October 10th marks World Mental Health Day, but what does that actually mean in the context of the mental health crisis in the UK?
Awareness. It’s all well and good that we know our friends, work colleagues, or even just the stranger we meet once on the street, could have a mental health condition that we don’t know about. A condition that could impact how they experience day-to-day life or just how they speak to us. It promotes empathy, natural human empathy, for a struggle that we might not know, but how long does that really last?
World Mental Health Day has taken place every year for the past thirty years. Yet, what good has it actually done? For the Mental Health Foundation, the good would be getting people to talk about their struggles to cope better.
There is certainly a benefit to this and the abundance of talking therapies available on the NHS would definitely suggest this. With people speaking more about their issues, they can discover people with shared experiences and understand that they aren’t alone. A conversation can also allow them to recognise the significance and severity of particular habits or behaviours that they may have previously felt were normal. This may be a form of avoidance or a compulsion that they’ve lived with for years.
A more open conversation is sure to make people realise when something is wrong and when they’ll need more support than they have from their friends and family.
How do they get it? Now, that’s a good question.
Almost anyone who has watched a show or read a book featuring themes of mental health and assault will be familiar with the helplines that are displayed at the end as if just another credit or acknowledgement. More often than not, “more support” is a list of helplines, including Samaritans, CALM, or Papyrus. Helplines that undeniably do remarkable work, but that can’t provide the support necessary for some people to cope in their day-to-day life. For some people, this conversation with a stranger on the other end of the phone could be the moment they need to bring them back to themselves, or the moment that pulls them out of a crisis. However, there are limits to their power, and the question of how to get more support cannot be answered with this list of phone numbers.
If you manage to untangle the mess pathways and options for support beyond that first list, both long and short term, then you’ve reached the next obstacle. An obstacle that remains constant even on World Mental Health Day.
One of the most straightforward paths to support is to speak to a GP. There arises complications, though. Aside from the week-long waits just for an initial appointment, you have the challenge of actually explaining the issue. Even if you know exactly what it is, know the problem like a book you’ve read a hundred times, a show you rewatched just that morning, you have to earn the belief of a doctor. This doctor has been through all the training, knows a great deal, and if, for some reason, they don’t feel confident on this particular issue they’ll refer you to a specialist, so it’s fine. You’ll get seen, won’t you?
Well… this all depends on who you are, in many ways. You can talk about your struggle with as many people who understand as possible, maybe even because it was encouraged on October 10th, but that won’t necessarily stop you from falling into the large number who don’t receive treatment. If you’re a man or of an ethnic minority, then you’re even less likely to receive treatment. Despite the prevalence of mental health conditions in both groups, with the majority of suicides being committed by men, they are often treated the least. So, maybe it’s not quite as straightforward as it seems, especially if you’re not white or a woman.
Men’s mental health has not been ignored by charities, including MANUP and Andy’s Man Club, but men’s mental health issues are still treated significantly less than women’s. Of the 6000 suicides registered in the UK in 2018, three-quarters were committed by men, and yet men are still receiving significantly less treatment, with only a third of referrals to talking therapies being for men. Similarly, despite some ethnic minorities being more likely to have mental health issues, like psychotic disorders, than white people, they are some of the least likely to receive treatment, with less than 10% doing so.
Despite this, there is not a large proportion of people, women or men, who are receiving treatment. This isn’t just because of the complications in the process of accessing it, but rather the waiting times too. Whilst times have certainly decreased for some in the past few years, a survey by Rethink Mental Illness covering the last two years found that 80% of those waiting for treatment deteriorated during this time. With waiting times anywhere between a week and several months on a good day, it’s not surprising, so why isn’t this the focus of World Mental Health Day?
It’s clear that World Mental Health Day has made remarkable steps to increase awareness around issues surrounding mental health, and that helplines have done remarkable work in supporting people in crisis. However, there are still too many issues being ignored. Too many people wait for treatment they should have received within a month based on the severity alone, too many people are unable to receive treatment, and too many people receive the wrong treatment. If you can’t access treatment in the first place, or are consistently repeating the same treatment styles, how will you ever get better or learn to cope? The mental health system may have improved since the government’s push for clarity in their 2013 report, and there may be more options for support, but a clear path to the right one is also necessary.
Increasing awareness around mental health is vital to treating it, but so is increasing awareness around the types of support and treatment available. Otherwise, World Mental Health Day will continue to have the deterioration of 80% of those waiting for treatment in its shadow.