A 2013 Mental Health Round Up

     I can certainly say that 2013 has been another big year for mental health. the year has seen increases in media coverage on mental health; some good and some bad. The beginning of the year saw Time To Change's advertising campaign come on to our telly boxes, encouraging us to talk about mental health and to break down the wall of stigma that surrounds it, mid-year saw Stephen Fry opening up and talking about his experiences of suicidal feelings and his previous attempt last year, and only a couple of months ago saw the outrage at Tesco, Asda and Amazon and their selling of 'mental patient' Halloween costumes, as well as Thorpe Parks offensive 'Asylum' 'attraction' - just to name a few

     In this blog post I have compiled a list, like I did last year, of this years biggest stories on mental health.

     January saw the TV screenings of Time To Change's advert on mental health stigma, encouraging viewers to start conversations about mental health, with an aim to remove the 'fear and awkwardness that stop people from talking about mental health' [1], this time focusing more on people that do not necessarily have much knowledge about mental health but helping them to feel that they can start a conversation.

     May 16th saw Parliament give another debate on mental health, following the landmark debate that occurred last June; where a number of MPs spoke out about their experiences of mental health problems for the first time. Paul Burstow, Charles Walker and Madeleine Moon initiated the debate, and covered a wide range of subjects including: the addressing of inequalities between physical and mental health services; discussion of improving acute and crises services; tackling the issues of the inequalities experienced by ethnic minority in mental health services; talks over making improvements to the Work Capability Assessment (WCA); as well as talks over providing better support for people with mental health problems wishing to enter the workplace, as well as, working with employers to build better support working environments. If you wish to read more you can read the proceedings in the Hansard here.

     Early June saw Stephen Fry speak out about his experiences of bipolar disorder, suicidal feelings, and his suicide attempt last year. Whilst Fry has been commended for his openness and raising awareness of bipolar depression and suicide, unfortunately there have been one too many insensitive troglodytes making sarky, misinformed comments - highlighting that there is still quite a way to go in tackling mental health stigma.

     July witnessed BBC 3's 'It's A Mad World Season', a week of programmes that covered a wide range of topics surrounding mental health, similar to the project carried out by Channel 4 (Channel 4 Goes Mad) in the previous year. The week saw the broadcasting of a number of documentaries and programmes that explored mental health units, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), depression, suicide, eating disorders, as well as delving into other issues such as the wall of stigma that surrounds mental health, as well as the effects of funding cuts to health services.

     In August Time to Change launched its 'It's time to talk' campaign, with an aim to stamp out the stigma surrounding mental health, as well as encouraging others to talk about mental health. Ambassadors such as Frankie Sandford, Ruby Wax, Rachel Bruno, Russell Kane and many more wore #TimeToTalk temporary tattoos and took to social networking sites to help further the campaign.

My #TimeToTalk tat

     Late September experienced an uproar when supermarkets Asda and Tesco, as well as on-line retailer Amazon, were selling 'mental patient' fancy dress costumes. After many complaints and petitions, the supermarkets, at last, withdrew these 'costumes', apologized and made donations to mental health charities. Whilst such an atrocity should have never happened in the first place, this gave us an opportunity to see the work we have ahead of us, as well as how many people are willing to stand for mental health and challenge the prejudices and stigmas that surround it.

     October saw another uproar, at Thorpe Park's 'The Asylum'. The 'attraction' included walking through a mock psychiatric hospital, whereby 'actors' would pretend to be mental patients; some of which jumping down from fences, jumping out onto visitors and others chasing them with chainsaws. Thousands signed a petition to urge the park to close the 'attraction' and to rename it. A spokeswoman for Thorpe park said that there are going to be meetings at some time after the new year; as of yet, however, we are still unsure as whether such an appalling attraction is yet to see another year.

     2013, in my opinion, has been a notable year for mental health; it has seen quite a few bricks removed from the wall of stigma; however, more still needs to be done - not only to keep breaking down this wall, but also removing those stubborn bricks, as well as preventing these bricks being piled back on. Let us see what 2014 has in store.

Wishing each and every one of you all the best for the new year!

BMNM.

[1]  http://www.time-to-change.org.uk/about-us/about-our-campaign/start-your-conversation-2013

The Big Mad Experience 2013

     Around 2 months ago, Wednesday 30th October (to be precise) saw ‘The Big Mad Experience’ come to Bradford – a jam packed day full of music, dance and more; all in aid of busting the wall of stigma that surrounds mental health.

     Hosted at the Norcroft building at the University of Bradford, the day saw people from all walks of life (in either fancy dress or everyday clothing); whether they were students, doctors, lecturers, mental health professionals, volunteers, mental health service users, or the average person on the street. The day saw us all come together and talk about anything and everything under the sun about mental health.

     The day started at around 9am, but certainly a lot earlier for those putting in the tremendous hard work preparing the centre for the day. After registration there was a brief meet-and-greet before all heading to the auditorium, being greeted again by the Drum Machine; of which I was part of.

Oops - it appears that I've dropped my stick!

     The first talk of the day, led by Justine Raynsford, was on pharmacy – focusing on anti-psychotics; how they work/or don’t work, as well as debating their effectiveness and suitability. Whilst for some people these have been the light at the end of the tunnel, for others they are nothing but a living nightmare. Unfortunately, when it comes to mental health and treatment, one size does not fit all.

     The wonderful Flo Bellamy, dressed as Mary Poppins, delivered the second talk. Here she shared with us her experiences of hallucinations and what it felt like for her to be on medication. Flo spoke about how instead of being treated as a number, or a ‘case’, the importance of just being listened to and being treated with respect and dignity like any other human being; rather than being shifted around from doctor to doctor and given a cocktail of medications.

The wonderful Flo, aka Mary Poppins

      After a short break, the third talk was delivered by Steve Williams (dressed as The Doctor), a professional mental health nurse and a lecturer here at the University of Bradford who teaches in nursing. Steve, in his early 20’s, has lived with experiences of psychosis, anxiety and depression. As a lecturer he teaches his students constructive critical recovery-orientated nursing approaches that are based in cognitive therapies; he believes that a key part of nursing should encompass compassion, warmth, gentleness, kindness and acceptance, and how important these aspects can be to patient’s wellbeing and recovery. Following his talk, he conducted (in what was probably the worlds-largest ever) mindfulness session. Personally, I found the experience very relaxing and releasing – certainly a technique I’ll be adopting in future when it comes to preparing for exams!

My favourite tweet of the day

     After the relaxing mindfulness session, Dr Rufus May, dressed as a tiger on the day, re-awoke us all and got our blood pumping, before settling down again and discussing the effects of support networks. Rufus, who has also had experiences of psychosis and being a psychiatric patient, believes that if someone has the right support behind them they can grow, develop and flourish; rather than just surviving on the over-prescribed use of psychiatric drugs.

Rufus the Tiger gets our blood pumping!

     All that moving around had made us all hungry, so it quite right to call a break for lunch. Lunch was served by the lovely people from Zaara’s, as to which I thoroughly enjoyed their chicken tikka masala, rice, naan bread, and onion bhajis. I should perhaps add that I am not being endorsed in any way whatsoever to write this – however, a few cheeky naans wouldn't go amiss!

     Towards the end of the lunch break there was a jam led by Aid Todd, from Drum Machine, in the Norcroft auditorium. Here everyone experimented with iPads, keyboards, drums, tambourines etc. In what was an exhilarating 20 minutes or so, before progressing on to the second half of the day.

 

 

     Following the jam, United Voice (the staff and patient choir from Lynfield Mount Hospital), gave us a spectacular performance before leading on to the final event of the day. 

     The last event of the day was in our hands, we could talk about anything and everything about mental health – collectively, we came up with around 12 topics with which we could discuss and debate upon. Such topics included: the effects of social isolation on mental health; ways to tackle the stigmas that surround mental health; religion and their effects on mental health, plus many more. We split off into groups for around 45 minutes before all feeding back to the room as a whole. My interest was in tackling mental health stigma – the group collectively agreed that education is an antidote to the poison that is stigma; that we should do more educate others about mental health and mental illness, with suggestions that more should be done in schools to educate its pupils, rather than having the media fill us with (more-often-than-not) prejudicial, stereotypical, insensitive, offensive content that you may typically find in the tabloids (*cough* Daily Mail *cough* The Sun).

     The day ended on a high with one last outstanding performance from the Drum Machine (even if I say so myself)! I can safely say that the day was enjoyed by all, even my balloons! All I can say is: roll on The Big Mad Experience 2014!

Even my balloons enjoy today!

BMNM.