Mental Health Awareness 2019:It's good to talk but the topics are all wrong.

The days leading up to this World Mental Health Day, have ironically, been some of the worst for my own mental health. If depression is known as the black dog; I’ve been torn from limb to limb. I’ve falsely thought I’d hit rock bottom, only for the beast to grab me between its teeth once again and throw me to the rest of the hungry pack.

A slightly dramatic analogy? Maybe, but the pain has been unbearable. It’s been: suicidal thoughts, drinking too much, anger, sadness (so much sadness), angst, anxiety, sleeping, hurting myself, lashing out, isolating, it’s been… hell. The scary thing is, is that, although this ‘depressive episode’ is slowly rolling itself out, I know one just like this won’t be too far away and that terrifies me.

Images like this from the Mental Health Foundation trivialise suffering. It makes it look so easy to just not be depressed. "oh you're feeling suicidal?" - just 'take a break'. Images like this are what has pushed me to write this article.

Every World Mental Health Day so far, I’ve shared and scrolled through memes and posts about how ‘you’re not alone’ and that ‘things will get better’. In the long hindsight of a bad episode, these things are great to look at; they are inspirational and kind and make you believe that you can beat it, you will beat it and not only this EVERYONE suddenly understands (oh joy!).

This year, only just approaching the end of a particularly bad episode seeing all this advice just makes me angry. I don’t feel like I can beat this, I don’t need to be told to ‘think positive’, I don’t need pity or support from the same people who have judged me in the past. I don’t need one day a year where people pretend to understand what I’m going through and unless you have personally struggled with your mental health for a prolonged period (not just a bad day) stop pretending that you do understand. I don’t even understand, and I live with it every day!

Yes, it’s important to open the conversation around mental health, it’s good to talk, it’s even better to talk globally about the issue but what we need to do is start focusing the conversation and putting plans into action. Here are some issues I think need the most attention:

COUNSELLING SERVICES: So much talking on this one day, yet the talking that really matters is often overlooked. Counselling services for mental health are so underfunded, that in the time it takes to physically speak to a professional, most people have made it through the depressive days or worse, no longer with us. It is a real and worsening crisis. I’ve currently been on the waiting list with MIND for six months, for people like me with Bipolar and particularly Rapid Cycling (shorter episodes but more often) in that time I’ve been up, down, sideways and in-between in my moods. I’ve been on waiting lists in the pasts for so long after actual hospitalised suicide attempts that by the time there was a space, I had moved to another country!

The removal of the Nurses Bursary and cuts mean the NHS are underfunded and understaffed and often it is way too easier to prescribe a pill than a person who could help get to the root of the issue. Doctors are so quick to fob patients off with pills and sick notes but there is nowhere near enough counselling available. In some cases, pills are a quick fix and serve a good purpose, guiding people through a particularly bad period in life or for those who genuinely need them for their own safety and that of others. For most people though, they’re simply a numbing of a pain that desperately needs to come out, a pain that is, in my opinion better channelled into therapy. More money is needed to focus on these areas, not handed straight to Big Pharma.

ATTITUDE: The frightening fact that 1 in 4 of us will suffer from poor mental health at some point in our lives and suicide rates in the UK rose ‘significantly’ from 2017-2018 (ONS) there is a very real problem within our society that needs to be addressed. The number of men and young women under the age of 25 increased the most – does this reflect societal pressures? Is social media to blame? Is it the lad culture? Whatever it is, it is a people problem and therefore it is our attitudes as a people, that needs to change. The curriculum should teach children from a very early age about mental health, how to spot it, how to deal with it and even how to notice it in their peers. I recently had an MRI scan to see how Lithium affects Bipolar, of course this is a specialised study, but my brain is different to ‘normal’ and studying the different effects certain illnesses have on your brain should be as important as those in the rest of your body. Once people understand the science of it, they can’t brand sufferers as being ‘weak’ or ‘lazy’ or tell them to ‘get a grip’. One of the most poignant things ever said to me, was by a Healthcare Professional I had just told I felt my tablets weren’t working and that I was beginning to think dark thoughts. I was sat in a chair, trembling, cuts on my arms and he said to me: “The difference between me and you is, I choose to look out the window and see the sunshine – you don’t.” It is not, and ever will be a choice and science can back that up. It would go a long way to end the stigma.

Lauren Kennedy via Piktochart

TEST MORE: It took me 17 years to get a diagnosis of Bipolar and I only got put through to a specialist by pleading, demanding and threatening (well…my mam did those last two things, and I wouldn’t say no to her either!). That is over half my life spent miserable, feeling lost, wondering what was wrong with me, being passed from pillar to post, prescribed a multitude of anti-depressants. I moved to three cities and three different universities to try and get my degree, mostly because I messed up so bad at each one, I had to move in embarrassment. Nine years of hell trying to get a degree and within a year of my official diagnosis – I got a First-Class Honours in Journalism. Proof that with the right diagnosis, as with any other ailment, treatment begins to show success. It doesn’t take a genius to notice that if the same person is back and forth with crippling depression over a long period of time, maybe they should be tested for a long-term condition. I am nowhere near recovery (see intro) and I never will be fully, but I am able to take hold of my illness most of the time and it has made me a calmer person all round.

There is a long way to go to drive down these frightening statistics, so instead of using your voice one day a year please be vocal until we see some real changes. For now, if you know someone with mental health issues, check on them regularly and if you're battling issues yourself, keep fighting.

www.samaritans.org