Everything today is, or will be, a ‘game-changer’. The antibody test to see if you have had COVID-19? A game-changer. The chancellor’s ‘furlough’ system to save jobs? A game-changer. Football, Prince William and Our Mental Health on BBC One? A game-changer. Well, none of them are game-changers and certainly not the last one.
However, far from being critical of Prince William, I happen to feel he deserves our unqualified support and indeed thanks for keeping the subject of mental health alive because no other bugger seems interested, certainly not Boris Johnson and his wretched government. Let me give you an example of what I mean.
As my loyal reader will know, I finally bowed to the inevitable last week and contacted my GP regarding my latest blip. And as usual, she was mightily caring and supportive – and I mean this sincerely, friends – until it came to the bit about what could be done. To cut a short story even shorter, for your average basket case (like me) the answer is nothing. Despite the advice from the government that the NHS is open for business for all sorts of stuff, as well as just COVID-19, actually to all intents and purposes, it isn’t.
For emergencies, you’ll get seen. Heart attack, stroke and serious physical illness, call 999. Need sectioning, Sir? Yes, we can probably cope with that, too. Minor to intermediate poor physical and mental health? Well, there are these long waiting lists, you see. Can you come back in 2022?
I suppose as I am not actively considering self-harm and suicide, just the occasionally passing dark thoughts, I’m low risk. No point in putting me on the waiting list, then, and no real point in increasing my medication because I’m near the top end of what’s safe anyway. Translation? There’s nothing here for you.
That’s fair enough, I suppose, because there are plenty of people who are much worse off than I am. I know that doesn’t help me much because that’s the guilt trip us mental people go through in order to convince ourselves that we don’t want to be seen as whingeing and complaining. “Look at your life and what you have! There’s people who’d die (not literally) to be in your shoes.” Yes, they probably would be. But I am not them and they are not me.
We’re told often enough by politicians and commentators alike that this virus will have a great effect on people’s mental health. Not just those of us who have suffered with poor mental health in the past but also those who have never had problems before. So, everyone knows the problem. It’s just that currently there’s no solution, apart from Prince William making an excellent TV show on the subject. Well, thanks for this, Messrs Cummings and Johnson. Thanks for nothing.
At least my GP has made my ADHD referral. “There’s a very long waiting list,” she added. “How long?” I could have asked, but why bother? It took me 15 months to get therapy after I was bullied and abused by the British Red Cross. I’m expecting a similar, or even longer, wait with this one.
Mental heath equality with physical health? Do me a favour. Never has been, never will be if things carry on like this. All the great work from Prince William, Stephen Fry, MIND, Heads Together et al is just well-meaning white noise in the grand scheme of things.
‘It’s okay to not be okay’ is nothing more than a collection of words, a slogan in place of a policy, designed to make us all feel better. In my life, it’s never been okay to not be okay. If we don’t progress from words to actions, it never will be.
