colon: 1960s ; 1980s ; Mary O'Hagan ; Mental Health Foundation ; People ; Rainbow Touchstones ; attitude ; building ; change ; coming out ; depression ; dolls ; dresses ; escape ; fear ; feelings ; feminism ; future ; health ; health system ; hit ; hope ; hospital ; identity ; leaving home ; lesbian ; lesbian feminism ; liberation ; mental health ; other ; politics ; psychiatrist ; rainbow ; recovery ; sexual identity ; sexual orientation ; sexuality ; time ; tomboy ; transcript online ; understanding ; video online. The original recording can be heard at this website https://www.pridenz.com/rainbow_touchstones_blue.html. The master recording is also archived at the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington, New Zealand.  For more details visit their website https://tiaki.natlib.govt.nz/#details=ecatalogue.1089849. Mary O'Hagan also features audibly in the following recordings: "Mary OHagan". Please note that this document may contain errors or omissions - you should always refer back to the original recording to confirm content.