Mental health awareness

May is Mental Health Awareness Month over in the UK – a month geared towards breaking down stigma and starting conversations about mental health. It’s about that message of “it’s ok not to be ok”. It’s about wearing a green ribbon and showing that we’re open to talking about mental health, that we understand that everyone can be affected both directly and indirectly by mental illness. It’s about showing that there is no need to be ashamed.

I am not so sure.

I am not so sure because of the following:

I can start a conversation but is anyone listening?

Even if someone listens, there’s no guarantee that the professionals in the mental health services are going to.

Even if the professionals listen, there are not enough resources for them to be able to actually help me in a constructive way.

Finally…as someone affected by mental illness, the greatest stigma imposed on me is by myself. I can’t turn around and say “I’m struggling” and I also can’t blame anyone for that.

By mentioning the word “stigma” too often, are we creating it? Should there not be a zero-tolerance response? Never mind breaking it down, there should not be stigma. I know this is simplistic but it’s also true. If I was sitting here with a broken leg, I wouldn’t be agonising over whether or not I could, or should tell someone that I’m in pain.

If I was sitting here with a broken leg, I would still have my career as a social care worker. Simplistic also, but sadly true. It would be clear what treatment was needed. It would be visible. It wouldn’t have be “proved” or measured. People would be able to talk about it.

If stigma didn’t exist, maybe more money would be put into the mental health services and utilised in a way that would offer options to people affected by mental illness. Therapy…for as long as is needed and a range of therapies to suit a range of people…counselling, addiction support, CBT, DBT, occupational therapy, peer support, psychotherapy, trauma therapy…options to let people know that their individual situation is just that and there is no need to squeeze themselves into the “one size fits all” medical model that rejects more people than it actually helps.

There would be options for people in their worst moments so they don’t have to sit in a crowded A&E department feeling out of place and waiting to be sent home because there aren’t enough beds or doctors. Options so that people don’t have to wait until their darkest moment to look for and receive support.

Options to spread awareness that mental illness isn’t just one thing. Just as our bodies can suffer from a wide range of illnesses and injuries, so can our minds. Yes, mental illnesses encompass anxiety and depression but there’s lots more like bipolar disorder, schiozophrenia, PTSD, personality disorders, eating disorders, to name a few. Some are a result of what we’ve been through. Some have a genetic predisposition and some are a combination of things. Indicators of inner distress such as psychosis, suicidal thoughts, self-harm and dissociation don’t define the person. But shaming or silencing them increases the distress.

No stigma would mean being open to understanding a person’s experience just as is it. Not trying to fix it, ignore it or politely walk around it but letting it be. It would mean responding in an open way.

“How does it make you feel?”

“How do you feel?”

“What would help you?”

“If you’re struggling, what do you need from me?”

“I hear you”

“I would like to know…if you want to tell me”

“You are important”

“You are brave”

“I hear/see you”

Stigma is the dangerous veil that covers things up when there’s fear on both sides…one afraid to talk and one afraid to hear. It’s the people and doctors who decide that if you look well and are neatly dressed that you are “fine”. It’s the voice inside you that tells you that you mustn’t show weakness and that you are only going to be a burden to others.

So, when we start conversations it needs to be about more than putting the responsibility on people in pain to talk about it. Sometimes that is just not possible. But creating an atmosphere of acceptance means accepting that the responsibility belongs to us all. Are we asking ourselves and each other how we are? Are we questioning the politicians who come to our doors? Are we accepting that anyone can suffer from mental ill health…it is not a choice and it’s not a character flaw? Are we making sure that our loved ones, from childhood to old age, know that there’s someone to hear them if and when they need it?

I’m reading back and wondering if this sounds idealised or preachy. It isn’t meant to. Every situation has variables and we are all a sequence of events-our pasts, our personalities, our emotions. Nothing is predictable.

I’ll finish on what a symbol like the Green Ribbon means to me. It makes me think back to the beginning of my own story when I knew something was terribly wrong and had no idea what, if anything, to do about it. I think of that fear and the worry that this was going to be my life now. Then I look at everything being done this month to help people in that situation see that they have choices and that they are not alone and that what’s happening to them has a name and a cause and possible solutions.

So, for them, let’s keep it going.

“. . . With the wonder and bitterness of someone pardoned for a crime she did not commit I come back to marriage and friends, to pink fringed hollyhocks; come back to my desk, books, and chair.” ― Andrew Solomon, The Noonday Demon