Article + Interview

Mental health is something that affects 1 in 10young people between the ages of 5 and 16 on a daily basis. It is nosecret that mental health disorders are becoming more common, but howare these young people supported? According to the Mental HealthFoundation in 2006, the amount of young people admitted to hospitalfrom self harm has increased by 68% in the last ten years.Debilitating conditions such as depression, anxiety, sleep disorders,eating disorders and schizophrenia have a long lasting strain on apersons life. Daily functions such as taking care of yourself in themost simple ways become a hurdle to overcome, let alone attempting tosucceed, to get an education, to land your dream job. But mostly, thealienation that comes with the stigma of mental health is a battlemany are facing on a daily basis. So why, if figures are rising andemotional struggles are becoming more common, does understanding andsupport seem to come so irregularly?

1: How does mental illness affect your daily life?

N) Mental health affects my daily life in a quiteserious way. I feel like everyday is different, some days you’llwake up and you’ll feel fine, somedays you’ll wake up and feel soalone. Like there’s a dark cloud over your life, that you’llnever be able to get out of. It’s hard because you can’t seemental illness, so a lot of the time people think you’re attentionseeking, a burden or over-exagerrating, when infact you’re theperson who needs some help.

Z) Every Damn day. You can have a few good days ora few weeks where you think you’re really succeeding and then outof no where you're in the bathroom, trapped in the abyss of your mindwondering why? Why am I like this? There's no point in any of it,doing or being anything. Crashing and burning, worn out from my ownthinking and the effects of life. Walking to town seems like themost daunting task and for that day I'll be proud that I left thehouse, even though the whole way there I had music consuming my earcanals, eyes fixed dead centre or down because If I start becomingaware of my surroundings, my mind will take over. You seep throughthe cracks of humanity, struggling with the simplest of dailyactivities and people assume you're lazy - always being the strangeris difficult.

L) It's usually pretty constant, but with baddays come good days days. If I'm feeling shit and anxious ordepressed, I usually just have to roll with it. But if it gets reallybad I usually need to moap around for a few days to get it out of mysystem. A lot of people don't usually get it and think I'm lazy andunsociable. But fuck them its how I get by.

2: How is your work or education affected?

N) Anxiety makes education really hard because yousecond-guess everything that you do. Even if people are telling youthat you’re okay and that you’re on-track, whether that belecturers/friends, something in your brain is always telling you thatyou can’t do it and you’re going to fail. It makes it difficultto progress with your work when your thoughts aren’t positive.

Z) It stops and hinders interacting, which is ahuge part in studio sessions and group work. Over thinking andfeeling constantly analysed, which might be because you haven't beenin for 3 weeks because you've put off going in for this exact reason,yet it doesn't disappear even if you go in feeling like 'fuck this,I'm here for me and only me' a massive reaction is triggered in yourbrain and you forget how to talk to people. Walking into the room andsitting down is one of the most challenging things. For me personallywork is one of the only places I'm ok, I think it's because I play arole in my head , I serve them and its over, everyone knows what tosay, it's already be spoken, its routine.

L) My anxiety caused me to have a panic attack around my resubmission dates, making me fail and have to defer a year because of it. And if that didn’t suck enough, the thought of going back after a year is twice as sickening. God knows how fun that’s going to be. If its not the anxiety of the workload I'm going to be facing it'll be the dickheads I have to interact with on a day to day basis. Telling me to go do all this stuff that involves more unwanted interaction with other dickheads.

3: Would you say your peers/bosses/teachers treatyou fairly and with understanding/support? Are your needs met withconsideration?

N) Yes and no. It depends on the person. I’vemet friends who understand my mental health issues, but then I’vealso come across many people in this educational establishment whohaven’t. I feel like it’s hard for people to understand becauseit’s not a visible disability, so unless you are very vocal aboutyour mental health issues people can mistake it for other things,which means they don’t want to help you as much. There are placesyou can go such as counselling, that are quite helpful. But becausefunding is always cut for mental health facilities, it makes it quitedifficult when you can’t get the full help you need because it’snot always there.

Z) Depends on who they are and how long they'veknow. If the person you’re interacting with knows your personalsituation or has been through it first hand they'll have some sort ofinkling of understanding. Close Friends mostly understand, howeverpeers not really, you can easily be cast out. In the educationalsystem it's still vastly over looked and it's still very stigmatised.Support can be arranged if you notify and talk to a fair few peopleand this is troubling to go through as it is. Your personalcircumstances are greatly overlooked, to struggle with mental healthsometimes you just want to high five your face with a wall due toyour peers/bosses/tutors incompetence and/or ignorance.

L) In a work environment its not really brought upunless I find myself so unwell I have to force myself to take a dayoff. That usually depends on how broke I am. But having to call insick because im “too depressed” or “too anxious” hasn’tbeen an issue so far. I've found that people usually say theyunderstand as they've been through it before. Whether that’sbullshit or not because people don't know what to say, who knows.Either way its something people can't easily question.

4: Do you feel safe voicing your experiences withmental health in daily life?

N) It depends who I’m around because I’m quiteopen about my history with mental health issues depending on who I’maround. If I feel like I’m in a safe environment, I’m quite vocalbecause I feel like it is something that is not spoken about enough.To change people’s opinions on mental health you need to speakabout it, there needs to be a spearhead for this quite seriousproblem among young people in our society today. On the other hand,speaking out sometimes gets you tarnished with the brush of ‘crazy’or 'attention seeking’ or 'acting out’ when in fact, a lot of thetime this stuff is just a cry for help from somebody who just reallyneeds a support system that they don’t have.

Z) If my experiences are voiced in my daily Lifeit would be to those who know me very well, which I would feel okabout. When we start thinking about discussing mental health it canget into a divided and hot topic, sometimes it can be a revelation asthe people its being discussed and shared with actually haveknowledge/understanding/experience or its brushed off with 'attentionseeking' or 'just get a grip of yourself'. Preconceived Ideas, beingjudged and not fitting into societies norms can affect whether or notyou feel its safe to voice your personal experiences.

L) It depends on the situation and the context. Ifit's my art or anything creative, my mental health is usually part ofthe process, which inevitably comes out in the final product. If I'mtalking to someone who I have a connection with or I know they canunderstand it from my mindset and is/has been going through similaror relatable things then that usually makes it easier to talk about.But I think if I'm being honest I rarely speak about it to anyone.

5: What standard of care have you experiencedrelated to mental health through the NHS?

N) I’ve been receiving care from the NHS formental health issues since I was about 6-7. My initial contact withfacilities such as counselling through the NHS was quite a negativeexperience. I felt quite forced into it and like a lot of people weretreating me as if I were crazy. But I wasn’t, I just neededsomebody to talk to. I feel like the negative experiences I have had,have made it very difficult for me to continue on with services suchas that, because it’s tainted my view of people that are inpositions to help you. Because funding is cut a lot of the time, whenyou do want to go back to services like that, they’re not availableor you have to pay. This makes it very difficult if you’re from alow-income background to be able to pay for services such as that. Itmakes it difficult to progress to a better place. My experiences morerecently with the NHS and their connection with mental health issuesand facilities has been quite difficult. Medication and counsellingservices do help, but I feel like there’s just not enough educationon it. There’s not enough information on it given freely for peopleto make decisions on their own as to where they can go. Once they arein a position to go somewhere, because the funding is cut there isalways a time limit. Mental health is not something that goes awayafter five sessions, it’s going to be with you (probably) for therest of your life. It’s all about managing it but it’s hard tomanage it when you feel like you’re on a time scale.

Z) Since the age of 13 or 14, around 17 at thatage I was either being referred from one doctor to another.Conducting psychology tests and figuring out what their options forme were because when you cross the line of 18 things start to changein the NHS system, waiting lists grow and self help I feel can beheavily weighed on, which isn't the easiest thing to do when you'refighting your own mind. The Lack of funding is a big problem,services are spread very thinly and correct care and help isn'talways achieved.

The NHS is great in theory, however where mentalillness is only recently, lets say the last 40 years been lookedinto, only now are we starting to see small and I mean smallcampaigns to get this medical knowledge out into the public, tonotify people that these things do happen to people and it's not ashameful thing.

There's no quick fix or cure with depression (andmost mental illnesses) many people assume ssri (antidepressants)will fix you, this is an incorrect view and understanding for thereactual use. Long term support/help is being overlooked, this is wheresome people can... lets say relapse and become lost to the system.

My standard of care was below mediocre.

L) I've not really had much NHS care when its cometo my mental health. I didn’t think that my mental health was athing until I was around 17, when I started talking to people whosaid it was a thing. And I realised that my feelings could be validrather than something I had to suppress.

I just know there’s no point in getting mentalhealth care from the NHS. I've heard horror stories from people aboutantidepressants, as well as how nurses and doctors have horriblymistreated and spoken horribly to there patients. I just think “whywould I want to put myself through that” why would anyone if theyalready had problems want to add more stress on top of that?