Laura Craik on why every day should be Mental Health Awareness Day

Plus tucking in on public transport and her Diana Ross STOMO 
The Sussexes have narrated a video for Public Health England
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Laura Craik17 October 2019

I’m writing this on Mental Health Awareness Day, which it won’t be when you read it, but since we need to be aware of our mental health every day, the subject stands.

So here you are, knowing your mental health isn’t exactly the smiley-face emoji that it ought to be — more of a turd, really — but rather not knowing what to do about it. Or maybe it’s not you but your friend, your relative, your loved one. Which can be even more challenging, because if it were you, you could at least try to fix yourself. Take action. You wish nothing more than that you could take the hurt away; solve it, absolve it, acquire it — anything but watch helplessly as someone sinks further down into this sadness, this prison, this ruination of a life. Don’t give up trying to help. But also make sure that you are helped.

When the Sussexes narrated a video for Public Health England and the NHS to encourage people to manage symptoms of poor mental health, it crashed the Every Mind Matters website within minutes. This is not because people went, ‘Oh, Meghan voiced it’, like lemmings trying to buy her trench coat. It’s because it conveyed a powerful message that helped destigmatise the taboo. Admitting you need help is the first step, and by far the hardest.

It’s great that the Sussexes are so vocal on the issue of mental health and as legions of celebrities put their weight behind mental health day, many sharing their own personal stories, what strikes me is that the Government should provide more funding for the NHS services that will help all the people it encouraged to seek support. A shortage of psychiatrists is forcing seriously ill people to endure agonisingly long waits — wondering, hoping and hurting — for mental health care. According to the Royal College of Psychiatrists, unfilled psychiatric posts across the UK have doubled in six years.

So yes, the Every Mind Matters video is right. There are things we can do. Let’s hope urgently increasing funding for mental health services is one of them.

Off the rails

Alamy Stock Photo

Chips never taste nicer than when they’re guzzled at the back of a bus. London’s buses are like restaurants for busy people: their langour allowing you to eat your Pret en route. With 10 in 30 primary school kids now overweight, the obesity epidemic needs to be tackled. Yet surely the consumption of food on public transport is impossible to police. More pertinently, the recently mooted ban on it seems to evade the crux of the problem, which is that unhealthy food is too cheap and too cynically advertised: £300m a year is spent on junk food ads. Banishing food from public transport won’t stop people eating. Try banning the ads promoting junk food in the first place.

Supreme disappointment

Glastonbury
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To the list of FOMO, JOMO and GOMO I feel we should add TOMO — Torture Of Missing Out. Actually, make that STOMO — Slow Torture Of Missing Out, because that’s what the eight-month teaseathon of @Glastofest updates feels like to the 2.5million people who, like me and my cartel of five, registered for tickets and didn’t get lucky. Did anyone? Clearly some people did, or else Emily Eavis wouldn’t have announced Diana Ross in the Legends slot. I swear, if Fleetwood Mac end up playing, I will donate £265+ booking fee to Oxfam, turn up with wire cutters and crawl through the fence.

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