If we’re going back to lockdown, we must take care of everybody’s mental health
THE threat of Level 5 restrictions this week was a big wake-up call for us all. In between the heightened states of anxiety and concern, our minds turned to our loved ones and all that might change in this land. Many expressed a feeling that we could not go back to a second lockdown because a winter of loneliness would have devastating effects on the entire population. The impact would not just be economic. A collective wound would be put upon the population again.
Niall ‘Bressie’ Breslin, the musician, mental health advocate and podcaster, said on Twitter that he had “serious concerns about the emotional and mental toll” this proposed second lockdown would have on people. Level 5 did not come, but we do not know when things might change again. With a nationwide Level 3 now in place, it has got me thinking about anxiety, both collective and personal.
Tomorrow is World Mental Health Day, an opportunity to talk about the concerns of the mind that bother us. This year’s theme is ‘mental health for all’ – greater investment, greater access to services. For everyone, everywhere.
It is worth taking note of the World Economic Forum’s finding that mental health problems are on the rise in every country and could cost the global economy up to $16trn (€13.6trn) between 2010 and 2030. The forum warned that we could be facing a mental health crisis if we do not muster a collective response.
Mental health is a problem for all of us – not just those who suffer but also the families and carers of those who suffer. In short, we all have mental health issues.
A few years ago I had my own problems. They came from an intense period of workload pressure while living overseas. The result was a complete breakdown in my work and personal life.
What began as a few late nights in my office in Sydney soon turned into weeks of stress. I went to my doctor and was advised to slow down. But with a large TV production under way I found I could not down tools and so struggled on.
That decision was born from a sort of toxic masculinity, where as a young man I felt I was not supposed to feel down or get stressed. If such feelings did occur, then a trip to the pub with mates would fix all that.
The trips to the pub did not help and the stress soon built and turned into fullblown panic attacks. I remember these vividly because, being a child of the 1990s, I had never learned about mental health or stress and could not even put a name on them. It was only later, in catching a TV programme, that I discovered what was happening to me.
Panic attacks are no easy thing but again, trying to fulfil some macho image, I struggled on. Untreated stress became total depression. The TV production was eventually handed over to my business partner, who completed the project while I returned to Ireland to face my demons.
This story has a happy ending because I got the help I needed here in Ireland, but it was a long and arduous journey with no roadmap or signs. It was a journey into the country of the self, where I had to acknowledge that I had a mental health problem and that, in short, it was not a weakness but rather a reflection of outside pressures bearing down on me.
In that country of the self I came to understand that in Ireland we have a problem with mental health. Last year alone there were 421 deaths by suicide and intentional self-harm registered here. Last year’s figures show that 90 people who died by suicide were aged between 35 and 44, a demographic who are hard-pressed at the moment because of Covid, financial pressures and new work relationships.
As we face an uncertain winter, it is important now to know the signs of mental health problems in ourselves and in others. With an already-intense world bubbling outside our doors, and the newness of working from home long since worn off, we have to think about how we can collectively get through this winter.
For me, it will be exercise and phone conversations with friends around the world. We need to build emotional scaffolding around ourselves. Steps like these improve our mood.
For our elderly neighbours who may not have access to Zoom or social media, we must be the bridge to the outside world. A phone call could lift that person’s mood and be the turning point in an isolated week.
Perhaps, though, it’s to Bressie that I should give the final word when he called out politicians to “reassess their failures in this space now they’ve realised how truly important it is”.
We now need to come together like never before and create a meitheal of the spirit that takes in all our community from the school-age children, who do not understand what is happening, to our vulnerable elders who need us now more than ever.
Every conversation could save a life. I’ll be making my calls this week to young and old friends. Maybe tomorrow is the day to make that long-thought-of phone call to a friend or loved one you haven’t spoken to in a while. We might discover we are not as alone as we think.
What began as a few late nights in the office turned into weeks of stress. It then became total depression