Transcript
Speaker: Before we start the episode, we will be speaking about some sensitive topics in this episode.
Speaker: So we will be addressing mental health and suicide as well as self-harm.
Speaker: So please do watch Knowing This.
Speaker: I hope you enjoy the episode.
Speaker: Hello and welcome back to season two, episode nine of the Debatable Discussions podcast.
Speaker: Today we are joined by a very special guest for what I hope is a very exciting episode as well.
Speaker: So today we're joined by Stefano, who is a student and a mental health advocate.
Speaker: And we're talking about an issue that unfortunately isn't talked about enough, which is mental health, mental health in young people.
Speaker: And, but before we start, I just want to say that our co-host John has began a blog on Medium.
Speaker: Do give him a follow is at JohnGartside if I'm not wrong, where he writes about history.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: So beginning with the episode now, Stefano,
Speaker: It's great to have you here.
Speaker: No, thank you very much for having me.
Speaker: Firstly, I read John's blog last night.
Speaker: It's very informative.
Speaker: I do recommend it.
Speaker: No, so as Dan mentioned, my name is Stefano DiRica.
Speaker: I'm a youth mental health campaigner and have been for about going on about three, three and a half years now, working with a few different organizations, both local and national, and as well as some companies as well, supporting parents, students themselves.
Speaker: I'm
Speaker: 18 years old, so about to be 19.
Speaker: So going to university in the coming weeks.
Speaker: So Steph, you just mentioned your role in helping people's mental health effectively.
Speaker: So can you explain to our listeners what mental health is and why is it important?
Speaker: So there's a distinction which should be made from the offset, which is everyone has mental health.
Speaker: And then there's ill mental health, which is everyone has ups and downs with their mental health.
Speaker: And when it's down for quite a bit of time, as I like to say, that's when it can start really affecting you.
Speaker: And that's when you should seek professional help.
Speaker: In the UK, that would be via the form of going to your GP.
Speaker: firstly speaking to someone, speaking to your friend, your parents, trusted adult, whoever that may be, and then taking the initiative to go to reach support for your GP, from your GP.
Speaker: And that is when it's really gotten to the point where it's affecting your life and it's affecting you in a negative way.
Speaker: And whatever path that sort of takes, at that point, you should be seeking support.
Speaker: And it's important for you because at the end of the day, that's...
Speaker: If you're not happy with the one person you're going to be spending the rest of your life with, which is yourself, then you're not going to h ave a great time.
Speaker: So it's important to sort of look after yourself in that sort of regard.
Speaker: And also I wanted to ask, how can every individual, so how can I, how can John take care of our mental health in a sort of day by day basis to in a way prevent it from getting worse?
Speaker: A preventative approach.
Speaker: Now I'm taking the lines from some of the charities I work with, but a preventative approach is always the best approach.
Speaker: No, so for that sort of question, I'd almost always go for...
Speaker: just talk, like, just speak amongst yourselves, have a good community around you, get outside as much as possible.
Speaker: As much as we all joke about it, that going for a walk won't help when you're at crisis point, but well before crisis point, like, if we're talking about prevention, that's fantastic.
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: For the everyday person who's just trying to protect their mental health, they should be practicing daily walks, getting out of nature, doing some sports, but also taking that time for yourself.
Speaker: So whether that takes the form of mindfulness, so meditations, potentially mindful eating, so just really...
Speaker: taking a second, maybe whilst you're in the shopping queue at the supermarket, instead of going on your phone, just taking a second, looking around you and realizing, okay, I'm here, ground yourself in a moment, feel yourself in your body and then
Speaker: you've just reset yourself almost, which is, there's a lot about mindfulness, which I think you could probably record a whole season on in itself.
Speaker: But I really do recommend if you're starting to realize that no things are in your way or you want to learn more about yourself, I really do recommend reading or learning a bit more about mindfulness in itself, because I think that's a fantastic way to go about it.
Speaker: So Steph, as a mental health campaigner, I'm sure you've seen sort of awareness around mental health.
Speaker: has risen quite a lot over the past few years.
Speaker: So would you say that perhaps we've become too aware of our mental health?
Speaker: And I only ask this because nowadays you've got lots of people sort of self-diagnosing themselves with ADHD.
Speaker: You've got people believing they have ADHD, but they actually don't.
Speaker: And you've got it similarly with other neurodivergent conditions.
Speaker: So do you think perhaps we've sort of become almost too aware?
Speaker: I don't know how to phrase that correctly.
Speaker: No, it's definitely something which we talk about a lot in the space.
Speaker: So there's been a great shift towards destigmatization of mental health, which let's be honest about, I might be wrong with the years, but 30 plus years ago, it was a crime to end one's own life.
Speaker: like that was criminal that's why we have the phrase which there's a big campaign against not using the phrase committed suicide instead used died by suicide because just for peace of mind in the families of the people who have taken their own life like it used to be criminalized like this stuff was so taboo that it was at that point so we've reached fantastic heights in the fact that the destigmatization process is really getting there like
Speaker: I speak amongst fellow campaigners now and we say we're no longer really campaigning to the society about destigmatized mental health.
Speaker: Like we do it a bit, don't get me wrong.
Speaker: Like we do it in daily conversations and stuff like that, but our focus is now shifted to policy levels because that's where our attention is needed the most.
Speaker: But when it comes to
Speaker: the other part of the question of over-diagnosis.
Speaker: It's something which we're seeing quite often.
Speaker: And I'm... There's two ways to go about it.
Speaker: Because if you think about it, at the moment, the current statistic is one in four young people will have a probable mental health condition.
Speaker: That is an ill mental health condition.
Speaker: And yes, that is horrifying.
Speaker: And those are...
Speaker: From what I understand on that data, it says like clinically diagnosed condition or will likely be diagnosed with that condition at the current state.
Speaker: That's up from like one in 15.
Speaker: I think that was pre-COVID.
Speaker: One in 15, I might be mistaken.
Speaker: And that's shocking, if we're really honest.
Speaker: That case of overdiagnosing, it's something which we talk about a lot because
Speaker: Yes, we have more people because of the awareness and with the rise of different social apps, we have people seeing videos and sort of relating to that.
Speaker: But we really need to think then and go, okay, hold on a second.
Speaker: Do I have ADHD just because I characterise myself with one or two of these things?
Speaker: If you characterise yourself with quite a few of those things, yes, go see your GP, go see a doctor, make sure that you're... If support is there, that's great because there is...
Speaker: Like, just because we have better, like, sort of awareness of it doesn't mean that that's a bad thing.
Speaker: It's just what steps you take afterwards.
Speaker: If you realise, oh, I have anxiety because I've watched that video and it's all a lot for me.
Speaker: I'm going through a really stressful period in my life.
Speaker: Okay, you've got exams.
Speaker: Okay, that's a really stressful period.
Speaker: You might have, like, anxious thoughts, but...
Speaker: you're not, for example, the low mood one's probably the best one too.
Speaker: The low mood one's probably the best example to give.
Speaker: If you're experiencing a time of low mood, you're not depressed per se.
Speaker: You might have like depressive thoughts.
Speaker: And if it goes on for a prolonged period of time, you should be seeking professional support.
Speaker: Like that's just what should be happening.
Speaker: And more importantly, the support should be there for you to access, which at the moment is the biggest struggle.
Speaker: But if you're just experiencing sort of low mood and that sort of thing, then you should just monitor it.
Speaker: You should reach out to your friends.
Speaker: You should be talking about it.
Speaker: You should really be talking about it.
Speaker: Like, you should be doing all those things I said at the start of the episode of protecting your mental health.
Speaker: You should be sort of setting boundaries.
Speaker: If you're depressed because...
Speaker: I'm talking about older generations.
Speaker: If you're, because your boss keeps on calling you in the middle of the night to ask him for that pitch deck to come through, then you should be setting up boundaries, perhaps.
Speaker: You should be having that conversation with HR.
Speaker: Like, that's the sort of things which you,
Speaker: need to think about and you need to start protecting it.
Speaker: If it goes on for like a few weeks, a few months, then that's the point where you should be seeking professional help.
Speaker: And beforehand, it's more like a tracking, being awareness of it.
Speaker: I think that within ourselves, like the awareness of that is the most important part.
Speaker: So it's the same thing as the phone conversation, which I'm sure everyone has heard of.
Speaker: But if I know that I'm spending three hours a day on TikTok,
Speaker: I have a self-awareness of that and if I decide, if I consciously make that decision to spend three hours a day on TikTok, it might not be the best but I've consciously made that.
Speaker: But if I'm just plodding along with life then that's probably not very helpful for me and it's the same with, not same but similar with mental health conditions that you might have that self-awareness but
Speaker: If you don't, then you have to be a bit more conscious of what's going on.
Speaker: I always think, and I always say this to people, that as soon as you have a problem, mental or physical problem, go see a doctor.
Speaker: Over the internet, everyone has the same.
Speaker: Me, a baby, and a 50-year-old doctor have the same amount of information over the internet.
Speaker: Go see a doctor.
Speaker: They train for loads of years.
Speaker: It's hard to get in.
Speaker: They know what they're doing.
Speaker: Go see a professional.
Speaker: No, I completely agree.
Speaker: And it's one of those things that if you, to be honest, if you've reached that point of self-awareness, then that's probably the point to go.
Speaker: It's the time, it's the point where, if you've reached the point where you realize, oh God, like this really isn't right for me.
Speaker: Like that's when, it's reaching that self-awareness point, which is the hardest part.
Speaker: And you're not going to get judged.
Speaker: A lot of people I think are very scared of, I'm going to go, what are they going to think about me?
Speaker: They see loads of patients every day.
Speaker: They're probably not going to remember you, frankly.
Speaker: If they do remember you, everyone goes through the same period sometimes in their life.
Speaker: You know, I'm sure that a 50 year old person has had those kinds of problems and they won't judge you.
Speaker: Go see a professional.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: I want to go to what we can do.
Speaker: So me and John, for example, we're not professionals.
Speaker: How can we support others?
Speaker: How can we support our friends?
Speaker: How can we support our families in case someone's having a tough time?
Speaker: It's just on that, on your last point, that...
Speaker: Yes, if you reach that point where you realize, hold on a second, I need to access support, that's when you really should be going.
Speaker: Because yes, you should have that conversation with your family members.
Speaker: You should have that conversation with your friends and your peers, which interestingly enough, a young person is very much more likely to go to their peers before their parents or a trusted adult, which is why I keep on telling every single parent I work with, no matter how much you have a fantastic relationship with your child, and that's really rare.
Speaker: ballpark figure, 80% of the children will go to the friendship group for support.
Speaker: So at that point, if I'm saying you, Dayan,
Speaker: what can you do if John comes to you saying, look, I've realized I've been anxious for quite some time.
Speaker: I've been experiencing low mood.
Speaker: I don't think John will probably say I've been experiencing symptoms of low mood.
Speaker: But if that's what sort of feeling you're getting off the conversation, the first thing is to probably provide a mental health estate as like an acronym for ALGI.
Speaker: So first I believe is action.
Speaker: I don't think it's action, actually.
Speaker: But the steps effectively are what's going on in the immediate?
Speaker: Are they in crisis?
Speaker: Is there any harm to yourself or the person in question or others around you?
Speaker: If there's risk of harm, emergency services immediately.
Speaker: You listen and you listen...
Speaker: actively so you maybe respond to what they say always ask open questions is it really important so ask them do you know perhaps why you're feeling like this uh or maybe why it's not always the best but if if you could make sure that they're they don't just answer yes or no it's only the best thing but that's not always possible just again if they're in crisis always stay with them until professional help arrives but
Speaker: if uh if it's just a brief conversation always by the end of it you should always be reaching the point of i think you should reach professional support so recommend them to their gp recommend that they go to their gp if you have the relationship with someone you can recommend that you go with them so i've done in the past i've not gone but i've offered saying look if you if you're struggling you don't know maybe how you might feel in the gp office um
Speaker: then you go, okay, I'm happy to come with you to go there.
Speaker: So Steph, how also do you think the government should be helping people's mental health?
Speaker: How are they helping people's mental health at the moment?
Speaker: What should they be doing?
Speaker: And the reason we're asking this is because particularly in my view, I'm sort of wondering that have charities, apps and all these other organisations advocating for mental health, do you think to an extent that they have replaced the need for the government to offer immediate help surrounding mental health?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So at the moment, the situation is dire, for lack of better words.
Speaker: So I'll give you an example.
Speaker: I was speaking to a child and adolescent psychiatrist in Durham area a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker: And he was telling me that he had a patient presenting with depression.
Speaker: 14-year-old girl comes into his clinic.
Speaker: Okay, this is via the NHS.
Speaker: He goes in and he realizes, hold on a second, this girl isn't necessarily depressed.
Speaker: She's got ADHD.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: For her to get that ADHD support via the correct means in his area, four years.
Speaker: There's a 14-year-old girl.
Speaker: And for him to... He would then push for her to get that diagnosis and to reach that support.
Speaker: But she'll be 18 by that point.
Speaker: She would have completed GCSEs and completed 3A levels probably.
Speaker: if she manages to stay in school for that long.
Speaker: Because school-based avoidance is one of the biggest things at the moment.
Speaker: So just thinking about that, like, that's the current situation nationwide.
Speaker: Health is a devolved issue in the UK, so it's for each nation to sort of have their own policies.
Speaker: I campaign, obviously, more in England, but the de-stigmatization things which we were talking at the start, that's...
Speaker: worldwide effectively.
Speaker: But the thing that we're working on at the moment is preventative initiatives.
Speaker: So there's mental health support teams in schools, which this NHS England run operation effectively.
Speaker: But
Speaker: They're not even at 50% promised rate.
Speaker: That was under the Tory government, but it should improve with the Labour government.
Speaker: But they've now focused more on crime prevention, so a lot less on mental health initiatives, which is confusing because of how interlinked crime and mental health is.
Speaker: Because if we focus on a preventative approach instead, then we won't actually have that many issues per se as high rate.
Speaker: Other preventive approaches, we've called for a full nationwide rollout of mental health support hubs, early mental health support hubs, to be in every postcode.
Speaker: Funding has been promised.
Speaker: It's...
Speaker: It's tough.
Speaker: Like, it's tough out there.
Speaker: I'll be really honest.
Speaker: Like, I'm chairing an organization at the moment which is trying to launch one in Kent.
Speaker: And, like, it's difficult.
Speaker: We're trying to get parts of funding now.
Speaker: And we're moving forward, I'll be honest.
Speaker: But we don't know if we'll manage to wait for the government.
Speaker: Like, the suicide rates, which came out last week, are the highest since 1999, if I'm not mistaken, for 2023.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like that's the current state which we're at.
Speaker: And apart from the side that for every suicide, there's a huge ripple effect on families, a huge economic impact for life lost.
Speaker: Like poor mental health equates for huge amounts of money in our economy.
Speaker: I wish I didn't have statistics on me at the moment, but if you search them up, they are massive.
Speaker: But that's a life lost.
Speaker: Like, at the end of the day, that is a human life lost.
Speaker: Wow, yeah.
Speaker: And we haven't improved on that in a very long time.
Speaker: We have male suicides as being one of the leading cause of death in young people, in young males, up below the age of 45, I believe.
Speaker: Like, this is the current rate of things that we're at, and I can guarantee you that if cancer was killing people that quickly...
Speaker: there will be preventative approaches in place.
Speaker: There are preventative approaches in place.
Speaker: We're looking at smoking bans for outdoor pubs.
Speaker: We're looking at, we've got bans for other things.
Speaker: We've got tax duties for tobacco, for drinking.
Speaker: Where's the taxing for social media companies?
Speaker: Where's the preventative approach in schools?
Speaker: Where's the whole school approach exists?
Speaker: Is it being laid out?
Speaker: Is it being pushed out?
Speaker: mental health support teams are effective.
Speaker: Like I was part of a research group with Young Minds, which was commissioned by Northwest London boroughs.
Speaker: And I was at the end stage and the reporting stage of the sort of commissioning.
Speaker: And we found that they are working.
Speaker: There were tweaks to be made, but Northwest London are doing them.
Speaker: But that's Northwest London.
Speaker: Like that's in one area.
Speaker: We still need a full rollout nationwide.
Speaker: Otherwise, there are people falling through the systems.
Speaker: There are people falling through the cracks.
Speaker: And there are no safety nets in place at the moment.
Speaker: And that's why we keep on going to crisis.
Speaker: We've just opened up a new crisis line by the NHS.
Speaker: Fantastic.
Speaker: Brilliant that we've opened this up.
Speaker: But it's a crisis line.
Speaker: It's not a prevention.
Speaker: Steph, quickly, you were talking about, obviously, the dire state the NHS is in full mental health.
Speaker: would you say this isn't exactly exclusive to mental health?
Speaker: Because overall the NHS is in an absolutely awful state and surely it's also physical health as well as mental health which is experiencing these awful effects.
Speaker: But also would you say though that, secondly, nowadays would you also say that from the non-clinical perspective
Speaker: awareness and treatment around mental health has risen.
Speaker: I only say this because there's so many organisations and apps nowadays that are advocating and helping young people's mental health.
Speaker: So, yes, there is the mental health, the NHS is struggling and all, it's fantastic, but it's struggling at the moment.
Speaker: I don't think that there's anyone who would say otherwise at the moment, like,
Speaker: They've just about managed to get to prevent them from striking.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: But we need to look at the future.
Speaker: So where are we going?
Speaker: What's Keir Starmer's plan with the NHS?
Speaker: Is it really clear?
Speaker: That's for you to answer.
Speaker: You two could probably give me a better answer than I could, but I don't think so.
Speaker: He's spoken limited amounts about using technology and AI.
Speaker: It's just very limited at the moment and I really do hope we see something soon.
Speaker: Because it needs a transformation.
Speaker: It's lasted 75 years.
Speaker: It came together after the war.
Speaker: It's been fantastic.
Speaker: But at the moment, there are still protocols which are out of date.
Speaker: Worker satisfaction is very low.
Speaker: I mean, most of our doctors are fleeing to Australia.
Speaker: Well, not fleeing, but at this point almost.
Speaker: Like, they're going to Australia and New Zealand to work because they get paid better.
Speaker: They work better hours.
Speaker: And to be honest, they can still do the job they love without distresses.
Speaker: And there is a genuine... Like, I speak to some of the doctors there.
Speaker: There's a genuine love for the NHS, which is fantastic, but we need to protect it and safeguard it.
Speaker: So, yes, it is...
Speaker: crumbling per se at all levels, but the way we've seen mental health awards and everything has been so much worse.
Speaker: Like the,
Speaker: I take the campaign, for example, by Mind, I believe it was, about mental health hospitals.
Speaker: I believe that campaign was last year or two years ago.
Speaker: And just the stuff which comes out of them is disgusting because it's still from that stigmatized time.
Speaker: It's still from that time, which we were talking about earlier, that the stigma was so bad.
Speaker: Now it's improved.
Speaker: We've recognized that.
Speaker: And okay, it's not improved as much as we hope.
Speaker: But in 10, 15 years time, I predict that there won't be as much of a stigma as there is now.
Speaker: I think it will be completely normal conversations being had about it.
Speaker: Families will be talking at it over the dinner table, which they are now.
Speaker: They are now.
Speaker: but it will be in the other communities as well.
Speaker: The communities seem a bit more stigmatized at the moment.
Speaker: I was speaking to someone in Northern Ireland yesterday and he was saying, okay, the stigma here is still very much prevalent, but he is, he's even recognizing in Northern Ireland, which is typically an area which is quite stigmatized for these sorts of topics.
Speaker: It's getting better.
Speaker: So we are seeing that come, come, come down a bit.
Speaker: And,
Speaker: In the second part of your question, the increased awareness and whether or not that's helping through self-medicating almost in safe ways, like through mindfulness apps or whatever it might be through charities.
Speaker: I think that there's a fact to say that yes, they are helping.
Speaker: Like that's just straight away.
Speaker: Like if you feel that whether it be religious, cultural, family reasons, that you don't want to go to a GP to access support, but you can open an app on your phone and that gives you a diagnosis, preliminary diagnosis for that matter.
Speaker: It gives you ways to access support.
Speaker: anonymously, that's quite a big thing.
Speaker: We didn't have that 10, 15 years ago.
Speaker: We didn't have phones 25 years ago.
Speaker: So, um,
Speaker: That's sort of the levels which we're talking about.
Speaker: That's really important because if you have that, then people can feel safe in their own environments.
Speaker: People can access that support without them.
Speaker: So just some mindfulness apps out there, Headspace, Calm, whatever it may be.
Speaker: Just even following certain Instagram accounts really resets you whilst you're doing scrolling, which I think we're all susceptible to doing.
Speaker: But no, it's that sort of thing where
Speaker: They are really helpful.
Speaker: And I also just wanted to touch on the fact that we have a complete and utter reliance on the third sector in the UK.
Speaker: So that's charities and other organizations, which goes back to that point about the NHS, that if we had a functioning system, we would not be relying on mental health support hubs run by charities.
Speaker: We would not be relying on...
Speaker: on schools having to take their own initiatives or whatever it may be.
Speaker: We don't have to be relying on Joe's body line going into schools and local areas to make sure that there's support in place.
Speaker: And yes, the NHS is improving that sort of system, but...
Speaker: We should not be relying on these organizations to be taking up the brunt of it.
Speaker: Yes, we should be encouraging entrepreneurial ideas and health tech opportunities.
Speaker: So for example, there's the NHS entrepreneurship program, which it's not as well known, but at the moment, for example, one of the organizations I work with, the founder is a doctor in the NHS, an A&E doctor.
Speaker: And the
Speaker: He then goes on to... He still works on the wards.
Speaker: He still works on his shifts.
Speaker: And he's part of a program with the NHS.
Speaker: And they support him to a degree for his own startup.
Speaker: Which...
Speaker: at the end of the day is fantastic because it's safe.
Speaker: It's the future of the NHS effectively, which is exactly what we need.
Speaker: And it keeps doctors who would typically leave the service to work on their startup inside it because I don't know the logistics of it, but it supports them in a specific way, which seems to be helpful.
Speaker: So that's some of the stuff which they're doing really well.
Speaker: And I'd like to see more initiatives across physical and mental health within the NHS.
Speaker: Yeah, I agree with that.
Speaker: I think you said it right there, the NHS is a service because there's very few places in the world where you can go into a hospital and really receive top quality healthcare, like in the UK.
Speaker: And I think the NHS has lasted very well, but it is like a sick patient now.
Speaker: It requires surgery.
Speaker: And the surgeon now is Keir Starmer and the Labour government.
Speaker: So they need to get their act together, I think, and come up with a initiative that is well-planned and explicit, unlike... I mean, Keir Starmer himself has said that he won't go to a private doctor.
Speaker: ever he would use the NHS.
Speaker: So I hope that in the same spirit, he will begin to fund it properly and really help the doctors there who are working tirelessly for the population.
Speaker: I think also, moving on to the last question, everything was exacerbated by COVID, mental health, physical health, everything got shut down for a bit, really.
Speaker: You couldn't get into a hospital unless you had a really, really, really bad issue.
Speaker: So Stefano, apart from COVID,
Speaker: and all the social anxiety or the LA nation that has happened with it, what else do you think is causing more and more people to have problems with their mental health?
Speaker: I'll get on to the what else part in a second, but I do want to touch on the importance of COVID because it's something we're seeing now a bit more.
Speaker: The thing which I always think about now is that we... I'm just using ballpark figures here.
Speaker: 80% of the population protected 20%.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just during COVID, okay?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Did we know the risks?
Speaker: We had some idea of them, let's be honest.
Speaker: We knew the risk of shutting people into their houses.
Speaker: Yes, in the UK, our lockdown was not like other countries in Europe.
Speaker: Our lockdown was weak in terms of like... Which, thank God, because otherwise we'd be looking at a very different state of mental health and physical health.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: you you prevented people from going outside you prevent people from um having control of their own lives when people don't have control of their own lives what do they then progress on to want to control their want to control other actions this this led to a huge rise in now when i say huge i mean like i see it when i talk to my friends i see it when i'm i'm sure you guys know it as well like
Speaker: You see a rise in self-harm behaviors, eating disorder behaviors, or disorder eating patterns.
Speaker: And these are control-based disorders because people lacked so much control at the time.
Speaker: And now, sort of, that was lost on them.
Speaker: And they turned to sort of, quote unquote, self-medicating.
Speaker: They were, they had, it was the only thing which they could have for themselves.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So we shouldn't forget the impact of COVID or the way that they
Speaker: the way that these sort of social anxieties then progressed, especially for young infants and infants and toddlers, because we're still yet to actually see how that will end up being for them.
Speaker: But on your second point, what are some of the other big causes for ill mental health in the UK?
Speaker: It's just to name a few, cost of living crisis, climate emergency, climate anxiety is a huge thing.
Speaker: Housing.
Speaker: Housing is quite poor at the moment.
Speaker: If we're talking about slightly older young people, so around the age of 25, they might be thinking about, okay, I want to get on the housing ladder.
Speaker: How can I do this?
Speaker: I wait.
Speaker: got an issue there um all these things are like small things which you think of the bucket analogy and like there's only so much you can hold in yourself but that just like completely fills in there's a complete lack of hope like that's the thing which we lack at the moment where there's there is hope for a better day but people don't see that like people people know that there's
Speaker: People know about what's going on in the world.
Speaker: We think about the race riot, the riots we saw last week, last month, so basically race riots.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: They came about because they were everything else which was going on in society.
Speaker: It wasn't just an immigration issue.
Speaker: It was, okay, there's people who can't get jobs, people who have been poorly educated, people who three years ago were locked in their homes and they still haven't felt like they got their share back.
Speaker: There's so many other factors.
Speaker: There's crumbling public health services or public services in general.
Speaker: And that causes turmoil.
Speaker: Whether that takes the form of race riots or whatever else it takes the form of, it's still stuff which gets internalized by people.
Speaker: People are then scared of these events going on in the world.
Speaker: They look outside their window and there's mass riots going on in their capitals.
Speaker: That concerns people.
Speaker: People forget that there's better hope for... that there is hope for the future.
Speaker: I love the campaign by Baton of Hope.
Speaker: They did a tour in 2023 and they're going back on tour in 2025, this time doing all four nations.
Speaker: And they really try and they focus on suicide prevention, but they really try and spread the message that whatever sort of difficulty people are going through, things do get better and things will get better.
Speaker: But it's just about making sure that from my role as a campaigner, it's about making sure that we hold the decision makers to account.
Speaker: if a decision maker, I've spoken to former ministers about mental health policy and I've told them, look, this isn't working.
Speaker: Like, I've been in those conversations and we will continue to have those.
Speaker: Like, I speak to many campaigners quite regularly about this and we're passionate because we do it for the other people who aren't in the room.
Speaker: Like, we have motivations which people can't even imagine and we will hold people to account and
Speaker: there is hope at the end of the day for things to improve.
Speaker: We just need to find it.
Speaker: I love what you said there.
Speaker: Just to quickly finish off with Steph though, for those reasons you gave for poor mental health, they are sorts of reasons that I'd imagined affects people in every single country in the world.
Speaker: However, before the recording, I did look where the UK ranks for mental health in the world.
Speaker: And it said that we are the second worst country in the world.
Speaker: So why do you think... So why do you think that we are especially bad?
Speaker: Because people across the world will have climate anxiety.
Speaker: There's, you know, lots of countries are affected by cost of living.
Speaker: But what makes us really bad, effectively, in this, compared to lots of other countries?
Speaker: So the...
Speaker: I was annoyingly last week, there was many statistics which came out about, there was a news, there was front page news pretty much every day about mental health.
Speaker: And there was the one week where I go on holiday.
Speaker: So I'm still catching up on some of the things, but we were, I think the worst in terms of happiness in Europe, I think, which the Guardian took with it and flew with it from what I've heard.
Speaker: And I'm still yet to read the article, but
Speaker: Why?
Speaker: It's still unclear.
Speaker: It's a plethora of reasons.
Speaker: It's the amount that we use social media.
Speaker: We could even go all the way down to our vaping epidemic that we've got here.
Speaker: We can literally talk about anything.
Speaker: We could talk about our sense of humor.
Speaker: In the UK, we're generally quite dark, down, and...
Speaker: it can be quite negative.
Speaker: If we're constantly spiraling and constantly talking about, oh, yeah, this isn't, I'm not happy, I'm not happy about this, I'm not happy about that.
Speaker: If you're joking about it, at one point, it turns into something which isn't a joke.
Speaker: So you sort of need to keep that in mind when we talk about how our mental health is worse than others.
Speaker: Then you look at the approaches that we have.
Speaker: I mean, we have a very good...
Speaker: The stigma in the UK is not very high at the moment compared to other countries, compared to our past.
Speaker: Compared to our past is an all time best.
Speaker: But if you look at places in Asia, if you look at the US even, the US is pretty much on par with us in terms of stigma, I believe.
Speaker: But in Europe, I mean, stigma still exists quite a lot.
Speaker: So I'd even question the data almost as to whether or not people felt comfortable in saying that they weren't happy.
Speaker: and stuff like that.
Speaker: Like there is a question about that as well.
Speaker: It could go down to smartphone use as well.
Speaker: We have a very heavy reliance on it and it is reliance now.
Speaker: I was about to say usage, but it's reliance.
Speaker: It could be a plethora of reasons.
Speaker: I mean, again, we've had 20 years of
Speaker: political issues, realistically, like political instability over the past five years.
Speaker: If you look at how many prime ministers we've had over the past five years, I mean, that's probably a place to start, isn't it?
Speaker: Like we don't have stability.
Speaker: Yeah, it's stuff like that, which you sort of have to think about and go, okay, can I, is that stuff really making people upset or is it causing mental ill health?
Speaker: That's where the distinction lies back to, I think was the second question you asked originally.
Speaker: Is that the question of mental health or is it upset?
Speaker: And again, if people realize, oh, hold up, this is really upsetting me quite a few times, then as Dan mentioned earlier, seek professional help because that's the best way to really realize what are my options, how can I move forwards, that sort of stuff.
Speaker: Thank you, Steph.
Speaker: I love what you said that people today lack, I mean, I didn't love it that people lack hope, but I love the phrasing of it.
Speaker: I mean, I was looking this morning, I woke up and I checked my Financial Times Digest and I saw, you know, tens of thousands protesting in Tel Aviv.
Speaker: Calling for a ceasefire.
Speaker: I mean, you look around at the world, you've got Putin invading Ukraine, you've got all the trouble with Hamas.
Speaker: Ukraine going back and invading Russia now.
Speaker: They're fighting back.
Speaker: They're fighting back well.
Speaker: I mean, you've got all those conflicts everywhere, some more mediatised than others.
Speaker: And I think we just, at the moment, don't see how it can get better.
Speaker: Everyone just thinks the world's going to end tomorrow.
Speaker: And it's not.
Speaker: It's not going to end tomorrow.
Speaker: I don't see any asteroids coming down from us.
Speaker: Now, I'm not a space person at all, but the world's doing... Okay, we need to sort out some stuff and we need to get some ducks in a row, I think that's the phrase, isn't it?
Speaker: But...
Speaker: We're moving forward and we're moving forward positively.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: Thank you very much for coming on the podcast today.
Speaker: And I also want to say one last time, do read John's blog on Medium.
Speaker: It is great.
Speaker: And if you did like the episode, please do give us a five-star review and a follow and drop a comment.
Speaker: Yes, thank you to Steph.
Speaker: And also everyone should definitely check out Stefano on Instagram, LinkedIn.
Speaker: He's done some amazing work.
Speaker: I think he's even been to 10 Downing Street for mental health.
Speaker: So do check out Steph and all the organisations that he works with.
Speaker: Thank you very much.
Speaker: That's very kind of you.
Speaker: It's been a pleasure to have this discussion.
