Between 1 in 12 and 1 in 15 children and young people are thought to deliberately self-harm.
That is such a dreadfully sad statistic. Children without
hope. Children in despair. What is it that is causing the rise of mental health
issues for so many? Aside from the pollutants, industries, additives,
pharmaceuticals and other factors that can affect our mental health, maybe there’s
something in the way we live and the
example and options we offer our young .
I recall those childhood wonderings about what it would be to grow up; hearing about school, work, falling in love, marriage, children etc. I waited each time at the end of conversations about this scenario, this ‘blueprint for life’ - thinking there would be at least another option, if not a whole set of multiple-choice blueprints to choose from.
I didn’t hear any real choices – just success or failure based on matching up to the blueprint
My mum was loving, fabulous and successful in her career but she too had the blueprint; doing her best to be the shape it required and help my sister and I to be too. We act with good intent, not wanting our children to be outside society and wanting to make the journey as smooth as possible. There is no malice in shaping our children to fit because this is what life looks like, if you grew up according to the blueprint - but there is harm.
The confines of society have closed in so much that there are fewer exits and where they lead, grows smaller and smaller. We live anti-nature – shut-in buildings, ritual working patterns, societal norms, structured politics and probably most damaging of all, limited boundaries of education that attempt to create those shapes for humans to be - in order to fit the blueprint.
I recall those childhood wonderings about what it would be to grow up; hearing about school, work, falling in love, marriage, children etc. I waited each time at the end of conversations about this scenario, this ‘blueprint for life’ - thinking there would be at least another option, if not a whole set of multiple-choice blueprints to choose from.
I didn’t hear any real choices – just success or failure based on matching up to the blueprint
My mum was loving, fabulous and successful in her career but she too had the blueprint; doing her best to be the shape it required and help my sister and I to be too. We act with good intent, not wanting our children to be outside society and wanting to make the journey as smooth as possible. There is no malice in shaping our children to fit because this is what life looks like, if you grew up according to the blueprint - but there is harm.
The confines of society have closed in so much that there are fewer exits and where they lead, grows smaller and smaller. We live anti-nature – shut-in buildings, ritual working patterns, societal norms, structured politics and probably most damaging of all, limited boundaries of education that attempt to create those shapes for humans to be - in order to fit the blueprint.
I know so many out-of-shape people
Of course we can go rogue… live life away from the norm but
it is far from easy and getting more difficult all the time. There is little
common land to disappear to, few incomes that aren’t attached to a ‘regular
job’ etc. So odd-shaped people spend lifetimes trying to squeeze, stretch and
bend into places, spaces and states of
being that will always be ill-fitting… and eventually, maddening.
Mental Health has been in the news more recently than at any other time I can recall. Statistics warn:
Mental Health has been in the news more recently than at any other time I can recall. Statistics warn:
- About a quarter of the population will
experience some kind of mental health problem in the course of a year,
with mixed anxiety and depression the most common mental disorder in
Britain
- Women are more likely to have been treated for a
mental health problem than men
- About ten percent of children have a mental
health problem at any one time
- Suicides rates show that British men are three
times as likely to die by suicide than British women
- Self-harm statistics for the UK show one of
the highest rates in Europe: 400 per 100,000 population
Of course this is a health issue that we need to look at from a medical perspective but much more than the diagnosis and treatments – the biggest concern is surely:
What are the causes and how can we address them before the harm starts
or is beyond remedy?
The world is dramatically different than the one I knew as a child and yet the blueprint remains pretty much the same. We can see that as a species, we are capable of amazing creativity and ingenuity and yet here we are, stuck in austerity, in debt, discontented with our systems of government, at war, in poverty and often, feeling the huge sense of hopelessness at it all.
The world is dramatically different than the one I knew as a child and yet the blueprint remains pretty much the same. We can see that as a species, we are capable of amazing creativity and ingenuity and yet here we are, stuck in austerity, in debt, discontented with our systems of government, at war, in poverty and often, feeling the huge sense of hopelessness at it all.
BUT…
As technology races ahead, social media gets us talking and
the internet provides ready-resources of information and learning, people WILL challenge the blueprint. Each day though, suicides, over-medication and self-harm are stealing some of the
most creative, feeling and unique minds from us. History reveals that the
brightest inventions have come from those with wilder minds; the untamed Einsteins,
Teslas and Da Vincis (would they have been medicated as teens in order to get
them to conform to an homogenized norm and stop fussing with crazy ideas?).
Change can't come soon enough and it has to include a review of the blueprint so we can start to set ourselves free.
I couldn't agree more!
ReplyDeleteAccording to the plan! there is no value in parenting any more, and mothers/fathers are now "TOLD" to fit child rearing into their busy working lives.
We are being compelled to sacrifice everything, to break all natural loving bonds! just so we can afford to live in misery!
That's how I see it, and as depressing as it all sounds, I am still the eternal optimist!
I am hugely optimistic too Stephen - faith in fellow-humans of all shapes and types I've met along the way, are proof of the beauty we are. Just need to take the power and control out of the hands of the dangerous and start realising our true potential as human beings x
ReplyDelete