10 October 2025
Jess Button is a 38-year-old musician from Sussex. She has Schizoaffective disorder a mental health condition characterised by a combination of schizophrenia and mood disorder symptoms, as well as bipolar disorder.
Jess has become a successful writer, drummer and DJ, recently taking part in Sussex Partnership's Fatboy DJ workshops.
Jess wants to share her story on this blog to mark World Mental Health Day, to show others that recovery is possible.
"The music workshops have changed my life by having such a positive impact on my mental health.
Learning how to DJ has given me confidence and allowed me to concentrate my mind on a complex skill taking away my stresses of daily life.
Music elevates my life and makes me happier from within, it’s truly magical.
I am a drummer and so I jumped at the chance in order to learn how to DJ.
While I was in a mental health hospital there was no drum kit, so I started to write poetry as I found the rhythm relaxed my mind. It helped me to make sense of what I was going through - combining the beat of the words to rhythms in my mind, similar to drumming.
I wrote two books while I was a patient at the Priory. The Priory Princess was the first one and later I wrote Paradise Island - this relates to a development in my life where I got out of my hell and tried to recover from my traumas.
Fatboy Slim kindly wrote on the back cover of my book Paradise Island saying that I prove that recovery in mental health is possible.
I think that combining writing, drumming and DJing has really helped me in my recovery. Now I just need to keep believing in myself and trusting music as a healing tool. I hope others can do this too.
Learning to DJ from Fatboy Slim has been one of the biggest joys of my life. I didn’t foresee this at all and I hope to continue on this music path to help my mental health."
Fatboy DJ Workshops are supported by Fatboy Slim and Heads On, Sussex Partnership's charity.
To take a look at Jess's books click here and here.
