Discussing matters of your mind

_**“Keep Calm and Carry On”
_
As a British society we are really rather good at that. Not all the time I grant you; sometimes, and especially for your average University of Warwick student, the slogan ‘Now Panic and Freak Out’ might seem more appropriate. **

You could be clutching a flask of caffeine as you speed to the seminar you’re already five minutes late for, whilst ignoring pressing thoughts of a deadline coming up and debating whether your choice of fancy dress is appropriate for Pop! tonight.

If this is the case, no one is going to blame you for being stressed. Sometimes, perhaps without you initially realising it, ‘a bit stressed’ can turn into something a bit more.
Mental health. Why are we still just that little bit uncomfortable talking about it? If someone has a physical injury, the cause and effect of which you can easily identify, then nobody flinches.

“Fear of a name increases fear of a thing itself.” JK Rowling gets it spot on. Words like ‘cognitive behavioural therapy’, ‘Sertraline’ and ‘generalised anxiety disorder’ – to name but a few of the connotations of mental health – may mean little to someone not well-versed in the specifics. Maybe that needs to change.

This week, PsychSoc present to campus ‘Mental Health Awareness’ week, which promises to combat the stigma against those fighting a mental health problem. This week of all weeks will prove Warwick’s commitment to consistently providing a support base that never seems to have fully formed.

I haven’t experienced the University’s Counselling Service so I wanted to get a sense of how it was perceived by its users.

One student assured me the service provided a “very nice and comfortable environment” admitting that it was “good that it is based at Westwood and not central campus because it makes it less intimidating”. However, they did feel that the service “should be advertised more”, suggesting that its online webpages could be made “more accessible”.

Hopefully, this will be addressed by the numerous activities commencing this week. Although higher education institutions do seem to recognise the need to vocalise the struggles linked with psychological health, I have a huge gripe with the relaxed attitude presented in some of the UK’s primary and secondary schools.

There can be a very blasé ‘the kids are alright’ train of thought towards pupils. The statistics often seem to focus on the age group of those in higher education or the middle-aged in full-time occupations.

I’ll reiterate that ‘stress’ is only one facet which can affect someone’s mental health. The school playground, which is rampant with hormones, can be a theatre for harsh comments and immature attitudes which spread from one pupil to another and can severely affect a child’s self-esteem.

Why, to borrow from personal experience, was it that when I needed someone to turn to at school, a support base wasn’t really there?

That’s all subjective I suppose, but if recent claims from the charity ChildLine state that they are getting calls from children as young as five, then surely it evidences that everyone needs that support base. Even if it is at your doctors, your school or your work it should be there.

The old as well as the young are at risk. Recent cases such as that of hospital worker Bona Kostova mistreating a 73-year old dementia patient denouncing him to be “an animal” make me sick.

This certainly is not indicative of British society but the fact such cases can arise suggest the hole of ignorance still needs to be filled.

If you’ve been low enough to need antidepressants then it may be that you have felt you are both irrational and a burden. In fact, I think one of the strongest fears surrounding some mental health problems is that idea of the ‘unknowable’.
If you can’t place why you feel so low then you may feel like your anxieties just aren’t comparable to everyone else’s problems. But I promise you this, they absolutely, unequivocally are important. The less people talk about mental health, the more it fades away as an ‘important issue’.

So don’t be frightened: talk about it. I hope it does you the world of good.