This week in mental health... 25th October 2015

It feels like only yesterday that I wrote last week's 'This week in...' post, but alas, a whole seven days have somehow past! And what a week it's been. I've been high and low, but mainly somewhere in-between. But I've always found that reading brings me comfort.

Below are some of the news stories that really struck a cord with me this week... 

1) Stop the Madness, Jonathan Cohn

Despite 1% of the American population experiencing schizophrenia there have no major advancements in treatments. When Tamara’s brother was diagnosed with schizophrenia, she sought answers. Why do treatments for mental illness differ so much between countries? How come early intervention in psychiatry is only now becoming a method of treatment?

Huffington Post 18^th October 2015;

“Tamara eventually settled in the suburbs of Portland, Oregon, where she worked for a local mental health agency. It was through her work that, in the early 2000s, she heard about a radical new approach to schizophrenia that had been developed by researchers in Australia. Tamara was shocked to discover that this program took a very different attitude toward schizophrenia than nearly everyone who had treated her brother. Over and over again, Tamara and her family had been told that schizophrenia was a hopeless condition. By contrast, these Australian researchers were convinced that with the right kind of treatment, delivered at the right time, many sufferers could lead pretty normal lives.

This treatment method was based on a simple question that has upended everything that scientists once thought they knew about schizophrenia: What if its most destructive symptoms, the ones that had swallowed Glenn’s personality and ravaged his life, could actually be prevented? In other countries, this method is changing people’s lives in ways that psychiatrists had never imagined possible. But in the U.S., it has barely expanded beyond a handful of academic and specialty centers. Even among doctors and mental health professionals, surprisingly few people seem to realize that such a potentially transformative approach to this terrible disease even exists.”

2) 'We have to start talking about it': New Zealand suicide rates hit record high, Eleanor Ainge Roy

It’s an epidemic. Young males, the majority of whom are Maori people, are taking their lives in New Zealand. But why does it take such a huge number of deaths before a conversation about mental health begins?

The Guardian 19th October 2015;
“The bucolic Southern Alps, glacier carved fjords and lush pastoral landscape of Aotearoa New Zealand mask a dark statistic – one of the highest suicide rates in the western world. From Bluff at the bottom of the South Island to Moerewa in the poorer North, New Zealanders are killing themselves at unprecedented rates. This month the Office of the chief coroner released provisional suicide statistics that found in the past year 564 people died by their own hand – the highest number of suicides since records began eight years ago. The figures – which are nearly twice the annual road toll – means New Zealand has the second highest rate of youth suicide in the OECD, according to data from the Ministry of Health.

But Otago University academic Dr Shyamala Nada-Raja, a senior researcher at the School of social and preventive medicine and an expert on suicide, believes there is a failure to address something unique and intrinsic to New Zealand culture – its youth as a country and a fragmented, uncertain identity. “Have we been addressing the wrong things because are we missing the root cause, something much deeper?” she says."

3) Mental Health Awareness, Paul Gleghorne

At 26, Irish men’s hockey player Paul finally sought help for something that had been plaguing him since he was 8 years old. In this blog post he opens up about a normally hushed topic in sports; his diagnoses with depression and anxiety.

PaulGleghorne26, 19th October 2015;
"I first started feeling unwell when I was 8 years old.  I didn’t really understand the feelings I had at the time as I wasn’t fully aware of what was “normal” and what wasn’t.  Then when I reached my early teens, I knew the way I felt wasn’t right but I was too scared to say anything to anyone.  Despite having a network of close friends and a loving family around me, I just couldn’t bring myself to speak to anyone about it.

One of the biggest things I struggled with was the fact that I didn’t know why I felt the way I did.  I knew that I was very fortunate and that I had a lot of positives in my life that others might have envied so I couldn’t comprehend why I had these feelings and emotions.  My conclusion at the time was that it was because I was “weak” and I was unable to cope with things that “normal” people could cope with easily. This made me even more afraid to talk to anyone about what was going on."

4) ‘My illness does not define me or my relationship. I have schizophrenia and he loves me for who I am’, Nicola Hyndes

Nicola is a fellow See Change Ambassador. In this piece she shares her mental health story in the context of her relationship.  It’s definitely an area of my own life I’ve struggled with; how to balance my mental illness and being in a relationship.

The Journal, 23rd October 2015;
"Three weeks after being discharged from a psychiatric ward following a suicide attempt, I started a new relationship with my boyfriend Ishy. We had been friends for about a year beforehand. Understandably the mental health workers involved with me at the time were horrified. I will admit it was not an ideal time to get into a relationship considering I was quite vulnerable, but that was over seven years ago now and we are still going strong. He even put a ring on it back in 2013... For every up, there has been just as many downs. Ishy has been there for my absolute worst. He has sat through hospital visiting hours, held my hand while I faced being diagnosed with schizophrenia, stayed up with me until all hours while I have cried, calmed me down when I got too worked up, stopped me from causing harm to myself and looked after me during the times when I have not been able to get out of bed."

Until next week,