My Time to Talk

Today is Time to Talk day a chance for everyone to get talking about mental health and as I am currently trying to write a little each day I thought that I really should coincide with this amazing day.

I have experienced mental health problems for nearly twenty years and I have also worked in this sector on and off for around 8-9 of those years. For me, it has been incredible to see the difference in attitudes towards mental illness between then and now.

My interest in mental health started when working on American Summer Camp as a teenage volunteer. I chose to work with challenging adults rather than spoilt American kids as I had spent many years attending a camp in this country run by an amazing organisation called Forest School Camps. The camps they run are a mixture of rich kids, poor kids (that was me!) and people with special needs. I struck up a friendship one year with a man called Leigh who had autism. I am pleased to say that we are still penpals 22 years later and we meet in person every Christmas.

American camp was a completely different world! The work was pretty full on (my first 'class' involved the correct way to clean a penis...) and we were really expected to be 24 hour carers/ nurses and companions for cabins full of adults with very differing needs, some physical, some mental, many with both.

Despite the lack of rest/ food and spare time, I found that I loved this. I still have so many memories some good, some just a bit odd. Something that will never leave me was the time there was a 'twister' in the area. Now, this may be pretty common for the residents of Minnesota but for me it was incredibly scary as we were told to stay in our cabins and put the mattresses against the windows. However it wasn't just me who was scared, there was a middle-aged woman called Barb who had schizophrenia, a lot of her delusions and hallucinations were around God ending the world, extreme weather was a sign for her that this was taking place and she was very agitated. So putting my fear aside I sat with her and we sang (hymns I think!) and we both got through it. Funnily enough, this is now one of my happier memories.

What really struck me was how badly people with mental health problems were treated in the States, well, at least, the people who came to our camp. They mainly all lived in care homes that were publically funded and I think many had been 'written off' by society because of their mental health problems. There seemed to be a one size fits all approach to care and their clothes and personal care were all pretty awful. Yet the most disturbing thing was taking day trips out. I hear stories of how people used to pay to stare or poke people in Bedlam many years ago. This was still happening in Middle America. People would literally stand and stare at our group with mother's actually pointing out the 'strange people' to their kids. I'm sure this was just one end of the spectrum as generally mental health care in America is more advanced than our system over here but the lack of understanding was incredible.

My first paid job in mental health involved working in a secure unit for people with severe mental health problems who had generally committed a crime and spent time in a large secure hospital like Broadmoor or Rampton. This may have been a strange choice for a gap year but I wasn't really keen on working in a shop or bar. The most interesting thing here was my friend's reactions when I told them about my job. Generally, they were horrified! They couldn't understand why I would want to work with 'people like that' and wasn't I scared? The good thing about the job was that you weren't told what crime the patients had committed until you had worked there for a number of weeks. This was really important in not judging people and getting to know them without any prejudice.

Again, like many of the people I had worked with in America many of the patients were incredibly institutionalised and hadn't ever really lived a full or independent life as a result of the horrific institutions that used to 'house' people with severe mental health problems. Again I know that this was the severe end of the spectrum. The idea of the unit I worked at was that we were preparing people to live independently, including spending time working in jobs, going to college and spending time with families. I do remember though really sadly the media finding out that one of the patients (who was never a danger to the general public) was working part time at Tesco. There was a media uproar and witchhunt which resulted in him having to give up work and set his recovery back by a long way.

On a personal level, I first started experiencing mental health problems when I was at University and also still working as a mental health outreach worker. I remember the shame and horror I felt going to my first psychologist appointment (about 9 months after I first went to see my GP, that's another thing that has thankfully changed, waiting times should be a lot shorter these days!) I wasn't even living in the same area that I was working but the idea that I would bump into any of my colleagues filled me with horror. My diagnosis at the time was also 'just' depression which has the least stigma attached to it. I didn't tell my work about these difficulties and actually although my mental health has fluctuated over the years, leading to periods off work, Mind was the first employer that I actually told about my mental health (in fact my diagnosis was actually seen as a positive in getting the job).

We still have a way to go, my work with the media still flags up horrific labelling and stigma but I am very proud that I work alongside and with so many incredible people who have full lives in spite of or even because of their mental health problems. I know that there are still some people on Facebook who have probably defriended me because I have been open about my diagnosis, which these days is a much more misunderstood condition, bipolar disorder. I still face some stigma but I am so much more comfortable being open about my diagnosis. No more having to 'pretend' to have the flu! One of my friend's said to me the other day that she didn't really remember me being ill in my twenties when she first knew me. On the contrary, I had very long periods of being extremely unwell but I just didn't tell anyone! I used to live alone and it was so easy just to hide myself away.

The biggest contrast for me has been fundraising for Mind. I first raised money for Mind around 12 years ago when I did a trek to Machu Picchu and it was so difficult... Literally people would look at me when I told them who I was raising money for with no sympathy. Of course, back then my own mental illness was well 'in the closet' so I didn't really have a good reason to be raising funds but still I had to just arrange lots of fun events and almost mention Mind as a footnote. Over the years, I have raised money for other charities and most of them were a breeze, specifically if they involved children. However in more recent years I ran The Great North Run for Mind and smashed my target. Just last month I took part in Run Every Day January and doubled my target for fundraising, without even having to beg. Alongside donations, I have had so many people message me about their own mental health problems or friends/ family.

In fact, I would say that is the biggest difference. When I tell people that I work in the mental health sector these days they are likely to say 'wow what a great job' rather than sneer. They are also much more likely to tell me about their experiences. In fact, every event I have ever arranged, mainly in newsrooms, there has always been at least one person who has come to speak to me or one of my colleagues after any talk/ presentation about their own mental health problems. Obviously, the ideal situation would be if the real number (a quarter of the room) stood up and shared proudly, but I have every hope that we will get there!