Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Mental health is a priority
PONDERING POLITICS, POVERTY AND PEOPLE IN DUNDEE
SCOTLAND’S largest mental health charity for men is on the brink of closure after an expected injection of funding has been withheld.
Yesterday, The Sunday Post revealed the Scottish Men’s
Shed Association (SMSA), which supports 10,000 members and tackles social isolation by helping men to learn skills, share experiences and build friendships, is at threat.
This comes weeks after the UK Government Work and Pensions Secretary, Mel Stride, said: “There is a real risk now that we are labelling the normal ups and downs of human life as medical conditions...”
This got me thinking about a Scottish band called Frightened Rabbit. In 2008, they released their second album – The Midnight Organ Fight. The trio, at that time, received a uniform plethora of positive reviews and it was the equivalent of a breakthrough album.
In March 2018, during an interview in New York almost a decade after its release, frontman Scott Hutchison said: “One of the reasons I have such affection for it is we got back off that tour and I didn’t have to get a job.” The album deals with various dark topics, namely depression and suicide.
For example, the opening track – The Modern Leper – is a depiction of contemporary interpretations of mental ill health. Lurking at the other end of the album is a haunting track, entitled Floating In The Forth.
It contains the words: “Am I ready to leap / Is there peace beneath / The roar of the
Forth Road Bridge? / And fully clothed, I float away / Down the Forth, into the sea / I think I’ll save suicide for another day”.
This is not a poetic use of words to disguise a hidden concept. Indeed, it reads more like a deep cry for help.
The interview in March 2018 turned out to be his last. Only a few weeks later, Scott left a hotel in South Queensferry at 1am having posted two farewell messages on Twitter.
They said: “Be so good to everyone you love. It’s not a given. I’m so annoyed that it’s not. I didn’t live by that standard and it kills me.
Please, hug your loved ones.” Then: “I’m away now. Thanks.” Hutchison fulfilled the words he penned just 10 years earlier by taking his own life. Two days later, on May 11 2018, his body was found at a port next to the
Forth Road Bridge. Last week marked the sixth anniversary of his death and mental health is no less of a social issue now than it was then, especially in the aftermath of an enforced pandemic which prohibited free movement.
Additionally, while I don’t entirely disagree with Stride, my work has also brought me face-to-face with a form of mental ill health which is potent and lethal.
This is not low-level anxiety that could be obliterated by a sudden burst of confidence but of a variety that curdles in the aftermath of genuine trauma.
Life is a bloody battle. I and my staff regularly talk to people courting the idea of suicide. As individuals, we have power, not over all our circumstances but over enough. Those men I have encountered who we have supported, have overcome and now master their emotions are generally those who eat well, sleep well, work hard, get married, have children and make their family their mission.
To get someone to that point, however, requires people willing to listen and offer wise counsel and these are often voluntary organisations, like SMSA. I hope they survive so they can continue to helps others also survive.