The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
‘Mental health should be spoken about’
Michael Alexander hears how World Suicide Prevention Day is the launch for a Dundee charity’s new mental health films
Dundee residents are being urged to support their friends and relatives this week as part of National Suicide Prevention Week.
The initiative aims to raise awareness of suicide and to encourage people to talk openly about mental health and wellbeing.
Kevin Cordell, convener of Dundee City council’s community safety and public protection committee, said: “When someone close to us isn’t themselves we usually notice.
“But if those behaviour changes start to worry you the most important aspect is to ask them about it.
“Talking openly about their feelings can help a person get some perspective on what is troubling them and you don’t need to have a solution. Just being there for them and listening, without judgment, shows that you care.
“Ask if they are thinking about suicide. It won’t put the thought into their head if it wasn’t there already, but it can be a huge relief for them to be able to open up completely and recognise they need help and support.”
As part of Suicide Prevention Week, NHS Health Scotland and NHS Education Scotland have produced an animated video which helps people understand the signs that someone may be thinking about suicide, and how and when to provide support.
Daniella James has never wanted to commit suicide – but there have been times when she simply wished she wasn’t alive.
Born in Aberdeen and brought up in the Borders, the 25-year-old Stirling University international politics graduate, who now works in HR and payroll for Edinburgh City Council, suffered a nervous breakdown last year and had “no choice” other than to move back home with her mum.
However, as Daniella speaks out to help raise awareness of mental health issues around this year’s World Suicide Prevention Day, she wishes she’d spoken to someone sooner instead of being “isolated to the point of despair” and reaching crisis point.
Daniella says she is now more into “self-help” than using mental health services. She came off medication after deciding it “wasn’t for me” and thinks the “blow out” of her nervous breakdown has helped her stay positive.
But another way she is helping to give hope to others is through her support of a ground-breaking mental health film and national roadshow that launched in Dundee.
As previously reported by The Courier, Foolish Optimism focused on the harsh realities of three mental health sufferers and explored mental health triggers, stigma, seeking help and coping mechanisms.
Initiated by young people, and aiming to carry a message of hope, the project was brought to life by Dundee Hilltown-based arts, education and social care charity Front Lounge, who attracted funding from the Year of Young People National Lottery Fund and Life Changes Trust.
Daniella was part of the original working group that met before the film was shown and came up with a plan for touring workshops across Scotland. The aim was to “change the conversation” around mental health.
Now, in a bid to explore the positive steps young people can take to feel better and manage their conditions, Daniella features in a follow-up film released this week – the first of six new films in the run-up to World Mental Health Day on October 10.
Entitled Things To Live For, the film captures Daniella and her friend Andrew Compston having an everyday chat about their strategies to keep going and stay positive in everyday life.
“I think the axis now for Foolish Optimism – the first film – is looking for something to move forward with, looking at hope,” said Daniella.
“The first part of Foolish Optimism was really quite bleak. That was a good conversation starter and gave people a little zap to talk about things.
“This kind of thing now is about actually trying to help yourself, your friends, your family – anything that’s going to give us anything to hold on to.”
Daniella said her film was “literally just a video podcast”. It’s her and her friend in a coffee shop “just talking about our mental health, but in a fairly light-hearted manner”.
Daniella said the main message she wanted to come across is “how do you have a conversation with your friends and family about something so tragic without it causing hysteria”?
“Sometimes you just need to vocalise things that are happening in your mind,” she added. “That doesn’t mean people need locked up in a psychiatric ward or given medication.”
The other area where Daniella thinks society has a lot of work still to do is in preventative mental health.
The films have been made by Nathan Inatimi, supported by Jack Stewart, Shona Inatimi and Andrew Brough all part of the Aperture Project, also a Front Lounge initiative, with support from Sonia Napolitano, Elixabele Riley, Rhian Malcolm and Ailsa Purdie.
See the video at The Courier website. For support in dealing with mental health issues go to www.samaritans.org
Ageneration ago, mental ill health was still talked about in hushed tones. Happily, the ridiculous taboo that surrounded mental health has now, largely, been swept away and support is available to those who are struggling and those who are facing a full-blown crisis.
That a safety net exists and barriers to accessing those services are not only being set aside but positively promoted is welcome. But there are still too many people falling through the gaps.
Figures released by the NHS earlier this year suggest more than 780 people took their own lives in Scotland in 2018, a rise of more than 100 year-on-year.
That is a terrible toll and one upon which we all should reflect on World Suicide Day.
What should never be lost in this debate is that there is a person behind every statistic.
A son or a daughter, a loved one, a friend.
Each a person of enormous potential who tragically has found themselves at such a low ebb that they cannot see a way out. That, in itself, is a failure of society.
That mental ill health is now being seen in the same light as other medical conditions is a positive step forward.
But there are still giant leaps to be made to ensure the holes in the safety net are plugged and every person suffering from a mental health condition has real options available to help them rebuild their health and lives.