The last Conservative government (2010-2014) pared NHS mental health services to the bone, with only those with immediate life-threatening conditions and those with cases of supposedly minor depression and anxiety eligible for treatment. The vast majority of us in the middle, including this humble blogger, have been abandoned to their fate. I had become resigned to having to live with the effects of clinical depression and my late diagnosed ADHD with the assistance of some drugs which are supposed to take the edge off the former. Sometimes the drugs do work and sometimes they don’t. Having given up in the hope of getting any kind of treatment, I decided to press the nuclear button: suicide.
I must emphasise that I do not mention this subject lightly. I have lost a number of friends and acquaintances to suicide, as have a number of friends and acquaintances. I know the life-changing effects the suicide of a loved-one can have. So, before pressing the button, I thought things through. Have I ever got close to killing myself? No. Have I ever had thoughts of suicide? Yes and the thoughts usually pass quite quickly. Have I ever thought about a preferred method of suicide? See my previous answer. At my recent health MOT (passed, but with some advisories), I raised the subject of my depression and ADHD as I always do, asking whether there was anything new our local medics can do to help me. As my health professional and I chatted, the S word came up. Had I ever considered suicide? The answers were as above.
Clearly, health professionals are trained to react to such stark admissions and soon we were deep into suicide territory. And it was far more difficult to explain how I felt and had always felt. In short, no matter how bad I felt my life had been, there was always something to cling on to. Living was always a better option than dying. I was aware that, in my life, that was a line that had not been crossed. Yet, for all that, I have often wondered whether the world in general and my own little world in particular would be a better place without me. For most of the time, I felt it wouldn’t. Suddenly, the wheels of mental healthcare appeared to turn.
The healthcare professional sprung into action and I was referred to a private company who are paid to carry out mental health work on behalf of the NHS. They would contact me within three working days. True to their word, someone from the company called me last night, asking me a series of questions, the main one being: have you considered killing yourself? The answer to that is almost entirely no, but there were a number of supplementary questions asking the exact same thing. Once the caller was satisfied that I wan’t about to kill myself, normality resumed. After being advised to contact 111 (or 999 if things were really grim) or even Samaritans (“do you have their number?”), I had satisfied him that I was not going to end it all, he said that someone would be in touch to give me a full mental health assessment but – and here’s the rub – “we have a long waiting list at the moment”, not adding, “And you’re at the back of it.”
I do understand all this. No mental health professional would want to have a suicide to explain to their manager and the questioning, I felt, was more than just arse-covering. Having said that, I do not expect a single thing to change. My assessment will probably be held over the telephone and not face-to-face, or even worse electronically via the internet. I’d like to say I have an open mind about what will happen following an assessment, if I live long enough to have one, but I don’t. This is the road most travelled for me and it always ends with an insurmountable brick wall. My guess is that I will be offered a few weeks of basic counselling and then be told that I can’t have any more drugs. At which point, I will be thinking, yet again: why did I bother?
At this point, it is worth me saying this. If you, dear reader, are in the midst of a severe mental health crisis, then please go to a GP, call 111 (or 999) or call Samaritans (116 123) because it can be treated, your life can be saved. By the same token, if you are feeling depressed and anxious, the NHS can help. The NHS is good at this stuff, the big issues and the little ones. And even if you are like me, among that 80% in the middle (I just made up that percentage, but I suspect I am not far out), go and bother your GP anyway. Maybe if we all labour the point more often, then one day the powers that be may do something about it.
I have had my myriad of physical conditions thoroughly reviewed by my local health centre and I am very grateful for that. My mental health, less so. That, it seems, doesn’t matter, at least to the government that funds the NHS. If I am not long for this world, I suspect it will be my physical failings that do me first because my mental failings, while grim, are not currently an immediate threat to my wellbeing.
I’m going to carry on because that’s really all I can do. And they key to it is that I still want to carry on. I feel that millions of us feel this way and all we wish is that mental health was regarded as equal to physical health. That it isn’t is why so many people commit suicide and lead miserable lives. If our NHS can fix our broken bones, it can fix our broken minds, too. And I am going to keep banging on about it for as long as I am alive.
