In the course of a single year, one in four people in the UK will experience some kind of mental health problem. And yet it’s a subject we’re only just beginning to talk about with any kind of openness. For instance, it wasn’t until last year, with the help of the Backbench Business Committee, that a whole debate in Parliament was dedicated to mental health issues, and it took until earlier this year to get a law passed that prevents people being disqualified as MPs if they suffer from a mental illness.
The reason for this silence is well-known, and can be expressed in a single word: stigma. The social stigma attached to being public about mental illness is so great that nine out of ten people with mental health problems say it has had a negative effect on their lives. The fear of discrimination in the workplace, from strangers, and even from colleagues, friends or partners prevents people from feeling comfortable speaking about their problems. This in turn can even make things worse – having to keep an illness secret and feeling like you are isolated without support is a terrible state to live in.
It’s for this reason that the New Statesman is hosting a week of blogs exploring and debating mental health issues. It feels as though we’re beginning to approach a point where lazy stereotypes are starting to give way to more informed discussion and substantive progress, and we want to do everything we can to push this forward faster. The umbrella topic of “mental health” informs everything from decisions in our individual lives to government policy, and we’ve tried to reflect that in the pieces we’ve commissioned for this week. There’s everything from novelist Rebecca Wait’s personal memoir of depression and language to Holly Armstrong’s discussion of gender balance and suicide rates to Willard Foxton’s experiences of living with post-traumatic stress disorder, and a lot more besides.
The aim of the week is to tell stories that might have remained untold in the past because of fear and discrimination, as well as discussing the policy steps we should be taking to improve things for people suffering from mental illness. We’re trying to start a conversation – practically, we can’t represent every single aspect of the subject, but we hope you’ll find something worth reading and discussing in the comments and on social media.
Each day, we’ll be posting the links to the new blogs on this page, so check back to read the latest posts.
Monday The darkness beyond language by Rebecca Wait and You can’t make schizophrenia nice by Glosswitch
Tuesday Mental health and the myth of the “crazy lesbian” by Eleanor Margolis; Is writing online bad for your sanity? by Martin Robbins
Wednesday Domestic violence and mental illness by Faridah Newman and Not sleeping is awful beyond belief by Nicky Woolf
Thursday Living with PTSD by Willard Foxton and The uncomfortable truth about gender inequality on suicide by Holly Baxter
Friday Depression and austerity by Frances Ryan
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