We won't care 'till we need care

Last updated 9 Oct 2008 11:43 0 Comments

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YOU don't have to watch TV for long to see people prepared to put any part of their life on show - sometimes so frankly and explicitly that even the TV blushes.

But even when we are mature enough to mark World Mental Health Day, very few people are willing to put their hands up and say they have been treated for mental illness. In an age of over-enthusiastic confession, it is a subject which remains taboo.

Neurotic illnesses such as anorexia and depression have gone some way towards being considered with understanding and compassion. People may feel that they can identify with those who are concerned about their body image or are unhappy - even if they cannot know the hold that those feelings can take.

Psychotic illnesses remain another story. Who wants to admit they hear voices, have visions, or have been sectioned? Who wants to admit to being a "psycho", or a "schizo", when popular imagination associates them with having a "split" personality, flipping between discussing the weather and running around with a knife and stabbing people in a deranged frenzy?

The sad reality is usually much quieter. Just as for anyone, it is a tide of days, months and years - some peaks of happiness and peace, some descending into despair.

For those who are able to live a "normal life", a range of more mundane problems present themselves. Do you tell potential employers that you have a mental illness? Pay extra for travel insurance? Dare ask for a mortgage?

The lucky ones have families and friends who stay with them through the bad times and the good. The less fortunate too often drift in and out of hospital, the benefits system or prison, forgotten.

For many people with mental illnesses it is a sufficient struggle just to keep going, let alone be able to campaign for better understanding, help and integration.

Too few people care what services and support there are for the mentally ill - until they suddenly, desperately find they need them.

This article appeared in Reading Chronicle 09 Oct 08

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