What's going on with nations MH? *[Content warning: concerns suicide]

[Nuggetss]

Another one of my friends when I was at school ended their lives yesterday. This is the third person in 2 years we are in our late 20s. AIBU to think the government need to invest more money in MH. 3 people with their whole lives ahead of them gone. It's very sad one leaving behind DC . Is suicide becoming more common after COVID ? I'm absolutely devastated.

There's a spectrum of mental health conditions though, what you describe sounds like ptsd. Doesn't mean they're not sane, but makes them more susceptible to lifelong struggles with depression and possible suicidal ideation

I agree. Keep asking if someone has an MH problem and eventually the answer will be yes. Obviously we need a supportive environment where kids feel able to raise MH issues but not in a way which almost encourages MH issues.

This is just my theory and might sound wish washy but I personally think it’s true.

Previously people spent more time outdoors. And their outdoors reflected nature - malleable materials, changing seasons, ebb and flow but also stability. The circle of life. As children they learnt they can shape their world. As simple as collecting and stacking sticks. Or breaking a branch. Or shaping a sandcastle only for it to be washed away to give a new chance another day.

Greenery and natural environments have been shown to reduce blood pressure, anxiety, and give better emotional regulation. But this only works if you are comfortable in nature. If you aren’t because you never spent time in it then you can become phobic and will have opposite feelings of dread and danger rather than calm and restoration.

Nowadays many live in urban environments. Kids leave their homes to enter a world set in stone (or concrete). Shades of grey. Non malleable. They can’t change anything around them, they can’t even choose a path to walk; penned in by pedestrian railings as they are guided to the nearest crossing where they wait for the green man to allow them to cross. Their windows are bleak. At best they look out onto rows of lawn or Astro penned in by fences and might see a lone tree in the distance - shaved in half by a neighbour who doesn’t want to have a drop of shade cast on their barren lot.

Some of the unhappiest people I know have travelled extensively and have high powered careers. But, the more you have the more you want. A simpler life really does pay off in terms of feeling mentally balanced. To look at my friend you would see a high powered career woman who thrives on challenge and needs intellectual stimulation; underneath she’s highly intelligent but deeply insecure and neurotic. It’s a shame she couldn’t channel her intelligence through a stream other than a very high responsibility job as she just isn’t cut out for it.

Equally some of the happiest people I know live ‘small’ lives - low paid jobs, a small home, a very simple routine and little pleasures that they get a lot of joy from.

The issue is that we drum it into middle class teens that there’s only one way to do things now. And that’s university, travel, a graduate career, and then meet somebody to settle down with and get married etc. But not everyone is suited to this path. And there’s a lot of pressure along the way to get to the next step at the right time.

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I absolutely hate how everyone goes on about mental health as if it's some strange invisible pandemic. No. Mental health problems do exist and they need addressesing, but the poor mental health of the majority of people now aren't the result of something going wrong in their brain, it's a normal response to the dire state they live in. People are increasingly isolated, not just because of the pandemic although that didn't help but because of the way modern life is generally. People don't have options, it seems like the world is full of opportunities but in reality we have basically no social mobility in this country. People have no hope of ever doing better for themselves and what's worse is they end up doing work to make someone else more comfortable while they stay stuck with nothing and no hope of better. You can mask it with antidepressants all you want but it's just a mask.

And sorry after further thought I will continue on with my bleak diagnosis…

And so we look to new windows to fill a void we can’t pinpoint. Black featureless windows which when turned on are unnatural technicolour displays which whack our circadian rhythms out of check.

Windows of comparison as we scroll others memories on social media; of fantasy, drama, horror and violence as we watch our TVs; of doom, grief and corruption as we scroll the news on our tablets; and of constant interruption as our phones/ emails ping on in the distance never giving a moment of sacred rest. Watching the crescendo of a once in a life time event through the screen of your phone as you desperately try to record it like some kind of strange Schroeder’s cat experiment. Or chasing a win via a games console which often evokes more anger, frustration and stress than joy.

It’s as if life is infinitely faster now than it was, but yet we move slower through it. As every 30 second scroll can plaster your mind with 20 awful things occurring worldwide; go down an escalator and are presented with more flashing images in a minute than someone 1000 years ago would have seen in a lifetime or as you walk down the road 10 cars ride by faster than you.

Growth accelerates around us yet we stagnate as wealth trickles upwards and wages devalue. Before humans used to run systems. The lollipop man stopped the traffic. The receptionist distributed the post to your desk. Now these systems we have created are running us. We are chasing our tails as fast as we can trying to keep up. Into a world we control increasingly less of. It’s difficult to stay in the here and now. In our reality’s, not someone else’s.

< That was cathartic and apologise if anyone thinks bleak. My advice - Limit the screens, get off social media, get outdoors, and know tomorrow is another day.>

I’m sorry about your fiends.

I lost two school friends over the last year to suicide, both women. I don’t know what the answer is but I do think Covid had a lot to do with it. My own mum went from being unwell (but coping with antidepressants) to being admitted to hospital with liver failure due to alcoholism. They say ‘an idle mind is the devils playground’ and I think a lot of the issues some already had were magnified during lockdown. My mum suffered from childhood abuse but somehow managed to keep busy with work etc for the next 50 years then all of a sudden she was locked up on her own and it’s all she thought about. These things don’t happen overnight and once she had gone down that path it’s taken 2 years for her to reach rock bottom and feeling suicidal.

Also, with mental health being a recent thing, my dad (who is 80) talks about people he grew up around that were ‘nutters’ at the time. They were obviously suffering from PTSD from the war but at the time they were put in hospitals for years and never seen again or given a wide berth. Thankfully now we don’t view people like that but the mental health services are inadequate and if my mum didn’t have us she would certainly be dead by now.

I think there's so much truth to this , I have previously attempted multiple times as a teen. I have PTSD from child abuse. I find sitting thinking about the past doesn't do me any favours it makes me worse. I've had therapy but the best thing for me is routine and keeping busy. I worked throughout the pandemic which kept me busy.

I think people scrolling on Social media comparing themselves to others and constant images of perfect lives doesn't help. I'm not really allowed my personal phone when I'm at work. At first I felt like I was withdrawing from drugs but actually after a while I began to enjoy it. Human company and amazing conversations actually being in the moment. I appreciate conversations and human contact more.

I agree with you. There will always be a minority of people who have mental health conditions, but depression and anxiety for a lot of us is a perfectly normal reaction to lack of hope, worry about money and climate crisis, etc.

Sorry everyone who is suffering or has lost people they love. 💐

Yep. "Shit Life Syndrome"
Tablets mask it, therapy just has you talking about it. The only way out of it is change.
Social prescribers/community navigators are good for this... not social mobility, but things like loneliness and isolation.

People out there seem very very angry now. Just generally impatient and angry.

it started after the first lockdown a real sense of “fuck you, I’m out for myself”.
it is not the world it was.

There is basically no support for mental health for adults in this country. It's horrific. But the majority seem happy to vote for running down medical services across the board, so I guess they don't care about people dying unnecessarily full stop.

You are right about most of my examples being PTSD @mashh.

I previously worked for a suicide prevention service. Face to face apts had be offered within 24 hrs if the referral had come from A & E or ambulance service, 48 hours for other referrals.

Nearly all of them had clear plans, and many had the means ready as part of the plan.

The majority had suffered events like the ones I have already described. I did not meet even one person who I would remotely describe as having “lack of resilience”! Not for a second. They were people who had survived and survived and survived, who often had endured events and experiences that might seem to others to be impossible to live through.

The young people had been through so much already. During lockdown there were many who had been being really well for several years previously, and been discharged from mental health services, but spending so much time alone in the pandemic had triggered loneliness and memories had come back.

My dd has experienced a terrorist attack, her dad having advanced cancer and two grandparents dying within less than a week. Something snapped and she attempted overdose twice. To say young people lack resilience is grossly insulting.

I agree that it’s "Shit Life Syndrome" @XenoBitch

Tablets mask it, therapy just has you talking about it. The only way out of it is change.

Social prescribers/community navigators are good for this... not social mobility, but things like loneliness and isolation.

It is bigger than individuals changing. We need broader societal change that places more value on the quality of life of UK citizens, demands improvements and holds politicians to account when it declines.

My nearest and dearest has a chronic health condition and it challenges my mental health to know that I might not be able to get timely assistance for them in an emergency due to NHS underfunding. The ‘uglification’ of the UK by developers and removal of urban green space that people enjoy is another thing which seems minor given the trauma that some are describing, but all of these little things that erode our quality of life chip away at our coping capacity.

💐 for you and your DD.