World Mental Health Day - Dignity

Today is World Mental Health Day, run by the World Federation for Mental Health. Since 1992, the annual event has aimed to raise awareness about mental health around the world. Of course, I do nothing but prattle on about mental health, so a special day for raising awareness isn’t something I’d usually consider (why not all 365?), but this year the theme is dignity, which isn’t something I’ve spoken about much.

A lot of dignity revolves around stigma, and the fact that there’s still a stigma around mental health is crazy. In a single year, 1 in 4 adults and 1 in 10 children suffer with a mental health problem. To put it into perspective, 1 in 10 children are obese when they start primary school, 1 in 10 children are abused, 1 in 10 children are bullied via social media. 1 in 10 children is not a lot.

Now I’m not saying that any issue is more important than another, I have no right to create a hierarchy of things and I wouldn’t even know where to start if I did, but the other issues have a much bigger national discussion. Of course, they are still problems and are still a long way from being solved, each with its own type of stigma, but people are talking about them. People are now making an effort to tell children to be on the lookout for bullying and abuse, to eat their carrots and run around a field for a while. The same kind of discussion doesn’t seem to exist for mental health.

I knew absolutely nothing about mental health when I first started suffering, I was told that it was a phase, that it was just ‘becoming a teenager’. I was told that my life was changing as I was growing older and that I would get over it and should enjoy things while I’m young. The media told me that it was just serial killers and mass murderers that suffered inside. That if people felt like something wasn’t wrong in a certain way, then they were probably from a bad background and were violent people. Nobody told me that it was okay to be depressed. At one point, I had an emo phase (as many teenagers do) and I was told that my feelings and behaviours were linked to that.

We need to stop this dialogue with children and teach them facts about mental health. Children should be taught how to recognise it, that this illness needs combatting or it’s not going to go away. I almost killed myself before I was told something wasn’t right, before I spoke to a medical professional. In school, we’re taught about diabetes, kidney failure and obesity, but I was never formally taught about mental health until I was doing an A level in psychology. Do you know how many children suffer with type 1 diabetes? 24.5 per 100,000, or just 0.0025 in 10. I’m not saying that it’s not important to learn about these physical problems, because it is, and I’ve never felt like my education on them has gone to waste. I like being informed on problems that people face because it means that I can help and discuss them in an adult way if I need to. What I am saying is that we need to add to this education.

Mental health problems are so common, yet we are taught to stay quiet about them, that it’s something to be ashamed of. It isn’t at all. Nothing that common should ever be a source of shame. I was reading my CBT book earlier this week and it pointed out that depression (among other mental health problems, but the book primarily focuses on depression) isn’t a bad thing. It’s a part of our evolution to keep us safe. Many animals have the capacity to become depressed. It dulls our socialisation so that we don’t try to take over too much of our ‘pack’ or society. It reminds us that we have to take time out in our lives before we wear ourselves out. It keeps us out of danger. Only sometimes, it goes a little too far in doing so and instead makes daily life a struggle for many people. The thing to take is that it’s natural. It’s never your fault, humans are incredibly complicated creatures and sometimes things go a bit wrong.

The statistics I quoted above are from the general population and things are improving, but it’s when you get to minority groups that things get scary. Black people are more likely to suffer with their mental health than white people, but their problems are less likely to be noticed by their GP. Around half of female prisoners have experienced anxiety and depression, compared with 23% of men. LGBT people are two to three times more likely to suffer with a mental health problem than heterosexual people. In 2009, a study of female refugees found that 57% suffered with PTSD and 20% had experience suicidal thoughts in the past 7 days. These statistics are frightening. Mental illnesses are so common, yet rarely spoken about in public.

Now statistics can mean everything to some people and not really say much to others. So if you take anything from this post and from World Mental Health Day, I want it to be this: you do not have to be diagnosed with an illness to start looking after your mental health. Everyone has bad days, days where they struggle, places they feel uncomfortable and things they just can’t bring themselves to do. That’s okay. Don’t be afraid to tell people when you’re not comfortable and when you want to take time for yourself. If you don’t want to do something, never feel obliged to do it. It’s okay to grab a cup of tea and stay wrapped up in a blanket for a day. But if you feel like those negative feelings are becoming too common, then speak to someone.