For a long time now I have been concerned about and have spoken out against the mentalization or medicalisation of perfectly normal human behaviour as mental illness. Why are the young so keen to brand themselves mentally ill? I don't know the exact figures but the number of young people applying to university and declaring a "mental health difficulty" has rocketed in the last five years. Wave upon wave of anxiety. Depression and self harm, eating problems seem never ending now. The applications for extenuation in exams and course work continues to increase every year.
My recent battles with darkness and mood and the overwhelming sense of anxiety are part of a wider whole. Devastating as my anxiety has been it is not in my eyes a mental illness. That is partly why I have agreed to go into therapy as I realise Risperidone alone will not save me.
The Conversation that surrounds us at present with everyone and his cat standing up to say they are mentally ill is misleading. Many of those who come to me for help as disabled would never get anywhere near secondary mental health services. Less likely to be admitted to a psychiatric ward. And certainly would have no chance at getting Personal Independence Premium. Yet we modify so much for them.
Whilst I do not know how to deal with this current trend I have long felt that the so called Conversation did not reflect the lives of people I met in the 1990s, on wards, in asylums and the numbing boredom of every day life on benefits. Yet my warnings have fallen on deaf ears. The reason is I'm a nobody, famous only in my own little world.
Last night my friend Lucie whom I'm known since those days posted on Facebook a brilliant piece from The Guardian on Friday. Finally someone telling the truth and shining a light on this strange phenomenon that is the self stigmatization a whole generation of young people. Have a read https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jun/30/nothing-like-broken-leg-mental-health-conversation?CMP=fb_gu .
Rant over, back to normal. The heat wave continues. I spent a splendid afternoon in London with Kiwi Sarah eating Vietnamese food and catching up. The trains didn't quite help our cause. How is halving the number of trains to London and doubling the carriages going to help me? I expect standing room only when Arsenal are playing at home but not a hot last day of June Saturday.
Today I have just listened to Choral Evensong on Radio 3, wonderful to hear Mendelssohn's Hear my Prayer, saw my friends at The Waggoners and I have some belly pork strips for supper. Tomorrow I start week five back at work, going up to six hours a day this week. The heat will I'm told continue. I wonder how long this will last.
Enjoy the rest of Sunday.
I Heard a Voice.
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