This post has been written by India Lyall, third year MHN student, and focuses on the theme of this year’s World Mental Health Day…
Recently in conversation with a friend as we attempted to put the world to rights, I blurted out that “all people should have mental health support”. Without fully understanding the weight of my words, my friend questioned what I meant by this. This statement forced me to reconsider exactly why I think that “all people should have mental health support”.
I reckon it occurs to me as I enter my third year of studying to be a mental health nurse, and the more I see and learn about the profession, culture and through that, gaining a better understanding of who I am and my own mental health.
It is a well-known idea that not all mental health support needs to occur during and/or after a crisis. Perhaps, in a perfect world mental health support would be readily available and as accessible as fast food – served at drive-thru’s, offering chips, cheese, and CBT.
I often wonder why mental health support remains so inaccessible to so many people. Yes, I know that as a society we have come leaps and bounds from where we once were regarding our perceptions of mental health and what is therapeutic and what is not. However, there still seems a long way to go.
With everything at our fingertips an honest conversation or the correct medical help remains far away, we live in a world where we can get ‘next day delivery’ on the latest designer trainers, can ‘Uberoo’ all our favourite treats to our doorstep, however, the access to real long-term solutions to many of societies’ torment are a ‘6-8 months’ wait.
I think that the immediacy that we all experience with our fast- moving world makes it all that more difficult to wait for any sort of help; we are constantly evolving and who we are now, and what we are experiencing may be completely different in 6-8 months’ time.
As I reflect more on the conversation I had with my friend, I support my claim that “all people should have mental health support”, and I’m not pointing any fingers or blaming anybody for not getting that support, because I have had support in the past with my own mental decline, and it was a life-saving experience for me, which I am always grateful. However, what if mental health support was an integral part of our human experience. If support was mandatory in schools and all workplaces. We would perhaps live in a society where nobody was neglecting themselves to put food on the table and no young people were left crying themselves to sleep at night.
Getting mental health support can be a difficult journey for many, in my case, it involved me hitting rock bottom and therefore needing support, rather than sourcing it before I was unwell. I was lucky to have supportive friends and family and reside in a country where a young woman can get mental health support and have access to medication and resources to keep well.
However, I often think if I were in another place in the world, how easy would it be to get support, or is that support even available? We live in an unequal world, and that inequality occurs to me now more than ever, as I reflect on recent events in my life; I am in a lesbian relationship, and my partner and I recently got married. Love is a beautiful and life altering experience, and I am aware of my privilege to be allowed to be married and in love with the person I love, because the sad fact is that homosexuality is still outlawed in 69 countries across the world (BBC, 2021). This is merely one example among many of how unequal our world can be.
In Scotland, there are resources and help for our mental health and I am a firm believer in our NHS and other organisations which do incredible work in helping those suffering. But I also think now is the time for us all, to be able to access support, and it should be just as easy as accessing fast food or new shoes. Hopefully, one day it will be easier for us all to get mental health support, not just at our lowest times, but at our happiest times as well. Being alive is an unusual experience, and most of us are just trying to navigate our way through life, which we all know can be a bumpy ride, and now more than ever before have we experienced the trials and tribulations, but it is important to remember that life also has the potential to be exquisitely picturesque and beautiful.
MHN Abertay 