Each week we publish blog posts on a whole range of topics, relating in some way to mental health — written by Mind staff, service users and health and policy professionals. Some blog posts may not reflect official Mind policy.
We welcome comments and questions on our posts, but have a few ground rules to keep the site welcoming and interesting to every body. The first rule is the most important: be respectful of other commenters and bloggers.
This is a guest post from Charlotte, who blogs on the stigma associated with obessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and to support OCD awareness week and World Mental Health Day.
You may not be aware that 10 to 16 October is OCD Awareness Week. We all know about obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), we’ve all seen the Facebook groups for people who are “so OCD” about a character from a film or whatever band is currently causing hysteria in the charts.
I don’t envy George Osborne. I’ve just worked out the division of bills in my flat and there was no positive element to that task at all – it will remain two painstaking hours of my life that I can never get back. And so I imagine the Treasury’s last month of sums was no picnic. But the troubles of developing this budget count for nothing against the troubles it could potentially cause.
Clearly, the country’s spending is no longer sustainable. However, modern politics should have come far enough that every party ensures the most vulnerable in society are supported, and definitely not the hardest hit. And that’s exactly what Mind fears most: that the consequences of this budget will be most acutely felt by those who most need support.
Although NHS funding has been protected, it would be a false assumption to think that this will ensure mental health service users do not have to worry about cuts. Mental health should to be seen as an issue that involves all aspects of life and all parts of society. Taking this perspective, it becomes evident that the cuts proposed to other areas of the public sector will have a deep and enduring impact on the mental wellbeing of this country.
Around half of all people claiming benefits because of illness have mental health problems. We are opposed to any assumption that the welfare system is riddled with undeserving people who somehow need to be ‘found out’. The announcement that all Disability Living Allowance claimants will be subject to a medical assessment from 2013/14 onwards accentuates this assumption.
Furthermore, with the current Work Capability Assessment for employment and support allowance being unfit to assess how people’s mental health affects their ability to work, we are not confident that this new assessment will be any more adequate. Instead, it could end up compelling people into positions that may compromise their mental health and wellbeing if it does not learn from the failures of our other benefit tests.
However, the most immediate and disturbing change to the benefits system will be the linkage of benefits to the Consumer Prices Index (currently at 3.4 per cent) as opposed to the Retail Prices Index (currently at 5.1 per cent). This means that the amount of benefit paid will not increase as much as is needed to keep up with rising prices. This will lead to a significant cut in living standards for households that are dependent on benefits – which are among the poorest in our society.
Aside from benefits, the effect of cuts to other areas, such as job losses and changes to our communities, may impact on our wellbeing, resulting in an increased need for mental health care the government can’t afford.
For example, reductions in police funding could end the good work started as part of our Another Assault campaign and public sector redundancies and the consequent rise in people’s debt levels will undoubtedly lead to increased rates of mental distress.
This budget could cost the mental health of this country dearly – is it a price our society can afford to pay?
If you’re concerned about the impact of the budget on your local services, write to your MP and ask them how they will fight for the needs of mental health service users.
Mariam Kemple, Policy and Campaigns Officer
Update: please note that some of the comments below may be triggering for some readers.
65 CommentsWhen M.A. lost her job in the financial sector in November of last year, she blamed herself and not the recession. Despite many years of commitment and loyalty, a near perfect attendance record, and a history of glowing performance reviews, M.A. felt as if she wasn’t good enough at her job to avoid redundancy.
5 CommentsSubmit entries for Mind Journalist of the Year 2010
Almost a year ago, I rocked up at the Royal Institute of British Architects for the Mind awards with my colleague Kerry Grove. As local journalists working in a particularly unglamorous part of Sutton, it would be fair to say it's not hard to impress us. Usually we regard it as a bit of a treat to pop to the greasy spoon over the road for a bacon sandwich - or on an extra special occasion, we'll splash out on a Sainsbury's sandwich.
So it was a bit of a surprise to be greeted by a sweeping staircase, concert pianist and about 300 very well turned-out people. Even more amazing was that we won Mind Journalist of the Year against all the brilliant national journalists there that night. The event unfolded like some strange dream - from the moment I heard my name called to the late hour I called my family with the news.
I can't begin to say how much of a boost that night gave me and my colleagues in our office. In a year where local journalism had been ravaged to its bare bones by the recession, that award made me dare to hope that journalism did still matter - that it was worth fighting for.
The award was in recognition of articles written for our newsgroup's campaign, "Mental Health, It's Everyone's Business". We published fortnightly features which aimed to destroy the myths surrounding mental illness, something we learnt much from ourselves. The articles explored a range of illnesses including body dysmorphic disorder, schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder. Through interviews with experts and case studies, we were able to create concise, fact-based articles which we felt raised awareness of mental illness while showing the local community where they could go to for help.
One year on, so much has changed. I'm now a senior reporter and health correspondent at the Wandsworth Guardian, and I've been working on some really exciting side projects too. We still go to the greasy spoon, but now we're indulging in the Sainsbury's splashes more regularly.
Our campaign is finished, but we're keeping the spirit alive. These days, I'm finding more and more people in the community coming to us with their mental health stories - people who perhaps would have been too scared to approach us before. It's meant those people now have a voice, and we've been able to hold local services to account more effectively.
I jumped at the chance to write about mental health because it had always frustrated me how little I myself had known about it as a youngster. Several people I cared about developed a mental illness, and yet no-one realised until it was very advanced because they didn't recognise the symptoms.
Just ten years later I've noticed such a huge difference in awareness about mental health - and that's partially down to all the amazing journalism which has appeared in that time. I'm very much looking forward to being on the judging panel for the next Mind awards and reading all the fantastic articles submitted this year.
If you're a journalist, why not submit your work, or the work of another journalist, for entry into this year's awards? And if you're a member of the public, let us know if there's an article that you think represents excellence in the coverage of mental health issues.
Eleanor Harding
1 CommentA guest post by Ilona Burton, who blogs in the Independent Minds community and campaigns for greater awareness of eating disorders.
At the age of just seven, my new year’s resolution was to lose weight. I began to hide food, throw it away, stuff it in my mouth and spit it out, and give it away to other people. Not a particularly conscious decision, not the result of bullying or a reaction to an obvious trigger – just something that very gradually, inexplicably became habitual and horribly addictive, an illness that ended up affecting over three quarters of my life.
9 CommentsTo what extent do TV hospital dramas reflect reality? Not much, according to Antony Sumara from Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust. He particularly targets BBC dramas, but I doubt they are alone in ignoring good practice, patient confidentiality and attention to hygiene in the search for a gripping storyline, as he claims. Perhaps writers don’t feel that an episode of someone waiting for treatment or extolling the virtues of hand washing will draw those viewers in.
How well versed are you in what you can expect from your hospital stay? Every local NHS organisation is expected to produce a guide to local services and deliver that to all households in their area. This one is from Milton Keynes (PDF).
Have you read the NHS Constitution so you know which waiting times have been enshrined within it – no longer than four hours in A&E, for example? The constitution says that you have a right to be treated with a professional standard of care, though to be fair it doesn’t explicitly say that staff shouldn’t be sorting out their love life in corridors when they’re not treating you.
Bridget O'Connell, Head of Information
5 CommentsObviously I am always fully professional and look at the number of comments on Mind’s blogs from various contributors as a sign of what interests people and not as a popularity contest. Yeah right! After careful consideration, I am just going to review the antics of cute cats.
Why should it matter? Why do we need to know how many followers we - or others - have on Twitter or friends on Facebook?
A BBC article informs us that the average number of friends is 150 and that the ideal number of close friends is between six and 12. Your popularity at school is positively linked to your wage level in later life – excepting, perhaps, those people who are unpopular at school and then go on to pen/produce high school misfit movies. To add to the pressure there is now the necessity of having the right number of friends on Facebook (it’s 302) to have the most appeal to others.
It is widely accepted that having social support networks can reduce your likelihood of developing mental health problems or help promote recovery when you do experience mental distress. So stop taking the time to count and start taking the time to follow the advice of Raymond Tallis and cherish those precious friendships.
Bridget O'Connell, Head of Information
6 CommentsA guest post by Marion Janner, founder of the Star Wards project
Hmm. Perhaps the only uncontroversial words in the heading are those with a character count below 4. That’s 3 of them (I’ve just started ‘tweeting’ on Twitter and am now obsessed with character count as each tweet has to be haiku-like petite, under 140 characters. I usually find it hard to express myself in under 140 minutes).
Anyway, returning to my own character, it’s been totally fucked over in the last seven years by the explosion of borderline personality disorder. BPD is actually as common as schizophrenia but most people have never heard of it. I hadn’t until many months after I became inexplicably hyper-depressed and started, completely bewilderingly, self-harming as a way of managing extreme plunges in mood (I go on and on about this in my website Mentalising). And when my partner of 20 years walked out on me, a month after our civil partnership ceremony and having forgotten to mention her plans to me, the suicidality started.
You might be familiar with OCD-type compulsions – hand-washing, germ-avoidance, safety rituals. My compulsion to kill myself is broadly similar. Although obviously with the opposite intention in terms of life preservation. It’s pretty exhausting (not least for my extensive team of therapists) trying to contain this force and all gets very messy when I decide to take an overdose as a way of flirting with death and simultaneously gaining a sense of being able to control my destiny when I sheepishly land in A&E to get the overdose reversed.
So. The chance of a break from having to internally manage my self-demolition urges is irresistible. Butlins is great, what with all the entertainment, slot machines and good grub, but it’s a lot to ask them to manage my suicidality. Whereas my lovely local, St Ann’s in Tottenham, may not have the slot machines, but they do lock me in and remove all tolerable methods of disposing of myself. Such a relief.
I’m a bit of a regular at St Ann’s, and the familiar staff team greet me with hugs and welcomes, perhaps temporarily forgetting that I’m a nightmare patient for them. For example. I’m 4’9” so not very tall, but while being ‘specialed’ via 1:1 staff with me 24/7, I’ve still managed to unscrew a lightbulb from the ceiling and use it to self-harm. All very David Blaine and presumably infuriating for staff. Yet they manage to respond to my relentless self-destructiveness with patience, understanding, non-judgementalness (?) and to use an old-fashioned term – compassion.
I love it there. I don’t need to worry about work or my weird eating nonsense or looking after my foster sons or (not) answering the phone or writing blogs or going to meetings or acting cheerful. I know from my work running the Star Wards project that St Ann’s is scarcely in the Premier League of hospitals, indeed it’s going to be knocked down and replaced. But it has exactly what I need, and what my friends and family need, to keep me safe and provide a little break from the overwhelming task of keeping it all together. There are very few days when I’d rather be at home than in hospital.
Marion Janner
Marion was awarded an OBE for services to mental health care in the New Year Honours list 2010.
20 CommentsA guest post from Sam Thomas of the Men Get Eating Disorders Too website and campaign
Eating disorders is an issue that is often considered to be a female only issue, but it seems conditions such as anorexia, bulimia and binge eating disorder are on the increase among men, quite possibly at an alarming rate. Thus suggesting men are under more pressures than ever before.
2 CommentsThe news that Manchester radio DJ Steve Penk played the Van Halen song ‘Jump’ for motorists delayed by a road closure when a woman attempted to take her own life from a bridge, is a stark reminder of the distance we still have to go to tackle mental health discrimination.
Apparently the request for the song came from local motorists inconvenienced by the closures, which the Revolution DJ honoured moments before she jumped. Although he is in no way to blame for what happened, few people would argue that his actions weren't in incredibly poor taste.
He has since stood by his decision saying "I don't regret playing it for a minute" and that he empathised with the inconvenienced drivers. It is a sad state of affairs when as a society we start to view someone else’s tragedy as a personal inconvenience. Surely if the frustrated motorists stopped to think that this was a human life at stake, someone's daughter or friend, they would not be so flippant. Anyone who has ever lost a loved one to suicide will know how terrible the affects are for family and friends.
Over 100 people a week take their own life in the UK. The fear of stigma means that many people experiencing mental distress feel unable to speak to loved ones and as a consequence they suffer in silence. I only hope that the publicity surrounding this event might make the public question their own understanding of mental health issues. In the 21st century, is it too much to ask that we show compassion and understanding for people who are in the depths of despair?
Mind and the Samaritans will be complaining to Ofcom about the show, and we urge you to lodge your own complaint. Please include the following information about the programme:
Name of the show: Steve Penk at Breakfast
Radio station: 96.2FM Revolution Radio
Transmission date: Thursday 14 January 2010
Please note that the Ofcom site wil not find any information for Revolution Radio. To make your complaint, just select "Continue" below the message that you get about this, and then on the next screen select "I saw/heard the programme".
Alison Kerry, Head of Media
Making the news in the USA is research that indicates that mild and moderate depression are not lifted by antidepressants, which are only useful for severe depression (though the research methodology has come in for some critcism).
The research concludes that if a person experiences mild or moderate depression then medication should be just one of the options available.
This side of the pond, National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines already states that antidepressants should not be the first choice in treating mild depression but may be of use for people with a past history of moderate or severe depression.
Of course guidance and practice aren’t always in step and it was reported last year that prescriptions for antidepressants are on the rise and recently that GPs prescribe antidepressants even if they feel another treatment might be more beneficial as that treatment is not as readily accessible.
The government had pledged £173 million towards mental health care. The Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) scheme is designed to combat the reliance on prescribing medication for mental distress by offering accessible alternatives. There is some uncertainty over how the scheme is faring, with reports late last year that it has experienced difficulties, including only 400 of the required 3,600 therapists trained, although IAPT disputes this figure and other aspects of the article.
With any luck headlines about the best treatment options for depression and will strengthen the government’s resolve to keep supporting a wide range of treatment options for the millions who experience depression and other mental health problems.
Bridget O'Connell, Head of Information
A guest post by Zarathustra of the Mental Nurse blog.
It's not always easy for mental health professionals and patients to have an open and honest conversation with each other. In my own field, mental health nursing, we're often at the sharp end of the more coercive aspects of psychiatry - compulsory detention, restraint, rapid tranquilisation and so on. Such things may at times be an unpleasant necessity, but they inevitably put up barriers between staff and patient. Even in settings where there's no coercion at all - say, a CPN meeting with a patient on a community visit - there's still the structure of professional and patient, with all that entails in terms of boundaries, power hierarchies and so on.
So, where can all those involved in mental health meet as true equals to exchange banter, stories and the odd uncomfortable truth? I'd say one answer lies in blogging.
On my blog, Mental Nurse, we're keen to recognise the power of blogging as a way for people involved in mental health to tell their stories and debate with each other. That's why we host a weekly
round-up of the best in mental health blogs. On New Year's Day we hosted our own awards ceremony, recognising some of the writing talent that has impressed us and our readership over the past year.
Among the mental health blogs, one of the most popular is Seaneen Molloy's Mentally Interesting: The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive, recently adapted into an award-winning Radio 4 play Dos and Don'ts for the Mentally Interesting. Blogs like Seaneen's give the human story behind what it's like to live with a mental illness. Not just the experience of the mental illness itself (say, the experience of depression, or a mixed episode), but all the associated hassles and problems as well - the tussles with the benefits system, the side-effects of psychiatric medication, and so on.
Sometimes these blogs give stark illustrations of the failings of mental health services. Mad Sad Girl's description of her time on an acute ward makes for grim reading, showing how frightening it can be to be admitted to such wards, and how physical healthcare for patients can be sorely lacking
For those looking for accounts of specific conditions, I can recommend Marine Snow and Obsessively Compulsively Yours for first-person depictions of anorexia nervosa and obsessive-compulsive disorder respectively. Borderline personality disorder is particularly well-represented in the blogosphere; Genius Gone Wrong, Becoming Hannah, Writing in the Margins of My Mind and Confessions of a Serial Insomniac all give insightful chronicles of living with that most-unfairly maligned of conditions.
As well as patients, there are a number of good quality blogs written by professionals. I can recommend Fighting Monsters and The Masked AMHP, both written by social workers, as well as Frontier Psychiatrist.
There's also some blog written by a bunch of mental health nurses, but I wouldn't bother with that one.
There's a third set of stories to add into the mix, and that's of carers. Schizophrenia - A Carer's Journal relates the fears and frustrations of a father with a son in a forensic secure unit. The Wife of a Schizophrenic is sadly currently inactive, but her back catalogue of posts is still worth reading.
The posts and comments threads of blogs provide one of those very few places where mental health professionals, patients and carers can engage with each other on a genuinely level playing field. I think that's an opportunity we should take. If you're new to the blogosphere, then the above recommendations are a good place to start.
And if you don't like any of these blogs, then why not start your own?
Zarathustra, Mental Nurse
8 CommentsHarper Lee has Scout say it best in To Kill a Mockingbird: “Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.”
People can turn to books for comfort or to match their moods. As noted in the news, Marian Keyes has told her fans via her website that she is experiencing a depressive episode. The post has a number of quotes, some from other authors that show a profound understanding of dark, low moods. A. A. Milne’s donkey Eeyore gets a mention, as might be expected. I think that this Eeyore quote captures it well:
"Good morning, Pooh Bear," said Eeyore gloomily.
"If it is a good morning," he said.
"Which I doubt," said he.
"Why, what's the matter?"
"Nothing, Pooh Bear, nothing. We can't all, and some of us don't. That's all there is to it."
"Can't all what?" said Pooh, rubbing his nose.
"Gaiety. Song-and-dance. Here we go round the mulberry bush."
Notable on Ms Keyes’ site is the tremendous support from her fans, also demonstrating that she is not alone in her feelings. TashiK writes “Your books are the one thing that helps me through my bad day. I wish I could do the same for you.”
If only Ms Keyes could use her own books for bibliotherapy as others have done. Diane Shipley, who has declared her appreciation of Keyes’ work, gives advice on what and how to read when depressed. There’s even a website recommending books to read when you’re depressed.
A number of Primary Care Trusts have recognised the power of the written word and offer books on prescription. The NHS site says that reading books about various conditions “can bring many of the benefits of conventional medication without the potential side-effects associated with drugs.”
Here’s hoping that the power of books can help move those mired in depression forwards towards a lighter, brighter place. Again, Eeyore helps us put it all into perspective:
"It's snowing still," said Eeyore gloomily.
"So it is."
"And freezing."
"Is it?"
"Yes," said Eeyore. "However," he said, brightening up a little, "we haven't had an earthquake lately."
Bridget O'Connell, Head of Information
4 CommentsShould I be concerned that our communications officer told me I should write a blog about whether it is good to be grumpy? Perhaps he thinks that I moonlight writing comments on grumpy old sod.
Or maybe it’s just because we’re all feeling a bit grouchy now that the festivities are over and trying to stick to all those new year’s resolutions is proving harder with each passing day.
Research from the University of New South Wales found that people who were put into a negative frame of mind acted in a more cautious manner, and through thinking things through more clearly than people who were in a positive frame of mind. So it isn’t about personality types and how that impacts on social interaction or thinking at all!
Other studies confirm that if you are in a bad mood you deliberate more on the issues than if you are in a good mood. Well, we can all think of occasions when our good mood or enthusiasm for an idea meant that the potential downside was not fully thought through.
Of course this doesn't mean that grouchiness is beneficial to wellbeing. No, in order to be a healthier person you’re going to have to engage in an activity defined by R. Parse as “buoyant immersion in the presence of unanticipated glimpsings prompting harmonious integrity which surfaces anew through contemplative visioning”. That’s have a laugh, to you and me. Now there’s a resolution worth keeping.
Bridget O'Connell, Head of Information
Christmas can be a stressful time for anyone, but can be particularly difficult if you are living with mental health problems, and going through a down period.
Being alone at Christmas, dealing with complex family ties, managing on a tight budget or simply taking on too much can all have an impact on mental health. Every year Oxfordshire Mind, one of the 180 local Mind associations, gives people support at Christmas through community projects throughout the county, giving them a chance to talk about their concerns .
A Christmas workshop at one project revealed that most people’s concerns were emotional, rather than practical or financial, and a common complaint was feeling taken for granted by family and being pressured into spending Christmas in a way they knew they wouldn’t enjoy.
Single women in particular felt pressured by married siblings to ‘look after the parents’, and other people shared concerns over the stress of spending time with the in-laws.
Support groups then discuss how to plan coping strategies. Even if it is too late to make changes this year, they can look to the year ahead for what can be done differently next Christmas.
How would you like to spend Christmas? How can you make this happen and avoid any guilt or resentment? The groups discussed assertiveness skills for dealing with families, identifying a family member who is most approachable and discussing possible changes and alternative plans with them.
For those who do not feel able to assert their wishes about plans for Christmas, for example telling the family they’d rather go away with friends or spend Christmas day quietly at home, suggestions included planning a special treat for the new year. Perhaps a trip to the January sales, a weekend break or a special meal out – give yourself something to look forward to and remind yourself that you deserve to do things that you enjoy.
Christmas and New Year can be stressful times, but they are a great time to reassess ourselves, our hopes and fears, and make manageable, positive changes for the future.
Amy Wackett, Oxfordshire Mind
Find out about services at your nearest local Mind association
Start the discussion