It started with not wanting to be there. 4 A levels did not mean I had to go to university – I’d told them that. But they twisted my Dad’s arm with fancy words, and he fell for their eager wish to get more graduates for the grammar school, and the deal we’d made vanished, just like that. So no chance of working for the local paper.

The arguments began at registration, I should do French. But I chose a general course, spread over 4 subjects, for variety.   Misery and displeasure was the outcome. I hadn’t realised you couldn’t discuss with the lecturer, or make an alternative suggestion. I thought university was there to learn and explore, but apparently that wasn’t so. Things I’d had some contact with already, non-school work, theatre trips for French and English plays, and my school teacher’s preference for Chaucer in poetry, meant study was repetitive.

So this introduced me to the world of mental health experiences, problems, and ultimately treatment.

Naive

It’s fair to say I was naive on arrival at university. I’d grown up in a village of around 900 people, a local school that you only left if you passed the exam for grammar school. Buses were few, finished running by 9pm, and if you missed the one to school, it was an 8 mile walk, as no bus went there direct. I had never met someone who wasn’t from Britain till I went to university, and before you ask how could this happen, I was born in 1948.

If you want to call naivety innocence, you’d be near the truth as well. I explored all the left wing student groups, and they in turn enlightened me to names hitherto unknown….Marx, Engels, Trotsky. There were a myriad of smaller groups, intense, determined, most now wearing new names and badges. Many groups in the 1960s had lecturers who were members alongside the students.

Following my intent for journalism, I joined the student union paper. I turned up at debates. At the folk club. Was taught how to picket when we went on strike, leaflet, canvass…collected lots of badges.

And had my world turned upside down by CND, anti Vietnam protests, and the resurgence of the feminist movement. None of which I was prepared for, of course, my parents being conservative by nature. However, my dentist had been a member of the Peace Pledge Union, and I’d signed the Peace Pledge when I was 16. This was considered distinctly odd by the students I was now getting to know.

At the end of my first year, I passed all my exams, and requested a transfer from the subjects I was doing in the (mistaken) belief I would find it both more interesting and more useful in terms of future occupation/work. I chose Sociology and Economics as the main subjects, and this was accepted, The university was clearly as misguided as I was.

It was shortly after this that I had a ‘nervous breakdown’. This is a rather dubious phrase to use for an inability to focus on what I was wanting to do, what I was genuinely feeling, whether I truly wanted to continue studying at all, and whether I was capable of looking after myself at that time.

The answer to the last bit was no, I couldn’t. I had a week in hospital, where I kept asking for someone that I could talk to. I was told all I could have was medication, drugs in other words, which I refused.

As a voluntary patient, albeit with my clothes impounded, I was entitled to leave, and my landlady rescued me, bringing a leaflet from a charity explaining they had no right to retain me. No one in my family had any sort of mental illness, and I didn’t let them know what had happened.

Nearly a year later, I had a second, more dramatic, occurrence. This time, it was an irrational decision of my own, stemming from a personal relationship, which resulted in me taking an overdose of painkillers. It was, and still is, the most stupid thing I have ever done. Fortunately I told someone, who called an ambulance. I was pumped out (which I do not remember). My parents, contacted by my landlady, drove up overnight to see me.

Uncomfortable

Even writing about it now is uncomfortable. The one thing that I have gained from this is that I would never do this again.

The depression, constantly with me, but variable,  does not come with the anxiety that doctors so often write alongside it, but it does mean I have to take medication permanently. Most of the time it works. If it doesn’t, I have a day in bed.

I rarely leave home if badly depressed, but I’m nowhere near as ill as some people are. I have never been sectioned, that is, forcibly made to go into hospital for mental health treatment, due to danger to myself or others.

I’ve known a number of people with bipolar disorder. There are several treatments that can help for that, but the main difficulty is the mood swings between deep depression and high over-enthusiastic activity. They tend to come on without warning, very rapidly, and the duration is not necessarily stable. Family members of mine have experienced this, and it can be the cause of both employment problems and relationship difficulties, due to the mood swings. In some cases, they may need in-patient care.

Regular appointments with psychiatrists and frequent trials of different prescriptions have made it clear to me that no single medication works for everyone. Reading the leaflet with the prescription, the list of possible side effects is unnerving. I am speaking as someone who always reads the leaflets, but can say that only once have I suffered a side effect listed therein. The other drawback is the interaction between different drugs prescribed for different complaints, which may prevent some medications being prescribed.

For the record, I have also had 4 sessions of counseling during 20 years, plus a longer session following a break in my regular medication which triggered a bad spell of depression requiring emergency action. This did, however, get my mental state settled again in a couple of months. In my early 30s, I was unable to work for 6 months due to depression, and finally took retirement in my 50s due to depression and stress from working full time and caring for a bipolar relative.This early health retirement entitled me to continuing civil service payments prior to retirement, unlikely to be available now.

Which brings us up to the present situation for how those who have mental health issues are treated and viewed. It has always been more difficult to get help and treatment for what we could refer to as non-visible health matters. As a migraine sufferer from age 11, I learnt this at an early stage, but at least pain killers are available from the supermarket.

Depression and the anxiety that may come with it don’t respond to a simple over the counter tablet, and yet it is a very common problem for men and women of all ages, and also for young people. Teenagers suffer from it, and . can identify the problem. Young children are more likely to complain of stomach ache, or head ache, because they are not old enough to realise what they are experiencing.

More complex mental problems, actual illnesses and physical problems at birth, are equally not always identified straight away. ADHD is definitely an area overlooked and underdiagnosed until very recently, and even now dismissed by some professionals as irrelevant. Autism, partly due to the variability of its individual appearance, is not always diagnosed correctly. More serious mental illnesses such as bi-polar or schizophrenia, and the problems experienced by those with learning difficulties, are also vulnerable to being overlooked in the early stages.

Units

 Society as a whole does not consider the individual units as having specific needs, nor does it consider that adjustment by society is needed, it thus excludes small units who are then one very large grouped unit due to lack of knowledge, consideration, and inclusion.

Even more concerning is government’s approach to that grouped unit. Provision of help is currently being examined under the heading of “too much”. Little notice has been taken of the waiting lists for counselling, or the information provided by the public. Threats to the NHS, comments made that strike action by doctors is betraying the British public, privatisation, higher prices for drugs etc. No doubt their pay can cover private health care. Mine can’t. Can yours?