By Adam Humphreys
This Year Has Shown Many Stories, Including Why Inner Turmoil Still Matters?
This past year I’ve been watching a TV series, a sort of documentary series, called We Are England. I can’t remember how many episodes there were, but roughly there must have been more than 20.
I’ve watched a small number of episodes and 10 are about mental health, both via direct reference and as the main focus. Now what I found absolutely fascinating was that it took reporting and the areas of people journalism right back to its grassroots level. In the series alone we learned about ordinary everyday people, their struggles, their strifes, their livelihoods. And the most importantly how events traumas, and tragedies have an effect on them, their minds, and their overall well-being.
But as with all series when it comes to grassroots people journalism it’s not without its heartaches. Watching this series it reminded me why the money is small voices, far and wide, still, count.
There were three in particular that stood out to me basically meaning that I watched them in their entirety. One of them was an episode set in Bristol and starred female British comedian, Jayde Adams. The other two were about an Italian family in the South who ran a barber shop the other one was about a family whose son had been killed.
Coming Home
Jayde Adams episode, Jayde reflects on her life growing up in Bristol. Now part of the reason why this episode carried a certain degree of significance was that the comedian paid tribute to her late sister. So in some ways, it allowed Jayde to complete a journey that allowed her to come full circle. Now anyone who has been watching Jayde in this year’s strictly will no doubt have noticed that. Whenever she talks about her sister she would become emotional.
The Barbershop
This episode reflected on the Italian family running a barber shop in the aftermath of the death of a family member. When you saw and heard the individual statements from friends and family of the deceased you could see the level of grief and the effects of the suicide in many ways still had an effect on them. This came with the questions that a great many of us would no doubt be asking ourselves; could I have reached out sooner? Could this have been prevented? And, how come they didn’t tell me?
Why did my Brother End up Dead?
This is the earliest one I watched what to do with a family whose son’s body was found near a canal in the West Midlands. In the episode, the brothers of the victim looked to the police for answers. Unfortunately due to the man’s past, there was obviously much reluctantly. The basic report was that the man was said to have frozen to death, the family knew that this just wasn’t the case. Losing a loved one is hard enough, but local authorities don’t seem to want to help that’s bad enough.
As is always the case when it comes to mental health and boys and Men the stereotype is always one of keeping your mouth shut and bottling it up. And basically man up and shut up.
As I have mentioned in previous columns when I discussed the effects of mental health in men and boys I also mentioned about the suicide rates. It is higher in men and boys than it is in girls and women.
According to a report from the ONS (Office of National Statistics), 75% of suicides are males, and this unfortunately is something that goes right back to the 1990s.
In an episode shown earlier on in the same series, there was a man called Peter from County Durham who was a Skydiver. In his episode, he explained how he suffered from suicidal depression. Suicidal depression means you suffer from a low mental state that you genuinely don’t see any point in carrying on and seek to take your own life as a means of escape.
When we look at mental health and issues linked with it such as depression and bipolar disorder, there are a handful of facts that we need to remember
– First and foremost, it is treatable
– It can come in many forms and at any time
– As with any mental health issue there is always the stigma attached to it
– There are many stories about antidepressants in regard to the illness, but a great deal of these are not true. And unfortunately, this is the part that cannot be ignored
– Remission is possible.
One of the best ways to describe it is to imagine you are walking on a rocky terrain. The train itself is the state of mind itself. At times it will be rocky with some areas rockier and others, there will be times you will stumble and fall and there will be times when it’s so rough. They’re quite happy just going over the edge just to end it there and then.
As with all the episodes that mention mental health, or had some form of reference towards it, the main message was that it was okay to not be okay.
Now apart from the skydiving episode which I am opening admit I didn’t watch I did however thoroughly enjoy the ones I did watch. I like how it was Fearless, and unapologetic in regard to with approach to people’s stories, and I want to see more
BBC, hope you’ve got more of this wherever it came from
