Why are celebrities glamorising mental health instead of putting their money where their mouth is?

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry are spearheading a Heads Together campaign to end the stigma around mental health.

Heads Together aims to change the national conversation on mental health and wellbeing and is a partnership with inspiring charities with decades of experience in tackling stigma, raising awareness, and providing vital help for people with mental health challenges.

Throughout the past week, mental health has been a huge topic in the media with Prince Harry confessing to having counselling following the death of his mother, the late Princess Diana as well as getting pop star Lady Gaga involved.

The Prince finally came clean about the death of his mother in an interview with the Daily Telegraph which went live on a podcast.

He disclosed that he has spoken to a professional about his mental health, he describes how he only began to address his grief when he was 28 after feeling “on the verge of punching someone” and facing anxiety during royal engagements.

Describing the “quite serious effect” that losing his mother had on his personal and professional life, he tells how living in the public eye left him feeling he could be “very close to a complete breakdown on numerous occasions”.

The Prince, now 32, turned to counsellors and even took up boxing.

He says he is now in “a good place.”

But he added: “I can’t encourage people enough just to have that conversation because you will be surprised firstly, how much support you get and secondly, how many people literally are longing for you to come out.”

Confessing he was “a little nervous, a little tight in the chest” about the interview, the Prince said he was determined to make a difference while the younger members of the Royal family are “still interesting” to the public, doing his bit before Prince George, Princess Charlotte and any of his own future children step into the spotlight.

It’s easy for Prince Harry to gain access to proper counselling because he has the money and the contacts to receive the best treatments available as have other celebrities who enter The Priory to overcome their drug and alcohol dependency and mental breakdowns.

I’m not trying to put down Prince Harry because from my own experiences it’s hard to admit you have a problem and it’s even harder to seek help for that problem, and mental health still has a lot of stigmas attached to it.

Popstar Lady Gaga also came clean to the media during a Facetime call with Prince Williams by talking about her PTSD and mental illness.

In a video released on Tuesday, the pop star joined the Duke of Cambridge’s Heads Together, a campaign he leads along with the Duchess and Prince Harry to raise awareness on mental illness.

With 1 in every 4 people suffering from mental health issues in the UK, how many of us can receive the diagnosis and treatments required if it costs thousands of pounds.

Many of us are given anti-depressants and a standard 12 sessions of CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) where you apply techniques which you can print off the internet.

For me, this didn’t work, and it’s not surprising as the counsellors themselves tell you that unless you have at least 16 sessions, you are unlikely to succeed with CBT.

After a brush with the criminal justice system, I was finally put on the CMHT (Community Mental Health Team), and they were of no benefit to my health either.

They just considered me as another criminal mental health statistic and refused to even treat me until a year later. After a few months, they were keen to release me due to lack of NHS funding.

There’s one thing trying to end the stigma of having a mental health problem, another also adding a criminal record to that mental illness and then there’s the incredibly important part being diagnosed correctly and given the correct medication, counselling and tools to be able to get better.

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Suicide rates at an all-time high in the UK with statistics on the rise and this won’t decrease anytime soon, thanks to our government who have cut mental health funds to make up the NHS shortfall.

Theresa May has done you turn on a plan to give an extra 800 million to the NHS which was earmarked to help people with severe mental health problems.

An article in the Guardian claims that a letter written by NHS England’s finance chief, Paul Baumann, which has been seen by the Health Service Journal. Makes it clear that the £800m, which NHS England held back from its 209 clinical commissioning groups this year, will help stabilise NHS finances.

In his letter, Baumann confirms that NHS England now intends to use the “full amount” of the contingency fund to offset overspends by NHS acute hospital trusts in 2016-17.

In 2016 the health department had to dip into emergency funds of £205m.

Diverting the contingency money helped save the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt and his department’s mistakes.

Which tells us that are health secretary is incapable of his position and should be fired.

“In an interview, Jeremy Hunt has said that children’s mental services are the NHS’s biggest failing.

This is no surprise, especially now that the NHS is going to divert funding for trust deficits.

NHS England played down the impact on important services.

“As we’ve been saying since the start of the year, we set aside £800m to cover provider deficits if needed, and we do now need to,” a spokesman said.

“This is uncommitted money that would otherwise have been invested at the discretion of commissioners.

It will be important to get the trust deficit down next year, so planned investments can take place.”

Please let us know your thoughts on this and how you think the UK can lower its suicide rates?

Why I’m questioning Theresa Mays motives towards mental health?

Theresa May might have only been promoted to Prime Minister last summer.

However, she has been in government for over ten years which leads to the question of why has she suddenly decided to do something about mental health?

Is she looking for more popularity votes or does she really want to help?

The other question is how she can help when the NHS has no more money and is stretched for staff as it is?

Yesterday, Theresa May announced a few new policies aiming to help people who experience mental health issues.

However, she forgot to mention the cuts to disability benefits that the Tories brought in and she also dodged the question of whether she would protect extra money put aside for children’s mental health.

Mental health and children

The Prime Minister’s plans thrown into the Mental Health agenda; included a green paper on Children and Young People’s Mental Health Services; Mental health first aid train for schools; the reconfirming of a programme to help young people support their peers; an extension to digital mental services (mostly already pre-funded).

In addition to this, work on employment and mental health; with an extra £15m thrown into the pot to extend the provision of alternative places of safety and a restatement of the commitment to suicide reduction.

It’s been almost a decade since the coalition government started national campaigns like Time to Change and whilst this initiative has recognised mental health as a serious issue, there is still a lot of work to do when it comes to people with mental health being misdiagnosed, not receiving the correct treatments and being discriminated against in the workplace and being seen as second class citizens.

The public may be fooled into believing that Theresa May is a caring prime minister and is concerned for people who suffer from mental health problems.

Let’s not forget that it was her party along with successive governments have made cuts to disability benefits, leading to the breakdown of local authority funding and the decline of NHS support for those suffering from long-term mental health needs.

Lots of people can talk the talk but this doesn’t help solve the problem.

Only time will tell if we will witness a change towards mental health in 12 months’ time.

what are your thoughts on Theresa Mays motives towards mental health?

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