Sandy
sane.orgWhen publisher Ian Syson read the manuscript of Sandy Jeffs' autobiography, Flying with Paper Wings, he was blown away by it. ‘It’s a story of survival,’ he says. ‘When I read it, I thought, how does she live with this?'Sandy admits she found the five years it took to write the book extremely difficult. ‘I struggled for my sanity every day,’ she says.She continues to grapple with the hallucinatory voices she hears, a symptom of the Schizophrenia she has lived with for over 30 years.‘I don’t hear them during the day, but every night when I go to bed they persecute and denigrate me and now I wake up to them as well which is a real pain in the arse,’ she says. ‘I think to myself, I just can’t do this any more.’At times, she has been tempted to end her life.
But Sandy resists. She keeps going for the sake of her friends, for her public work, for ‘the stuff I do’, and to feel connected to the world.Sandy has good friends who support her.
She remains warm, funny and enthusiastic while battling demons few of us could imagine.Difficult days that feel insurmountable, she breaks down into increments: 15 minutes for breakfast, half an hour to check emails, set times for washing clothes and doing dishes.
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