None of them received a Hero’s welcome- Mental Health Awareness Week
‘Nineteen – none of them received a hero’s welcome’ was a song that first brought to my mind mental health awareness. It reflected on a society that sent their young to war and denied the effects on them on return to normal life. Post -Traumatic Stress Disorder [PTSD] was my first introduction to mental health awareness.
Loneliness is not the same as being alone. I learnt that when I relocated to a new country with customs long forgotten, being challenged all the time to make social connections. I was termed a high flyer, securing a role within my area of studies almost straight from university. I was on the job market a mere 3 months.
Lack of social connectivity combined with major life stresses at an early age [total change of environ, moving home, relationship breakdown, etc] took it’s toll. I had my first experience of clinical depression. My lesson from that long lasting period was that once an attack on your mental health is successful, conditions rapidly deteriorate and mutate to unimaginable variations of mental illness.
I recently have been exposed to campaign information that suggests that the main cause of death among young men [those aged under 45] is suicide. I can empathise with the feeling of nowhere to go – nowhere to be sheltered in recovery.
I now appreciate the instructions given to Moses in Leviticus on the setting up of refuge cities on the occupation of the promised land. God was thorough with the structures he was instructing for the mental health of His chosen Nation.
Just like structures fail in recent society [ the wasted Tsunami early warning system that was ineffective due to human factors following the first Indonesian Tsunami at the turn of the century comes to mind] they appear to have failed with those around long after the settlement of the land
We are shaped by what we hear continually. As more high profile individuals and organisations regularly keep mental health awareness in the news, this area of health previously relegated to the background can only gain the prominence it deserves.
Back to the song – 19, and all it evokes in some of our memories. An earlier generation of youngsters won the Battle of Britain. They were celebrated for generations later, in comics [the funny papers for earlier generation] and films that still evoke strong memories for some of us whose parents may not even yet been born. Issues of PTSD were rare, with America’s Vietnam veterans, their treatment from society enormously contributed to the problems.
A later generation of youngsters were to wage the most effective military campaign in modern times. This emboldened further adventures that turned a large US surplus into deficit. Once again, the clamour for change brought about a grass root movement that upset the political machine in the US. How we treat mental health in our society is truly of the greatest importance.
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