Mental Health is a universal human right.
So why are so many not getting the support they need?
Today (10 October) marks World Mental Health Day.
The theme this year is mental health is a universal human right. Whilst we know that mental health is a universal human right, many groups face more barriers to good mental health than others.
Everyday is a Mental Health Day for me
The reason #WMHD exists is a to create a day to talk about mental health and show everyone that mental health matters. It’s also a day to let people know that it’s okay to ask for help, no matter what you’re going through.
For several years now, it has been my personal mission to talk openly about my own diagnosis of Complex PTSD in 2019 and the reality of my life fighting the desire to stop battling depression. Some call it brave, but for me it is purely survival.
What I want to talk about today is suicide — which is often the most misunderstood symptom that can affect all people suffering from a mental health condition.
Here are the latest suicide statistics I could find, including suicide and self-harm, they are bleak but there is hope if we have better solutions.
— Over 700,000 people take their own lives each year — that’s one person every 40 seconds (World Health Organization).
— 115 people die by suicide in the UK every week (ONS).
— 1 in 5 people have suicidal thoughts (NHS Digital).
For more info on this, please visit Mental Health Statistics | Mental Health Foundation or Mental Health Statistics | 2023 Data | Champion Health
The Issue of Pain and Suffering (TW: Suicide)
My own earliest memory of wanting to end my life was in 1995. I was just 15. I talk about it on my Instagram feed back in 2020:
‘’My earliest memory of the ‘I can’t take anymore’ pain was when I was in my mid-teens, in Launceston, Cornwall. My mother had recently moved to the town, turning to the children she abandoned 13 years before, to escape her violent husband. My now-estranged father had not coped well with her return and his jealousy of my connection with her. He threw me out and told me to live with her.
My truth was, the connection wasn’t there for me. I desperately wanted it but I was too angry, too hurt, and I felt unsafe with her. I didn’t know it at the time, but what I did know was the pain of feeling like I should never have been born. I wasn’t wanted or loved. I was nothing.
That day I stood on a bridge over the A30 and contemplated jumping — I stood there for a long time in the low misty morning, and eventually my gaze focused on the cars heading up into Devon. I saw the Tors of Dartmoor and the vast stretch of land as the A30 weaved through the hills. I pictured the rest of the UK out there waiting for me to explore it, thought about all the people…I thought beyond the UK there are continents I need to explore, animals I can meet (I was destined to gain a Zoology degree).
The pain began to wane. One day, there could be a future without this pain. A future I could make.’’
The reality of my desire to end my life is that the pain of the fight to survive becomes unbearable. The pain is not caused by injury, or physical illness but it is so real it hurts as much as my migraines and the contractions in childbirth.
Sometimes, I can’t even breath.
How can we start to fight this epidemic of pain and suffering?
It is recognized that famous DJ Avicii tragically took his life after suffering his entire life with chronic pain.
Currently on Big Brother 2023, there is a man (Dylan) who chose to amputate his foot because of the chronic pain following an accident.
Intense chronic pain drives humans to the desire to remove that pain, no matter the cost. For those left without help or support — this can have devastating irreversible effects.
When survivors of suicide talk about the moment they chose to act to end their life, they talk of peace. The decision to end one’s life was followed by the feeling of euphoric peace that made sense. Nothing else mattered. The pain was gone.
How do those with the funds and means to bring about change, begin to find better ways to end the pain and suffering?
Changing the narrative.
The conversation I experience is that when collectively we are talking about suicide, we rarely talk about this tangible pain. It appears the general discussion around suicide is about irrational or unreasonable thoughts brought about by mental illness, about sadness and fragility, the lack of strength to cope with life stresses, preventable by talking or reaching out to others. Pain, chronic pain, doesn’t seem to be discussed.
Bring lived experience
By including those who suffer, those who survive suicide daily in the conversations. By using lived experience and evidence-led research to tackle inequalities and the root causes of the mental health issues that create the symptoms of depression.
Unless you have experienced that pain and suffering, you will never be able to fully understand this choice or find solutions. It is time to talk and hear from survivors of suicide — which is a fatal symptom for too many.
Create compassion societies and workplaces
Mental health is a basic human right. Empower vulnerable communities to thrive, create compassionate spaces for people to heal and provide more individual flexible workplaces for those vulnerable to mental health issues.
Mental health issues span the socio-economic spectrum from poverty to affluence — however access to support and space to heal are only available to the affluent.
Those stuck in the cycles of poverty are left to believe that they do not matter. Simply providing the help won’t be enough, we have to demonstrate that their lives matter — bring them back their dignity, value and self belief.
It is my hope that #WorldMentalHealthDay2023 sparks the start of some truly radical conversations around this killer.”
Helpful resources to people suffering in pain today:
