I share Adrian Massey’s anxieties regarding the growing use of antidepressants (It’s wrong to medicalise the trials of everyday life, 25 June). They seem to be paper over the cracks. I also believe he is right to point out the importance of speaking about our mental ill health with those around us. Yet far from being overly aware of our mental health, many who would benefit from access to therapy are deeply reluctant to approach professionals, fearing they will take the place of the more deserving.
I feel further discomfort reading that “an excessively medicalised approach to mental health” (which Mr Massey neglects to define) “fosters a learned helplessness”. Far from it. Learning that my excessive worry and relentless sense of dread was, in fact, called generalised anxiety disorder meant a great deal to me and has been instrumental to my recovery. It has made me confident, not helpless, that I can manage my situation. And far from isolating me, it has made me feel less alone: I am not the only one with such a disorder.
The assertion that the attitudes of 50 years ago fostered “self-reliance”, “getting on with life”, “not becoming too self-absorbed” and “not taking ourselves too seriously” made me sigh. Despite advocating a nuanced view of history, Mr Massey seems unable to take a similar view of the present. My course of high-intensity cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) on the NHS has provided me with space to laugh at my irrationality, to get on with life, and to become more empathic of others. I was only obsessing over my mental ill health when it wasn’t being treated.
Joshua Martin
Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands
• I am of the generation that was brought up to value self-reliance, get on with life, not become too self-absorbed, not take myself too seriously and not impose demands on a finite healthcare system out of recognition that there are others whose needs are greater. Two years ago I was diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety after I could not stop weeping uncontrollably (the stiff upper lip didn’t work).
Increased awareness of mental illness has meant I can talk openly about my own situation, so that friends and neighbours can offer support, understanding what has happened to me, and my wife’s cousin can call me the family nut job and mean it affectionately.
There will always be a need for people like me to seek and receive the mental health care and support I needed, and still need, from professionals and those around me, to recover from what was, for me, a life-changing downward spiral into mental ill health.
Dr Mark Wilkinson
Emsworth, Hampshire
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