Mental Health

I understand more than most the phrase “pull yourself together”.  I’ve said it to myself and at times I’ve seen other people looking at me itching to say it. I try hard to avoid saying it to anyone else, but sometimes it’s so tempting to scream it out. The frustrations surrounding mental illness are extreme. The lack of understanding, the lack of medical support or funding and the stigma attached to it mean that unless you are in the eye of the storm, no one can really understand what it’s like to suffer from, or love someone who suffers from, a mental health condition.

Getting out of bed in the morning can be like climbing Everest for the estimated 1 in 4 who will suffer from some kind of mental illness over the course of a year. For those of us watching, it can be the most infuriating thing in the world. “It’s easy, get up, stop being lazy.” You scream at them. It’s heartbreaking to watch someone you love lying there letting life sit on their chest and push them further and further down.

As someone who has been on both sides, I can say genuinely, I didn’t have a clue how to get out of bed. I forgot how to talk to people and I was terrified to take part in life. It seemed hopeless and pointless. I felt that outside was full of danger and hurt, but at least I was safe and protected in bed.

Even when that person you know and love does get up, you see them as someone in name only, they’re not really standing there. This person in front of you is dead behind the eyes, a monosyllabic body-snatcher with unwashed hair.

And why is this? What turns a person so quickly? Sometimes it’s a trauma, sometimes it’s genetics, other times just because it’s Thursday. There doesn’t seem to be much rhyme or reason behind the causes of a host of conditions that nearly half will suffer from in our lifetimes.

The thing that makes me fizzing mad is that only a quarter of those who need help get it and current NHS spending on mental health is about 15%. What on earth is going on? This decision is ludicrous, not to mention extremely dangerous.

In my own experience, the complete diagnostic and treatment process took seven minutes and involved a multiple choice test ending with my being sent out the door with some anti-depressants from my GP.  I didn’t need them, wasn’t even depressed and had a severe reaction to them when they interfered with other medication. Doesn’t exactly instil confidence does it?

Waiting lists for psychologists and other forms of therapy are dangerously high, so in the meantime patients are prescribed anti-depressants (costing £31million last year in Scotland) and mostly just left to their own devices.

Why is it acceptable to leave someone in the wilderness without any treatment? Or to give them drugs completely unsuitable so they become even more ill? Why is it that someone would be given a life altering diagnosis and sent off with no support or further assistance? You wouldn’t expect to turn up to A & E with a broken leg and for nothing to be done expect to dope you up on painkillers in the hope that they will tide you over until your arm fixes itself. Why then, is this the expectation on those suffering from mental illness?

I don’t blame the NHS staff, as usual they are utterly overworked and underpaid but someone in charge needs to make a radical change to the status quo soon. Can I just repeat that figure? Nearly half will suffer from mental illness in our lifetimes, whilst NHS spend is 15%. This is absolutely disgusting, shameful and quite frankly, a very dangerous ticking timebomb. 

If your loved one is going through a hard time, I found these tips on how to help useful. http://www.seemescotland.org/getinvolved/justlisten/what-you-can-do