Another May, another Mental Health Awareness Month. Week. Day.
Awareness day after awareness day, and it’s got to the point where I no longer feel I can participate. It fills me with guilt to write such a negative piece for a publication about mental health; but The Breakdown is about truth and more than just awareness, and we need to be real about how effective these days really are.
I can see the good in them; I really can. I can see that they help people to talk and to encourage people to reach out, and that they also educate others on mental health issues. But where’s the real change? It’s starting to feel like hashtags and tweets are now a replacement for proper funding and mental health care that people desperately need.
Various clinics are at capacity with patients, and due to the pandemic it can be impossible to get a proper appointment with your doctor to discuss how you’re feeling. The waiting lists are getting longer and longer and the mental health services are in crisis. People are struggling without any support at all, relying on charity helplines and the likes of social media just to be heard.
It’s devastating.
We need actionable change — not multiple awareness days. If people want us to be so aware, why isn’t anything being done about the help out there for people with mental health issues? Why are we being left to struggle alone?
It is frustrating seeing so many people using social media to reach out for help. I feel proud of people who do this — but it’s also hard to see that that is the only option.
It’s why I personally talk about my mental health online, because there is no help out there for me right now. I have bipolar disorder and postnatal depression, alongside OCD and bipolar disorder, and I’m no longer under a pyschiatrist due to moving to the perinatal service after having my baby. Now my baby is one, I’ve been discharged and left in limbo. I’ve been referred back to a community mental health team, but call after call and I’m told nothing will be processed until there’s capacity — and that there’s a lot of people on this list, so it could be months or more.
The doctors tell me I’m ‘too complex’ to help, because the help needs to be done by a mental health professional — but the help isn’t there.
This happened just a week before this Mental Health Awareness Week.
When I spoke out about it, I quickly realised I wasn’t alone, with so many other people telling me about their situations.
I’m tired of awareness days. I’m not saying they’re not important and I’m certainly not saying we get rid of them — but what I am saying is that it’s not enough any more.
Mental health hashtags are not, and never will be, a replacement for proper, clinical, professional mental health care.
Things desperately need to change.