How I Turned into an Acorn.

Two years ago I had a nervous breakdown. Just before I did so I had been part of a new Council initiative. My brief concerned Mental Health in the U25 group. At the end of last year I came across what I had written and scrubbed the whole thing. I, too, have come to accept I shall never recover; so a couple of months ago I wrote this. I’ve divided it in two and am posting the conclusions & possible solutions first. Because it’s positive. It might even open a dialogue?

                                                            

                                                              

When I began to look into Mental Health in the 18 - 25 age group it was almost immediately  apparent that there is a huge black hole. Students; middle class people living with parents; and the reasonably well-educated; are socially placed to access and receive help from a number of organizations, including: 5^th Sector programmes; local Council initiatives; University support groups; private charities.

 There is very little that single parents with Mental Health problems have access to if they fall within the same age-range. The problems of many of these premature parents are compounded by the high numbers whose lack of education is due to learning difficulties.

 I compiled a folder of personal anecdotes garnered both from my building (16 flats where at least one occupant in each flat has mental problems and is on medication), from homeless people in doorways, from interns at work, from recovery centres, and from people on public transport – if not directly on the Clapham Bus.

It is from both  my own experiences and the pooled resources of many Brighton & Hove residents that I have learnt of the tragic and ongoing ways in which failure to provide adequate mental health care  - across the board  - contributes to our homeless problems, societal imbalances and the problems of youth brought up with parents who are unable to deal with their own lives, let alone achieve the confidence or competency to guide their children.

All across the country – and in conjunction with other countries – skill-sharing, inter-disciplinary cooperation, and problem-solving has begun to flourish. Thus, from inside the UK to all corners of the world there are courses, initiatives, information, and proven tactics which could benefit not just those with existing mental problems but safeguard others from mental ill-health in Britain.

  There are volunteers from all walks of life, from different countries and cultures, and many who have training, experience – either theoretical or lived - with mental health. There is little point in waiting for more funding, or making plans for what to do once one has access to any.

NHS is incompetent and their Mental Health programme is shamefully inadequate.  Given this current reality I think we have to accept that nothing

is going to change within the formal sector.  It is, therefore, imperative that the 5^th sector focuses on the broad picture of what is needed countrywide.  Wonderful work is being done by discrete groups working on  aspects of mental health all over not just the city, but in the country as a whole.

 It would seem to me that, if we all came together and opened lines of communication between health carers, professionals and consumers; if we could provide the same level of support and health to all ; if we were in constant dialogue with those in other countries who had put in place structures which worked; and if we harnessed the experience of those people who have lived or who continue to live with mental illness; AND if we could work in conjunction with the  health carers – picking up the slack in some of those dangerous black holes; it CAN work. I’ve seen it happen.

Once started, for example, we might be able to embark upon the same kind of consciousness raising and national education which has turned Australia around from failing to deal with this aspect of society,  to becoming leaders in many of the schemes that have been put in place. (Something  several B & H mental health workers mentioned to me independently.)

I know that it makes sense that when a treatment has proved effective, mental health workers in the 5^th sector spend money to train people, and pass on the training in order to reach  a large number of people.

But one size definitely does NOT fit all, and a programme that will work with one person can be a bad fit for another: depending on their illness, their vulnerability and their individualism.

However, ever since I became ill the treatment du jour has been Mindfulness.  From the NHS itself to recovery centres, to independent charities: if you have a mental illness you do Mindfulness.

Now I’m Patient A and I’m bi-polar. Patient B hadn’t been able to walk outside his apartment in  months. Both of us, through different agencies, were offered only mindfulness therapy to help with the kinds of problems for which mindfulness AND group therapy was anathema. We were both led to believe that if we did NOT take up the offer we’d get no further help.

Perhaps, across the city, our very healthy 5^th Sector could result in more diverse kinds of help; which would reach out to the very diverse population of this city of artists and eccentrics and the kinds of people who slip through cracks?

If some sectors elected to train in one particular therapy – such as the very effective Mindfulness – which did prove to have a good success rate then, if we all worked in concert, rather than isolation, that provides the opportunity for another group to train in  another conventional programme. While a third goes for equally effective non-traditional programmes.  This way a broader spectrum of people can be helped: IF this information is made available across the City to ALL health carers. Help can not only be delivered speedily but – as importantly – relevantly.

Non-conventional therapies don’t begin and end with acupuncture and homeopathy.  Laughter Yoga proved to be one of our most effective tools – and it’s something Brits could indeed benefit from!  We also did Patch Adams courses; and those with lived experience were invaluable in forming discussion groups, training as facilitators, conducting support groups, mediation, visiting schools, and providing support for those who wanted to start their own support groups.

Eventually these and many other patient-initiated groups were consulted about proposed changes to the State health provider. Their opinions were solicited alongside those of mental health practitioners. This input helped turn the whole system around.

Our problems with Mental Health in Brighton are becoming endemic: in the Council block in which I live, at least one person in each of the 16 households is on permanent medication. All of us are survivors of suicide and self-harm events.  Four of the mothers of small babes are Under 25; and they have no hope that their lives will ever improve.

Because not once has anyone ever said to any of them that word I mentioned earlier: “recovery”.

They’ll be classed mentally ill for the rest of their lives – and they will be. They take their pills, try out someone else’s, compare symptoms and effects…because they have had to accept that medication is the only thing that gets them through each day. And will do so all their lives.

Already one of them has been told by her Health Worker that her 3 year old is ADHD. She now accepts that, too.

This is outrageous, inefficient, gives no thought to recovery, wastes millions of pounds, and has no visible effect.

 Being brought up by a parent who considers her life futile, who has been told she must go through her life as a Mental Patient,  and who has been given no support, often results in the child itself being diagnosed: Like Mum, like child. The situation is being perpetuated.

If there is no money available to put effective Mental Health care in reach of those who need it, then we have to change our thinking.  Stop relying on short grants to establish short projects with limited time-bases.  Stop unanimously accepting NHS projects without consultation and discussion with care-givers, patients and families.

We need desperately to stop looking upon Mental Health patients as ‘those we have to help’ but instead allow them to help themselves.  We need actively to search out those with lived experience to complement those with theoretic knowledge if we are seriously looking to improve our game.  We must get used to looking at people with mental health issues not, as I urged previously, as ‘broken’ people but as rich resources to help with the delivery of a workable solution to coping with these issues.

And, for god’s sake, we need to get over the Middle-class morality which ensures that the moment a patient uses ‘foul language’ skirts are drawn tighter, lips purse, and lectures(! ) or complete abandonment result.

Linguistically, there’s no difference between a lazy speaker who says ‘basically’ or ‘literally’ or “silo” ten times in each sentence, and one who says ‘fuck’ or ‘cunt’ with the same frequency.

If a care-giver is unaware of the difference between verbal abuse and linguistic habits that have formed over a person’s life-time then, frankly, they should not be dealing with people who are enduring  mental health problems. We are not at our best at these times.

Anyone who is incapable of seeing past the ‘obscenity’ to a suffering person who is sharing the contents of their minds in the only language they have, is too self-absorbed ever to be able to offer any real help or insight to a suffering human being from a different class.

At the time of (re)writing the world is in trouble:  with a new regime in another country, we are  dealing with fear, distress and the fact that all our cherished rights – some of which have been over 2,000 years in the making – are in danger of being rolled back. We all need our wits about us.

One way of resistance is to ensure that we don’t go down the same path of divisiveness, misunderstanding, and drawing up of battle lines.  Now, more than at any other time, we need to work in a spirit of co-operation and sharing; we need to bring people in out of the cold, we need to take responsibility and… we need our sanity .