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Yesterday and I today I've been on a 2-day Mental Health First Aid training course, organised by MHFA England, but paid for and arrange by my employer.
As you might expect, it was a challenging couple of days. We talked about the range of mental health issues people may experience, and focused on the various acute mental health crises that people face. As we did so, I remembered friends who have experienced mental ill-health, and reflected on the times I've tried to help: both things I did well, and things I would now do differently.
I don't want to try and summarise two days of work in a short blog post, but I did want to briefly comment on the things that I think it would be helpful to include in "physical" first aid training - because they're issues you might face as a first aider (especially if there isn't any mental health support available), and I wish I'd been told them as part of my first aid training.
The first of these is suicide. Some 20% of people will experience suicidal thoughts at some point in their life, and many more people die by suicide than are killed on the roads. Most people who complete suicide will have been planning it for some time, and they often say things that if you know what to listen for can be a hint ("I can't carry on like this", "everything's hopeless", for example) - and will often if asked say they are suicidal. So ask, and don't beat about the bush "You say you can't carry on like this - do you mean suicide?"; if the answer is yes, don't panic, but listen to the person you're talking to, while gently finding out if they have a plan, what has helped before if they've felt like this before; and whether they have the resources to carry out their plan. Keep listening, and try not to judge. There is help available - in acute cases, from the Samaritans, or via 999, or, in Cambridgeshire there's 111 (and pick option 2 for mental health crisis).
The second is panic attacks - these can often present very similarly to heart or asthma attacks (and so a first aider may be called to them), but someone who has had a panic attack will often recognise a repeat attack and be able to tell you what's happening. In this case, they may know what worked for them previously, but it can be really valuable to help them to breathe out more slowly (a visual aid like a slow-moving arm can help), or to get them to read something. If they've had secondary care, they may have a crisis card with contacts who can be called, or they may need encouragement to go back to their GP. Again, non-judgemental listening is really important, as is being a calming, reassuring presence.
I think the main take-homes for me, though, were that there are a range of support services available to help with mental health issues, and that there is genuine hope for recovery - something that it's worth reminding people of when they're in a crisis. Also, that mental health issues are very common and still too taboo - and that the stigma around mental illness is very real and very harmful. It's not just OK to talk about mental health, it's vital to do so, and we all need to be doing more of it.
This is a public post, but please remember not to link to it in a manner that relates this blog to my IRL name. Comments are screened, but will be unscreened unless you ask me not to.
As you might expect, it was a challenging couple of days. We talked about the range of mental health issues people may experience, and focused on the various acute mental health crises that people face. As we did so, I remembered friends who have experienced mental ill-health, and reflected on the times I've tried to help: both things I did well, and things I would now do differently.
I don't want to try and summarise two days of work in a short blog post, but I did want to briefly comment on the things that I think it would be helpful to include in "physical" first aid training - because they're issues you might face as a first aider (especially if there isn't any mental health support available), and I wish I'd been told them as part of my first aid training.
The first of these is suicide. Some 20% of people will experience suicidal thoughts at some point in their life, and many more people die by suicide than are killed on the roads. Most people who complete suicide will have been planning it for some time, and they often say things that if you know what to listen for can be a hint ("I can't carry on like this", "everything's hopeless", for example) - and will often if asked say they are suicidal. So ask, and don't beat about the bush "You say you can't carry on like this - do you mean suicide?"; if the answer is yes, don't panic, but listen to the person you're talking to, while gently finding out if they have a plan, what has helped before if they've felt like this before; and whether they have the resources to carry out their plan. Keep listening, and try not to judge. There is help available - in acute cases, from the Samaritans, or via 999, or, in Cambridgeshire there's 111 (and pick option 2 for mental health crisis).
The second is panic attacks - these can often present very similarly to heart or asthma attacks (and so a first aider may be called to them), but someone who has had a panic attack will often recognise a repeat attack and be able to tell you what's happening. In this case, they may know what worked for them previously, but it can be really valuable to help them to breathe out more slowly (a visual aid like a slow-moving arm can help), or to get them to read something. If they've had secondary care, they may have a crisis card with contacts who can be called, or they may need encouragement to go back to their GP. Again, non-judgemental listening is really important, as is being a calming, reassuring presence.
I think the main take-homes for me, though, were that there are a range of support services available to help with mental health issues, and that there is genuine hope for recovery - something that it's worth reminding people of when they're in a crisis. Also, that mental health issues are very common and still too taboo - and that the stigma around mental illness is very real and very harmful. It's not just OK to talk about mental health, it's vital to do so, and we all need to be doing more of it.
This is a public post, but please remember not to link to it in a manner that relates this blog to my IRL name. Comments are screened, but will be unscreened unless you ask me not to.
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It's tragic that there is still such a stigma about mental health problems. I am very open about the struggles I've had in the past, because I think it helps others. But then, I'm pretty obnoxiously confident these days. (grin)
(no subject)