What thing would help people's mental health

To get to the root of the problem, rather than treating the mental health crisis that it causes.

Personally I think the following are big players in causing the MH problem:

• too much choice and information at our fingertips 24/7. This in itself creates stress as there’s too much continuous decision making and you are never certain if you’ve made the right choice. When my gran was furnishing her house or choosing her holiday she went to the local dept store or the local travel agent and chose from a limited amount of options. Then the choice was made and she could move on happy that she had made the right choice.

• breakdown of multigenerational living, meaning parents are left on their own to do everything, and children are raised in a smaller group of people than they would have been.

• the expectation of a standard of living that is high and sophisticated compared to 70 years ago, such as having two cars, owning your own home, having multiple TVs, eating out, going on holiday, paying for entertainment subscriptions etc etc. this means both parents have to work to support it and it creates a ton of extra admin that needs to be sorted out outside of work

• high rental / housing prices, also meaning people have to work longer hours

how any of this is solved though is beyond me, as it has become ingrained in our society as natural progression

I have worked in mental health provision in various contexts. Some of the reasons people don't get what they need:

Often the waiting times are too long. 18 months to 2 years in some IAPT services.

Waiting lists for CAMHS are insane - young people frequently age out of eligibility having waited for years without being seen.

Often when people are offered treatment, it's 6 sessions with a trainee therapist - which is nowhere near enough support for someone with complex, longstanding and serious mental health issues.

People have varying needs, and getting help for the particular difficulty (or set of difficulties) you're facing is key.

Someone with a spot of moderate work-related stress might just need some psychoeducation, and practical support such as career guidance, or communication skills training (though often the issue is solved by moving to a job or workplace that's not shit!).

Someone with schizophrenia may need to see a psychiatrist in the context of a multi-professional team.

Someone with complex trauma who is dependent on multiple substances is going to need intensive, ongoing, multi-disciplinary intervention.

Someone with anorexia is going to need specific eating disorder support (and possibly also an autism evaluation).

Someone with dementia needs a different kind of mental health support than someone who doesn't have dementia.

Etc etc.

Part of the trouble is that if there's nobody to correctly assess what the problems are you're dealing with, and consider them within the wider context of your life circumstances and physical health status, you may never be referred to a service that could potentially make a difference.

If you only get 7 minutes with your GP, often over the phone (and it's hard enough even to get a GP appointment at many surgeries), and their first port of call is to put you on SSRIs and stick you on a general counselling waiting list, it might be years (or never) before anyone spots you have dementia, or complex trauma.

Plus, most people aren't going to tell their GP (who they've likely never met before, over the course of a 7 minute phone appointment) they are starving themselves, or addicted to fentanyl, or suffering flashbacks to horrific sexual abuse that they feel ashamed about, or losing their memory, or hearing voices.

It's miraculous, given the system we're working in, that as many people as they do get helpful support. But it's a pretty grim outlook overall.

I went to my GP get help for a physical health problem. They said the waiting list for treatment was very long (I’m still on it) but due to my pain and lack of sleep they could give me antidepressants. Lots of ‘mental health’ problems are actually physical health problems not treated.

This may sound naive but I believe what would help people is if they felt connected socially.
So many people have no support network and it has an enormous effect on their mental health. Some people find when they have mental health problems, their friends fall by the wayside, and they rapidly find themselves incredibly isolated.
I heard the opposite of addiction isn't sobriety, it's connection.
Loneliness is soul destroying and has such a detrimental effect on a person's mental health.

Completely agree @XenoBitch . What would help would be a major cash injection to the mental health services but the government don't give a shit so they keep giving them less and less

Mental health is such a broad thing, that there is no one size fits all help for it.
What can work for one person, could possibly not work for another.

I think a good way to ask is "what does help look like to you?". However, when I have been in crisis, that can be very difficult to answer. I just want to stop feeling, and having the thoughts that I do.

For some, that help could be in the form of hospital... in a safe environment where they can be started on new meds. For others, it is just having someone to talk to and unpack things with.

Sadly, MH help in the NHS is lacking and the bar for access is set so high. People fall through the gaps and get worse, or sadly take their own life because they were waiting too long to access support... whatever form that was in.

My baby turned one (which meant I was no longer under the remit of perinatal mental health) before I got to the top of the list for help.

To be honest a lot of mental health help isn’t really up to much, even when it’s accessible or private.

I think the greatest help would be to examine why there’s a mental health crisis in the first place.