I cannot believe it has only been five days since I wrote my
manic Monday post. I am feeling distinctly odd after three consecutive nights
of very little sleep at all, trouble even with getting to sleep, as well as my old favourite - trouble staying asleep - which is my biggest problem.
I expect attending the judging panel for @womenoffuture (Women of the Future awards) this morning did not induce additional drowsiness! I was so excited to have the opportunity to talk about mental health and the need to end the stigma around this widely experienced and more widely misunderstood category of illnesses. I also felt tremendously grateful to be in a position to speak about it: mental health for me is one of our most critical health issues in this country and globally.
It continues to become more and more apparent that mental illness does not discriminate. Speaking today to the judges I remarked upon this. There is not one group of people I can think of - whether we think about gender, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, nationality, lifestyle, or life, in fact - where mental illness is not present. We may have 1 in 4 people with a mental illness in the UK, but that means that so very many more people are affected by their connections to those 1 in 4. Let's think of the mothers and fathers, the wives and husbands, the children, friends, work colleagues, medical professionals and strangers who are interacting every day with those 1 in 4. We are living in a world of tremendous pressure and challenge. I would be very surprised if many people at all were completely free of connection to someone with a mental illness (themselves or others).
The paradox is that while mental illness is everywhere, silence about it is also everywhere more often than not. We still do not talk about mental health comfortably. I try to, with my known background in this area serving as an "easy chair" to slide into for this discussion, but others who are speaking of their illnesses or struggles for the first time cannot gauge the reaction of others as there are so few precedents; cannot guarantee that when they take that huge step, that leap, risking so much, while so ill, to be honest about a part of them that is unwell and needs support, that they will get that support. They might not even receive acknowledgement, let alone respect and help.
The judges asked me what I would do if I won - what I thought needed to happen - to improve things. For me, it isn't about providing support mechanisms in the work place or better NHS care (although both of these things are absolutely critical and the latter is in dire need of help, with so many people excluded from care as they do not qualify for treatment based on basic statistics. For example, did you know that if you had an eating disorder and presented with a BMI of 17.1 (i.e. .9 points below the lowest 'healthy' weight for a height of about 5'5") that you would be turned away from A&E (the ER) and asked to return when your BMI had dropped further. You would not be deemed sick enough to receive care. "Please lose more weight." = "Please get sicker, and then maybe we can help you.")
This is what I said needed to happen, and what my focus for the next three years will be: "We need to make it normal for people to talk about their mental health."
Why did I say this?
Imagine if you had a very unpleasant spot on your face. You can use concealer to hide it, sure, but at the end of the day, you're very aware of a throbbing, red, sore, mass on your face that you know you'd far rather would disappear, and you're pretty sure everyone has noticed. But if you tell people about it, you're more likely to get empathy and shared stories (and recommendations of nuclear strength Clearasil), as well as perhaps the odd puerile cry of "That's gross" than have people fall silent, look down, say "Oh," and nothing more. Say nothing. Walk away.
Imagine if you could walk into the office, and on the second (or third) round of 'How are you?'s (because we know that the first is a saying hello, and the second might be a reflex action from the first) that you could say, "I'm feeling quite anxious today, so I didn't sleep that well" or "I'm feeling quite unwell mentally. I think I need to take it a bit easy today to try to prevent things getting worse." The latter statement makes perfect sense to me: you're not feeling well, and you've got to work / go to school / attend your child's school play / go and run errands. Therefore you see how you can reduce your 'to-do' list for the day so that hopefully those sniffles or early symptoms don't turn into flu (or, worse, man flu. Hor.ror.). And so your sick feeling isn't exacerbated by excessive travel.
Why is it, then, that we so rarely hear people say anything about their mental health? Why is 'presenteeism' (which is where people show up to work with a mental illness (or any other kind of illness) but pretend that they're fine when really they are not and probably shouldn't be at work) so prevalent in our world? Why do you so rarely hear people say that they are off sick "because of depression", rather than because of a cold, flu (man flu!), food poisoning, tonsilitis, etc?
I think the answer is, because hardly anyone says that. Still.
People don't say "I'm feeling depressed today" / "I'm feeling manic today and can't concentrate" / "I need to sleep today because my anxiety kept me up all night". People don't say it, so people aren't used to hearing it spoken of. And so people assume they can't say it themselves. They assume it's not an acceptable statement to make, and not a "good enough" reason to be absent from work.
We do - desperately- need to help people get the support that they need, but if they can't talk about it in the first place the likely outcome is that they won't seek help. They won't feel it's important/ a valid illness. And before that, they will not feel they can even mention it.
We know that men struggle more than women to even voice struggles with stress, anxiety, depression and so on. And not talking about this can be - literally - deadly. The number one cause of death among men aged 20-34 is suicide. And this could so often have been prevented by better comfort levels for saying: "I feel very anxious." "I need help." "I am not okay."
Gender / other factors aside, the bottom line is that people really feel they cannot talk about their struggles with mental health (even with stress). They feel ashamed, weak, less than. Like they mean nothing.
This is so wrong. We all matter and we all deserve respect, courtesy, kindness and care - for ourselves and others. If we could change this situation and make talking about our mental health as easy as discussing a nasty spot or, say, a broken arm, shingles, or flu, this would mean that our serious and debilitating illnesses would not be worsened by the massive shame we would associate with having them. I personally have berated myself, hated myself, shamed myself and been disgusted with myself for being ill with depression. Why? Why is my illness so shameful?
It isn't.
If I had not been so ashamed I firmly believe I would never have become so ill. I know that because being honest with my team is the same as making me feel instantly lighter. I haven't had to pretend I'm fine when I'm not, which in the past twenty years at school, university, in my jobs to date, I have done, and which has made me feel more ill: not just sick, but sickened by myself, by my sickness.
So that is where I would start. With more conversations until mental health conversations are "normal". Until people feel they can say, "Today I'm depressed." "Today I'm anxious." "I need help please." "I need to take a day or two off." And I can't wait to get that conversation going again any chance I get, and definitely at the Women of the Future summit in October. In the meantime, let's talk about mental illness and mental health. We all have mental health. Let's make it easier to make time to talk about it. Please help by starting your own conversations.
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