I am a huge fan of this concept, we should all be able to talk about our mental health challenges, in fact I truly believe that by doing so in a collective way as a society, we can improve everybody's mental health. Sharing your experience with someone who has not yet had any problems, will give them an insight and help them identify if they are struggling at a later date. It has the potential to create the kindness we so desperately need to be showing each other, which is sorely missing in a country that feels so divided right now.
One in four of us will be experiencing a mental health issue today, most of us will at some point in our lives. We should be talking about it more.
However, I am here to acknowledge just how bad I am at talking about my own mental health. I completely understand that it would help me remove some of my internalised stigma about mental health. Which could speed the recovery from my current state of mind. But right now, I am unable to voice my own thoughts, even to those I know and trust the most.
I am lucky enough to know that this is not always the case. Last year I gave a speech as part of The Women's Equality Party's healthcare policy roadshow, something I never would have thought I could do. Remembering that it has been possible helps me to hold on to the fact that it will be possible again. I am extremely glad that my party added healthcare to its core and especially grateful to the team that put together such a brilliant set of intersectional policies, which you can read in detail here.
This Time To Talk Day, my hope is for everyone to reach out and offer a chat over a cuppa tea, but to do so understanding that sometimes sharing that time with someone in silence may be just as healing - the words may go unsaid, but the gesture is still significant.
Milk? Sugar? #TimeToTalk #ItsOKToNotBeOK
This is the speech I gave last summer:
As a society, we need to be approaching and dealing with
mental ill health just as openly and seriously as physical ill health. The two often
go hand in hand, however we are more likely to have our physical symptoms fixed,
often missing out on treating the mental ones.
Even a broken leg could lead to mental support being needed to getting back up and walking on it again.
There is still a lot of work to do in education around mental illness to remove the stigma and enable communities to be more understanding and help one another, that includes within the medical profession.
I would like to see our doctors focus on needs-led, rather than diagnosis-led treatments, working through the causes of mental health issues, rather than focusing on the symptoms.
Less than 6% of government medical research funding in the UK is put into mental health, despite the prevalence of mental ill health in the population.
The vast majority of this research is funding to strengthen and support existing ideas, with considerably less going into prevention, detection and screening or developing treatments for mental illness. https://www.mqmentalhealth.org/articles/research-funding-landscape (2016)
My own internalised stigma around admitting to having any kind of mental health issues definitely did not help my situation. When I initially went to GP for some help, I was determined not to take any medication and was put on a 6 week CBT course. There was no follow up, no talk of what options were next.
I didn’t have any physical symptoms to ask the GP about, so I didn’t see any point – until two years later, when I was having daily panic attacks and suicidal thoughts, I was thankfully able to make myself go back.
I was then put on anti-depressants & added to the waiting list for some talking therapy. By then, I’d already left it at least a year longer than I should have done, I was sent a pamphlet on how to deal with stress whilst I waited for a phone call.
In the postcode lottery, I was one of the lucky ones and only waited 6 months, but again after 8 sessions, I was signed off as improved – which I was, but I knew I had a lot more work to do if I wanted to be able to do more than just get through each day.
Looking back, I find it incredible that at no point was there any conversation around support networks or longer term strategies for preventing me getting into that situation again. I decided to stop taking the anti-depressants, I just didn’t make an appointment for a repeat prescription, my GP hasn’t been in touch at all since (3 years now).
I am privileged to have had the resources, to have the time and finances, to be able to prioritise my mental health and find a private counsellor, who helped me make myself more than a ghost of a person. If I hadn’t been able to do that, I can see I would still be on the merry-go-round of short term sticky plasters.
I strongly believe we need a community approach, if there were a drop-in centre where you could make connections, speak to people who are going through or have experienced something similar, where staff can connect you to further services – be that NHS, private or charity, if you need them. Somewhere to talk through treatment options.
If this place had existed, and I’d been connected to it right back when I first asked for help in 2010, I don’t think it would have taken me until 2016 to feel like a solid human again.
63% of women in the UK experience some form of mental health problem in their lifetime with twice as many women as men diagnosed with anxiety disorders, which isn’t surprising when you consider the big role that inequality and discrimination can play in mental ill-health.
Women are more likely to live in poverty, live alone (particularly in older age) or to be carers for other people, all of which can contribute to poorer mental health.
Trauma and adverse childhood experiences such as sexual abuse, gender-based violence, war and displacement, are also key determinants.
We need to be looking at the cause of the increasing number of young people who are being diagnosed with anxiety and stress (exams & social media), the number of hospital admissions for anorexia in girls under 18 doubled in the UK between 2010 and 2017 (? Number of places increased? Article this week 30% decrease in number of NHS beds for mental health patients).
We need to ensure funding for specialist services are ring fenced, people with disabilities are more likely to also require mental health support. The LGBT+ community require support that understands the additional inequalities of being in a gender binary, heteronormative environment. We need to address the over-use of detention (‘sectioning’), particularly for people of colour.
There is the high incidence of suicide attempts by women experiencing domestic abuse and suicide is the biggest killer of women during the childbirth and early postnatal period.
Societal pressures are also causing the crisis in mental health in young men that is attributed to the way boys and men are socialised with a “toxic masculinity”.
Whilst women are more likely to attempt suicide, men are more likely to use more violent, fatal methods.
We will focus on delivering community-based services and trauma-informed therapeutic interventions - for example, instead of asking, “what is wrong with you?” asking “what happened to you?” and working through the causes of mental health issues rather focussing solely on the symptoms, designing and delivering services collaboratively with those who are using the services.
By mainstreaming mental health into all policy areas, we will restore the link between social injustice, social inequalities and individual or community distress. This will enable us to meet and prevent the main causes of poor mental health.
Even a broken leg could lead to mental support being needed to getting back up and walking on it again.
There is still a lot of work to do in education around mental illness to remove the stigma and enable communities to be more understanding and help one another, that includes within the medical profession.
I would like to see our doctors focus on needs-led, rather than diagnosis-led treatments, working through the causes of mental health issues, rather than focusing on the symptoms.
Less than 6% of government medical research funding in the UK is put into mental health, despite the prevalence of mental ill health in the population.
The vast majority of this research is funding to strengthen and support existing ideas, with considerably less going into prevention, detection and screening or developing treatments for mental illness. https://www.mqmentalhealth.org/articles/research-funding-landscape (2016)
My own internalised stigma around admitting to having any kind of mental health issues definitely did not help my situation. When I initially went to GP for some help, I was determined not to take any medication and was put on a 6 week CBT course. There was no follow up, no talk of what options were next.
I didn’t have any physical symptoms to ask the GP about, so I didn’t see any point – until two years later, when I was having daily panic attacks and suicidal thoughts, I was thankfully able to make myself go back.
I was then put on anti-depressants & added to the waiting list for some talking therapy. By then, I’d already left it at least a year longer than I should have done, I was sent a pamphlet on how to deal with stress whilst I waited for a phone call.
In the postcode lottery, I was one of the lucky ones and only waited 6 months, but again after 8 sessions, I was signed off as improved – which I was, but I knew I had a lot more work to do if I wanted to be able to do more than just get through each day.
Looking back, I find it incredible that at no point was there any conversation around support networks or longer term strategies for preventing me getting into that situation again. I decided to stop taking the anti-depressants, I just didn’t make an appointment for a repeat prescription, my GP hasn’t been in touch at all since (3 years now).
I am privileged to have had the resources, to have the time and finances, to be able to prioritise my mental health and find a private counsellor, who helped me make myself more than a ghost of a person. If I hadn’t been able to do that, I can see I would still be on the merry-go-round of short term sticky plasters.
I strongly believe we need a community approach, if there were a drop-in centre where you could make connections, speak to people who are going through or have experienced something similar, where staff can connect you to further services – be that NHS, private or charity, if you need them. Somewhere to talk through treatment options.
If this place had existed, and I’d been connected to it right back when I first asked for help in 2010, I don’t think it would have taken me until 2016 to feel like a solid human again.
63% of women in the UK experience some form of mental health problem in their lifetime with twice as many women as men diagnosed with anxiety disorders, which isn’t surprising when you consider the big role that inequality and discrimination can play in mental ill-health.
Women are more likely to live in poverty, live alone (particularly in older age) or to be carers for other people, all of which can contribute to poorer mental health.
Trauma and adverse childhood experiences such as sexual abuse, gender-based violence, war and displacement, are also key determinants.
We need to be looking at the cause of the increasing number of young people who are being diagnosed with anxiety and stress (exams & social media), the number of hospital admissions for anorexia in girls under 18 doubled in the UK between 2010 and 2017 (? Number of places increased? Article this week 30% decrease in number of NHS beds for mental health patients).
We need to ensure funding for specialist services are ring fenced, people with disabilities are more likely to also require mental health support. The LGBT+ community require support that understands the additional inequalities of being in a gender binary, heteronormative environment. We need to address the over-use of detention (‘sectioning’), particularly for people of colour.
There is the high incidence of suicide attempts by women experiencing domestic abuse and suicide is the biggest killer of women during the childbirth and early postnatal period.
Societal pressures are also causing the crisis in mental health in young men that is attributed to the way boys and men are socialised with a “toxic masculinity”.
Whilst women are more likely to attempt suicide, men are more likely to use more violent, fatal methods.
We will focus on delivering community-based services and trauma-informed therapeutic interventions - for example, instead of asking, “what is wrong with you?” asking “what happened to you?” and working through the causes of mental health issues rather focussing solely on the symptoms, designing and delivering services collaboratively with those who are using the services.
By mainstreaming mental health into all policy areas, we will restore the link between social injustice, social inequalities and individual or community distress. This will enable us to meet and prevent the main causes of poor mental health.
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