We have to talk about mental health – but saying ‘get help’ means nothing when the system is failing you

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The long waits for counselling are a scandal (iStock)

Yesterday was World Mental Health Day, and while my social media feeds were clogged with heartfelt posts detailing people’s tricky experiences, one message really irked me: “help is out there”.

Is it? Maybe with your stable income and option of private health that’s true, but for me, a student reliant on an oversubscribed NHS and understaffed university counselling service, it’s not. It’s out there, but it’s six months away.

I’m not angry with the people who share their experiences, but with the system that tells us help is readily available. Many of us know that’s not the reality.

Countless times I’ve booked a doctor’s appointment, waited three weeks, then cancelled within 24 hours when my confidence has drained. Working up the courage to attend the “weekly drop-in” only to leave more helpless than before when facing months of waiting. If only I could pause my depression and come back when it suits the system. Unfortunately, my brain’s yet to get the memo of a few months’ warning before the next serotonin drop.

Sharing your struggles is important. Highlighting help is necessary. But let’s not pretend that help’s “just there”, when “there” is so far in the distance it’s often unreachable and frequently too late. I’m lucky my university offers counselling, but how is it a privilege to have the option of joining two waiting lists for help? How have we become a society that’s desperate to solve the mental health crisis but unable to provide any real change?

On the next World Mental Health Day, amongst the bravery, I hope we see more calls for urgent action and change in our mental health services.

Maddie Perrins
Wiltshire/London

Rewarding hypocrisy

Following the unprovoked invasion of Northern Syria by Turkish armed forces, I found my mind drifting back to two ceremonies that honoured the wife of latter-day Sultan, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

These were presented by the City of London in 2018 and then a few months later the World Humanitarian Forum; both of these were for services towards humanitarian endeavours!

Let us hope that both of the above organisations nowadays read newspapers and watch quality news channels. It might just then cross their minds to rescind said awards and take steps never to make such disgraceful decisions again in the future.

Robert Boston
Kingshill

Coming back alive

I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve agreed with President Trump on any issue, but his move to pull US troops from Syria is the smartest thing he ever did. The day after his policy change, the president explained his decision in a tweet: “USA should never have been in Middle East. The stupid endless wars, for us, are ending!”

That is what I call saving American lives. After all, “support our troops” means getting them out of harm’s way, and bringing them back home alive and not in body bags. For that, I just wanted to give President Trump a big shout-out.

Mahmoud El-Yousseph
Westerville, Ohio

A class act

The four horsemen of the apocalypse in any marriage are criticism, defensiveness, contempt and stonewalling. Boris Johnson is guilty of all four. During the last ten years (with the help of some influential media outlets) he continually criticised the EU; showed contempt for the EU; was defensive about how great the UK is (and always would be); and, more recently, he stonewalled his own electorate plus 27 electorates of the EU, by closing down and proroguing parliament. Like a sulky child he left the room and slammed the door (having first consulted his Ladybird Book of Negotiations by Dominic Cummings). No wonder the relationship was doomed.

But now, happy days – a communicator who neither criticises nor shows contempt for the UK, who has been neither defensive about Ireland (and the EU) nor stonewalled his political counterparts, has given Mr Johnson a masterclass in communication and negotiation at the top level. You’re in the room with the grown-ups now.

In all the mood music coming out of the meeting on the Wirral, Leo Varadkar has outclassed Boris Johnson – although, in truth, that can’t have been that hard to do.

Alison Hackett

Dun Laoghaire, Ireland

Natural selection

There is a brilliant and simple code of conduct for MP’s to follow; it’s called “mitigation of cruelty”. Mitigation of cruelty is the sensible and authentic principle of morality derived from the reality of life known as “evolution by natural selection”. In society it would act as a natural brake on the cruelty of “survival of the fittest” and an organism’s predilection for the trait of territorialism.

Mitigation of cruelty would certainly put that organism called Boris Johnson in a spin and also be of great comfort to immigrants. Brexit would be finally over and done with.

David Parsons
Portsmouth