Nottingham connected
Health & Food
31
WORLD MENTAL HEALTH DAY World Mental Health Day is celebrated every 10th October, and 2021 highlights “mental health in an unequal world” as the theme of this year’s celebrations. The commemoration is aimed at raising awareness and spreading education about mental health issues across the globe. While the pandemic has affected everyone, people with long term health conditions, or facing discrimination or parenting on their own are struggling the most and need more support. Mental health has come to focus on pandemic times like never before as people of all age groups and occupations bear the brunt of the ‘new normal’. Health and other frontline workers, students, people living alone, and those with preexisting mental health conditions have been particularly affected. For those of us experiencing mental illness, we live in an unequal world. There is no two ways about it -stigma, discrimination, lack of support, limited access to housing, employment, and welfare. It doesn’t make good reading. This is the reality of mental health in an unequal world. This is inequality. Black people are still four times more likely than their white counterparts to be sectioned. Racism could be simply defined as using the concept of race to judge or treat some people worse than others. It exists in many forms, and on many levels in society – including in healthcare. It can include acts of discrimination and prejudice towards individuals and groups. It can also describe wider systems of oppression. People with mental health conditions are at higher risk of dying prematurely. Depression one of commonest mental health illness is one of the leading causes of disability while suicide is the second leading cause of death among 15-29-year-old, as per WHO. All kinds of racism can contribute to stress. This might be events such as sudden, unexpected abuse from another person. But it can also be a more long-term impact of encountering regular microaggressions, or from the ongoing effects of systemic racism on your life. This can partly help explain links between racism and physical health problems, like increased blood pressure. Racism can make us feel unwelcome, lonely, or isolated, anxious, fearful, and unsafe. Talking about racism can make you angry or frustrated, particularly if you are being treated unfairly. You may worry about how people are going to perceive and treat you. You might feel visibly different and vulnerable when you are around lots of people of a different race thereby spending time thinking about how you’ll protect yourself before entering certain spaces. These are all difficult times that one may go through, and you may find that you cannot show or even fully feel your natural responses to your experiences. Therefore, to avoid more abuse, and keep yourself safe, you may feel like you must not react to racism. This is one of the biggest forms of harm and it can leave you feeling numb or mean that the experience stays with you for a long time.
You may encounter racism regularly in lots of different parts of your life. This can have a cumulative effect on your mental health and can make you feel surrounded by racism. For those of us who are disadvantaged and harmed by racism, this can feel stressful and upsetting to explain to those who are not. But it can also feel validating and helpful to find new ways to define, describe and discuss our experiences. Experiencing racism can make us more likely to develop mental health problems. Either consciously or subconsciously, we may not realise that some of our negative feelings stem from internalised racism or colourism. It makes us feel cut off from parts of our identity and culture. This can leave us feeling unsure about who we are and could lead to low self-esteem and mental health problems. This can all lead us to hold contradictory views about our heritage and skin shade. Along with treatment gap, we must address workplace stress, stress in schools, as well as caregivers and families of people living with mental health issues. We need to proactively address stigma and discrimination associated with mental health that creates barrier to access care and treatment. Finding support to cope with racism does not fix racism. Institutions and society as a whole must take responsibility for challenging racism in every form. If you experience anxiety disorders, depression, psychosis, suicidal feelings, and other mentally challenged disorders, please remember that you need counselling and that it is not your fault.
