“Mental health support services are a joke”, said an old friend of mine, referring to the state of NHS mental services. She’s not wrong about that. Another friend waited nine months for help and only then received it when she was at crisis point. This is not quite the world Theresa May promised us.
My loyal and long-suffering reader will have read quite enough about what might laughably known as my “fight” against depression and anxiety. Some fight! I am Alan Carr in a catchweight contest against Anthony Joshua. It’s not going well.
After an age, I have now been offered the possibility of group sessions to “focus on helping (me) to move forward”, once a course facilitator can be found. I suppose I should be grateful for (very) small mercies but this time I am not. A recent examination revealed, to no one’s surprise, least of all mine,a diagnosis including high levels of clinical depression and anxiety. I am not an expert on the treatment of mental illness but I know enough about my own to suspect that a few weeks of group sessions may not represent the closure I seek. My innate cynicism leads me to believe that this will be time wasted. I’ll attend, whenever it comes along, but one thing with mental health treatment is that you need to believe in it from the start, or at least have reasons to believe it might work.
Our wretched prime minister, the aforementioned Mrs May, was shown in the recent general election to be hopelessly out of her depth, so much so that Labour’s worst ever leader ran her unexpectedly close. She spoke in 2016 about the “burning injustice” of “not having enough help to hand” if you suffer from mental health problems. She spoke about “extra” money for mental health but it was not “new” money. With the smoke and mirrors of an admittedly pound shop prime minister, May attempted to convince the public, especially those suffering from the “burning injustice” she described, that a new day was dawning for mental health treatment, that soon we would get the treatment we need and, I would say, deserve. As with anything involving May, hers were just words, empty, meaningless words; the right thing to say at the time. Things are much worse now.
Honestly, I am flattened by the belated news that I have at last moved from the waiting list to get on the waiting list to be a name on a list which will be acted upon once a course facilitator can hopefully be found. These are very good people, trying to make the best of a bad job in trying circumstances. I would wager that the services they are going to offer are the best they can come up with. It is not local medical professionals who are starving the NHS. It would be like someone with a severe disability blaming the DWP staff member for pathetic benefit rates or blaming the police for the activities of criminals.
I am lucky in that I bump along the bottom. I function well for work, I am able to string the odd sentence together, I can do some stuff at home, albeit at a low level. As I now work for a compassionate and caring employer, I do not expect to be forced into another mental breakdown like the one last year that explains my current mental ill health. If I don’t have medical support in place, barring anti-depressants, I have an informal coalition keeping me on track. That is why I am the lucky depressive and it is why I am able to be the happy depressive.
I am always inspired when people in the public eye “come out” about their mental health. To me, it takes immense courage because there is still an enormous stigma about the illness. When you hear a famous sportsman, for example, tell their powerful stories and urge others to see their GP, the world is a better place. The problem is when that GP is unable to give you more than a printed sheet showing you where you can source treatment, like group meetings. It is the right thing to do to visit your GP, especially if the need is deep and urgent because you are more likely to get specialist treatment. For bog standard mental health sufferers, from those with mild symptoms (which are in themselves horrendous) to the severe symptoms and beyond, it is hit and hope, in my opinion shit and hopeless.
Mental illness knows no bounds. It does not respect money, success, families, colour, sex, sexual orientation, age; absolutely nothing. A week in the Priory will cost somewhere near £5k a week, your average private therapy can cost anything between £120 and £400 a month, but sometimes much, much more than that. Which leaves for some of us, discussion groups. At least if you are well off, you will probably get something better than a group session.
Now you can see why, increasingly, the answer to all mental health issues is drugs. A bit low, a bit anxious, a bit stressed – take some tablets: they’ll take the edge off. And in the long term? Take some more tablets, increase the dose if you need to. “Any chance of some therapy? Mrs May said the absence of adequate mental health care was a “burning injustice. She means it: she’s the PM. “I’m very clear about this. Depression means depression. We need a Great British depression.” “Hear, hear,” say the backbenchers.
Yes, mental health services are a joke, just not a very funny joke. There are many, many people much worse off than I am, with their lives ruined far more than mine has been. At least I can be the happy depressive from time to time, not least because being happy has little to do with my depression. An unhappy depressive is in the worst place imaginable and what’s worse is that the government doesn’t seem to care. No. It really doesn’t care.
And as mental health becomes a national epidemic, the less our leaders do about it. What a time to be alive, even if we don’t always feel it is.
