To think that "mental health/illness awareness" is bollocks

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Before anyone reads the title wrong, I believe that it's incredibly important to bring awareness. What I mean by bollocks is that society gives the impression that it cares about mental health but it's only restricted to depression and anxiety.

My friend is a therapist and when talking to her, she doesn’t believe in ADHD but believes in other mental illnesses/neurodevelopmental disorders. It’s a sentiment that’s echoed by many people in society but I was shocked that a mental health professional refused to believe it.

I also have a cousin who became schizophrenic during her time in college and all her friends slowly drifted away from her. These would be the same people that posted “Mental Health Matters” on their Facebook page.

I think the positive thing about 'mental health awareness' is that it gets people talking and it has removed some of the stigma from some mental illnesses and erased some of the taboo from talking about them.

Yet, some mental illnesses are still stigmatised, and perhaps schizophrenia is the most obvious example. My husband has schizophrenia, and is in a care home. I never even knew it could develop later in life. Other mental illnesses can be minimised because they exist on a spectrum. Here, perhaps depression and anxiety are the most pertinent examples.

Furthermore, the long term and significant effects that chronic and serious mental ill health has on the individual and on families and carers are also not really discussed in awareness raising sessions.

Mental illnesses in your youth can seriously affect your life chances. I had a serious eating disorder in my youth. The illness and hospitalisation fragmented my education, delayed my capacity to work/earn and I have been playing catch-up ever since. Both my sons have serious mental health issues. My eldest had to go into residential accommodation at the age of 18 because his needs could not be met in the community. He is neurodivergent, but it was the extreme anxiety and psychosis that made him a danger to himself. My youngest has been cursed with a chronic anxiety disorder, and an eating disorder. He finds it difficult to leave the house. Services for mental health are so stretched in our area that he gets a fraction of the help that he needs.

Another thing that awareness training may not mention is that the average life expectancy for people with serious mental illness is 10 to 20 years lower than the national average. I know statistics do not mean everyone with an SMI will die early, but the care individuals with SMI receive is not always all it should be:

Why People With Mental Health Conditions Die 10–20 Years Earlier - Mind Help

The government drive to get people back to work, and off sickness or disability related benefits, has also, in my opinion, led to a tendency for mental illness to be almost trivialised.

So, in my opinion, mental health awareness training should continue to show mental illness as something that can and probably will affect every one of us. It should focus on mental wellbeing. However, I agree with the OP, there should be a broader and deeper focus that more truly reflects the experience of individuals and families affected by serious and chronic mental illness.

Same thing happened to me at my last full-time job. I was lauded as their leading performer, best member of staff etc...until I let slip to my manager that I was bipolar. Exactly a week later I was sacked, because I took two days off when I was attacked on the bus home one night (it was an American owned company, you were expected to go into work even if you were bleeding from both eyes).

I'd been there less than 2 years and had no way of proving it was due to my disclosure, but the fact that my manager couldn't look at me during the dismissal meeting with HR...

I'm freelance now but if I ever worked for an employer again, no way on Earth would I tell them. A lot of lip service is paid to understanding Mental Health - in reality, it's a load of shit.

I think people just talk the talk

There may have been an increase in acknowledgement of mental illness but I’m not so sure about acceptance and understanding
Its all very well to encourage those with mental health struggles to open up about it and seek help for their problems but the need was greatly underestimated and the level of support required is just not there
Some MH issues are not easily treated and can require treatment on and off throughout an individual’s life

Unfortunately, this is my experience too, and IME it's true if all disability, not just mental health issues.

No one gives a shit. All these organizations with their EDI policies and talk of being inclusive, but when faced with a person with a disability, the response is "why cant you just try to do what everyone else does?" or "but you are being a burden on the team"

I never used to identify as a disabled person, but then I was encouraged to do so by GPs, consultants, occupational health etc. There's support for you they said, you just need to tell people what is wrong ..

No there isn't.

I just got labelled a whinger and pressured to leave my job so they didn't have to do any reasonable adjustments.

It feels more shit than struggling in in silence did.

Everyone is sympathetic and supportive until it directly impacts them. Then you should just pull yourself together, because they (feel sad/nervous/lose their keys) too and you don’t hear them making excuses, do you.

In practice, mental health in others is incredibly difficult to deal with - as anyone with a depressed/anxious etc etc sister/partner/friend etc etc can attest to. You do just wish they would get it together, or bloody concentrate, or not be so miserable / selfish / tiring etc etc. This negativity towards them is aggravated by how long they are ill (often whole life) and when you see people failing to take responsibility for themselves, though that in itself is often a function of the illness

All issues go in waves of popularity of whatever the fashionable cause of the moment may be and it is just superficial virtue signalling.

It was mental health but like you say only “naice” mental health issues that people can chatter about and tell you how yoga/ mindfulness/ tumeric saved their life. Nobody wants to know about gnarly, inconvenient mental health issues which require shed loads of meds and being sectioned.

Same with physical illnesses. Some illicit sympathy and some not so much. Even within cancer their is a hierarchy of what gets most donations and publicity (breast cancer by a country mile although testicular cancer has a growing profile) and what gets hardly any (melanoma, pancreatic cancer, liver cancer).

It is utterly horrible.

Whatever the cause all people want is to put up a poster, wear a lanyard, at most perhaps have a coffee morning so that they can congratulate themselves on their “inclusivity”.

But what about the actual progress?!

My school (80s) was next to a city psychiatric hospital. It was positively Victorian. A real institution. When a patient “escaped” they sounded a siren like a concentration camp and we had to lock down 😭

my school friends mum was in and out all her life and the changes during her life time were unbelievable.

A family member was recently sectioned and the hospital- and treatment- were incredible and bore no relation to the institute I was familiar with the 80s and90s. Drugs have developed. Knowledge and understanding has developed. Technology has developed.

no, this isn’t about my knowing how to talk a colleague “down” from a psychotic episode or off a ledge or even just about their OCD, or wellbeing week.

But that really isn’t the important progress. The real progress, well we don’t see it everyday or stop to appreciate it. And it’s not even good enough! But compare it to 30 years ago, our lifetime- bloody hell.

also on the wellbeing awareness- let’s be fair, having good mental health- sleep, routine, purpose, belonging- is so important we should all be aware of it. Because even with no history, people can and do have very serious acute mental illness from neglecting these.

I often say as well that its all the neat and tidy illnesses (physical and mental) that are supported or talked about anyway

Dementia? Not that interested in that and if its portrayed or talked about anywhere, it always features a well meaning slightly doddery compliant old person, not someone smelly, shouting, sexually disinhibited, perhaps racist comments, aggressive, smeared with shit, walking round half dressed up the street because they dont know what they're doing. Dont see that in adverts do you.

What about stoma bags, not quite as interesting as funny leaky ladies going to a pop concert is it. Dont see them in adverts.

Completely agree.

Being asked to constantly make allowances and accommodations for others can get very wearing, especially when this leaves very little scope for anyone else to get a look in if they are going through a hard time or even a crisis.

It is often really difficult to separate the person from the condition and to know how much of any particular behaviour is actually within someone's control. I think we all have to manage ourselves quite carefully to be the best versions of ourselves that we can realistically be but sometimes it feels like other people lean into their conditions so they don't have to make this effort. This sounds harsh and maybe unfair but you can be someone with a mental health condition and an intrinsically selfish and unpleasant person too. They're not mutually exclusive things.

That hierarchy. Exactly. No-one talks about it. If I had cancer I'd have more sympathy than I knew what to do with, I'd have access to benefits with a snap of my fingers (Various cancer charities lobbied the DWP with huge success), I wouldn't have my parenting questioned, I wouldn't have had my driving licence taken away, lost my liberty and forced to have ECT which has left me with cognitive difficulties. I'd have access to free complementary therapies and people would run marathons for my chemo unit dressed in pink.

Before anyone asks, yes, I've seen people die from cancer including my father in an horrific way.

My point is, rattle a tin for a cancer charity and people will donate because pretty much noone has not known, had or been related to someone with cancer.

Good luck with that tin for an acute mental health unit.

I was going to say something like this. It is possible to have a mental health condition and also be quite difficult in other ways. It’s important to acknowledge that you aren’t going to be able to be an endless resource.

I work in secure/forensic and it’s miserable for them.

People who can’t wear clothes, can’t go for a poo without 2-5 people watching, can’t be given any belongings, can’t close the door at night.

It’s horrendous and it must be hugely distressing to have all that, plus psychotic delusions, neurodevelopmental disorders, unimaginable trauma - I often read reports and just wish I could sit and cry for the experiences that people have. There’s more than a few times I’ve sat and thought:

a) we do the wrong thing by some people, we fight very hard to bring people back to life who do NOT want to be here and who are we to take that choice away from them
b) some humans are bloody dreadful, the things they do to their partners, kids, and the trauma that causes …

But you are right. There’s no bloody care or awareness from the general population. Mental health has to be pretty. No one wants to know about schizophrenia, antisocial, delusions or psychosis.

I think a lot of talk about MH awareness at work is a complete waste of time. If people have a Mental Health condition they need treatment.

Offering a few staff members half a day's training and some awareness sessions for the rest of us isn't going to help, any more than a first aider and awareness would heal a broken leg.

We need less talk of awareness and more actual help for people.

I think it's because a lot of the narrative is around the less 'scary' types of mental health that most people will experience atsome point. This is anxiety and depression and these are things where support from peers can help. We can relate to someone who is depressed. Less common things like bi polar or schizophrenia people just wouldn't know how to address or identify.

I do think there is more to mental health awareness than box ticking though. I suffer from both anxiety and depression. When I was younger 20 years or so ago, I would not have DREAMT of telling anyone about my mental health struggles. Now I wouldn't hesitate because it's become so much less stigmatised. This is a good thing.

I mean in terms of lack of awareness I remember a thread on here with people saying mental illness should never be an excuse for not working.

Honest to God spend a day in my job you’d be very very thankful the option not to work exists, some people are mentally ill enough that they can’t sit communally in a living room never mind go to bloody work.

I mean in terms of lack of awareness I remember a thread on here with people saying mental illness should never be an excuse for not working.

Honest to God spend a day in my job you’d be very very thankful the option not to work exists, some people are mentally ill enough that they can’t sit communally in a living room never mind go to bloody work.

Can I ask why you think ADHD is a trauma response? I ask this as somebody who has a long-awaited assessment in a week's time for Adult ADHD. I'm just trying to work out how the symptoms of ADHD could align with a trauma response. Genuine question, not being provocative.

In the spirit of genuine questions and curiosity I would love to know same. My DD is on a waiting list after being “identified” by the school as adhd. I wouldn’t say she’s old enough to have learnt trauma response (6)

it would be easy to say she hasn’t experienced any trauma however, she is a Covid baby and I’ve often wondered how the trauma from that period might’ve impacted her (we had no active traumas such as death or illness, I mean the trauma of locked downs/ seeing stressed parents etc that everyone went through)

Just to add even the nhs list trauma as one of the causes of adhd. However if I remember rightly, they describe “real” trauma-such as childhood abuse or neglect. Not something you wouldn’t be aware of!

ADHD is not caused by trauma. It is not a trauma response.

However, there are overlaps and similarities and accurate diagnosis is not always easy. Emotional regulation pathways seems to form differently in people with ND and NT people. Similarly, trauma can affect ability to regulate emotion particularly if you are traumatized young - its hard to learn how to manage anger in a mature way if you are raised in an environment where it is catastrophic.

People who are ND may also be more vulnerable and then more likely to be victims of abuse.

Both ND and trauma push anxiety systems into overdrive in an effort to be safe in the world.

Edited to add - the NHS does not state that trauma causes ADHD. This is categorically incorrect.

I had no idea. I've just had a quick Google and I'm enlightened 😲 I've also just read that it doesn't have to mean severe traumas, but can be something as simple as early life stress, which may be applicable to your daughter during covid times.

Apologies, I thought it was cited as an environmental factor

As a former therapist, I'm not surprised. There's actually a lot of them who think this way, the "drop the disorder" crowd.