I suffered as a child. Don’t let it happen to others
IT WAS a pleasure to hear Theresa May on the radio talking openly and passionately about mental health, expressing her much-needed plans to educate teachers about mental health and non-visual disabilities. I’m only too aware of how teachers and head teachers failed me at the age of eight, requesting my exclusion from primary school due to mental health issues. The process made me a prisoner in my own home for many years, leaving me with a permanent label. from childhood onwards, I’ve been home schooled and am incredibly proud of what I’ve achieved despite all this. Once I was in the care of a specialist team with the right training, of the sort I hope Mrs May was referring to, I found my world slowly changing for the better. I will do everything in my power to make sure children and young adults suffering as I did aren’t subjected to unnecessary exclusion, labelling and discrimination as I was. I believe basic support at the early stages can make a huge difference. I was left feeling I was a socially unacceptable freak who had no chance of a future. It isn’t just the teaching profession that requires training and understanding about mental health — though that’s a good start — but I know first hand that even in the medical profession, for paramedics for example, further training is very much needed. In my experience, many of them are ignorant of mental health issues and how to adapt their approach in an emergency — even to the extent of dismissing an exceptionally high heart rate as a feature of panic, not the illness which, many years later, has been attributed to a rare condition. The stigma of mental health has hung heavy on my shoulders and my desire is to campaign against it and empower other young people to embrace their differences and their capabilities, regardless of any medical label. With Mrs May’s leadership and determination to normalise mental health, I hope it will be respected as other disabilities are. FLORENCE SHARMAN, 18, Chipping Campden, Gloucs.