Suicide is the second biggest killer amongst young people in Britain today. Over the last six years, the number of suicides peaked in Scotland at 40 per 100,000. This is an outrageous figure and is almost double that of England. Thanks to you, since 2000, we have been able to expand our services more widely in Scotland and hope to improve these further with the money raised from tonight.
Presenter2: Now we’re going to from a 17 year old named Holden who suffered a breakdown and was severely depressed and the story of 19 year old Susanna who was admitted to hospital after a failed suicide attempt. They’re going to tell you a little bit about themselves and about how YoungMinds have helped them.
Shot changes from TV studio to outdoors in a park where Holden is speaking to an interviewer unseen by the camera.
Holden Caulfield: I was in a bad place. I had never really got school and found it difficult to concentrate. I mean, it wasn’t that I wasn’t able to do the work but, it just made no sense to me, as a matter of fact, I’m the only dumb one in the family. My family is another thing, my parents; they’re pretty touchy about personal things you know. But my brother, D.B, he’s writes terrific books, and now he’s gone all the way to Hollywood to write films. He’s a great guy; he even fought in the war. My sister Phoebe, she’s the apple of my eye and my other brother, Allie, he was terribly intelligent and the nicest in the family. He really was great, but he died. He got leukaemia, he was only 11, poor guy.
But education, you know, these people and the things they said were just phony. I went to four schools; the last few were boarding schools so my parents didn’t know much about what I was getting up to. It wasn’t much, but that was the problem. It was Christmas last year and I’d been asked to leave. Except my Mum, you see, I couldn’t tell her, I mean this was my last chance, and she had no idea. I left school early and had week to kill in the city, that’s when it all went wrong. I lost myself there. I moved from hotel bar to street corner and met people that made my god damn skin crawl. I knew that the thoughts spinning round in my head weren’t adding up but didn’t realise what I was heading for. It was like the calm before the storm. People were morons and everywhere I went was stinking. I thought a lot, I worried too, about life and death and the difference between the two. I can worry a helluva lot. I thought I could move to the country with a girl but I was unreliable and lost and trying to escape myself. I didn’t follow through.
I went to my parent’s house one evening when I knew they were out and saw my little sister. I didn’t know it but she was scared for me. She wanted me home. That made me sad, real sad.
She knew.
For YoungMinds Spokesperson, the shot switches to an office in a medical centre where they are sitting behind a desk. Again with the interviewer out of shot.
YoungMinds Spokesperson: That night Holden also visited a teacher from a previous school who he had kept in touch with. This teacher was very concerned for Holden’s safety and wellbeing. He offered him help and support but Holden fled in a panicked and agitated state. His teacher was the one who saved Holden from himself. The teacher, Mr Antonelli contacted YoungMinds and we found Holden, took him to a safe place, contacted his parents and found him suitable accommodation and help. He was diagnosed as having Bipolar disorder and having what’s known as a ‘conduct disorder’.
Holden Caulfield: YoungMinds found me and helped me understand myself. Now I know. I’ve got help and treatment. For Chrissake, when I was in hospital I was assigned a psychologist, a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and a YoungMinds worker. The doctors and all were great and sorted out my thoughts and stuff but my YoungMinds worker, Mary, gave me confidence and damn good advice in how to approach difficult situations. She helped me to do some work and told me about different kinds of learning. These guys, they’re not phonies. They’re the nice guys, you know, the ones you don’t forget about.
YoungMinds Spokesperson: We were able to explore Holden’s inner thoughts in a relaxed environment where he was comfortable and then we could take a look at what went wrong. Links were made with his feelings of underachievement in comparison to his brothers. His thoughts were especially distorted when discussing his brother Allie who had died. This was identified as a trigger for his unstable mental health. Seeing the change in his elder brother D.B. upon his return from war and his leap in career to Hollywood also affected him.
Shot of Caulfield in an empty leisure room sitting on a sofa.
Holden Caulfield: I went to the YoungMinds centre a lot, you know on a lazy afternoon when you’re just thinkin’, bored as hell, YoungMinds are always there to chat. I’d speak to Mary about my past, about my brother going to the army and becoming a different person, I didn’t like that. And about a school friend, who had died, he fell from a window at school and nobody went to help him, I think he was pushed.
You know, the kinds of things that might have triggered my depression. I made loads of friends too and they also helped to show me how my life can progress. We share stories and work through our problems together. Susanna is a great friend and we bonded a lot over our love of English. She had trouble in school as well and we shared a passion. We’ve written poems together an opened up. I hadn’t done that with anyone my own age before. I didn’t think I could, I mean my thoughts were too confused in my own head to share them with anyone else. Susanna and I are good for each other. We talk a lot about the future and getting jobs. Before, life was just about today. She said she couldn’t ever think about who she wanted to be or who she wanted to be friends with.
YoungMinds Spokesperson: Susanna demonstrated great intelligence to us from the outset of her treatment meaning that her process of recovery was different from many of our other patients. She was aware that her state of mind was not normal and entered the hospital voluntarily. Many of her problems were linked to paranoia.
Shot changes to Susanna’s house. In the kitchen while she makes a cup of tea.
Susanna Kaysen: YoungMinds have pointed me in the right direction. When I was discharged from the hospital I had trouble with all sorts, like getting my driving licence and somewhere to stay, never mind a job. Because of the stigma attached to mental illness every job I applied for required a doctor’s note. YoungMinds are changing this. They’ve let me know all my legal rights and they’ve sorted all that kind of stuff for me. All I was offered before was to be a dental nurse.
I’ve got a phobia of the dentists. I once had a breakdown while I was there, I got a tooth extracted under anaesthetic and when I woke up I needed to know how long I’d been unconscious for, I’d lost time. The dentist was uncompromising and antagonised the situation. I had therapy to help me with this phobia but being given a job at a dentist surgery brought back all my fears and memories. Losing time is a complex issue for someone like me, being in the hospital, time regulated everything. In the real world time worked in different ways, it meant more to me than most people. It was a very sensitive issue for me.
I was diagnosed with a borderline personality disorder and was severely depressed. My dream of being a writer, wasn’t listened to when I was in the hospital, but YoungMinds have supported my aspirations.
I struggled to conform to what other people wanted from me. There was a battle, like Holden calls it, in my head. When you’re crazy you exist in a parallel universe. I think of it like a conversation between your mind and your brain. Your brain might look at a tree and the mind would see a tree but a crazy person’s mind would tell the brain that the tree is a tiger or something. I figured that out once when I was in therapy, that’s when I knew I was nearly better.
YoungMinds Spokesperson: These two youths have found common ground in each other and we encourage their relationship. It could be criticised that they would influence each other and if one were to relapse the other would suffer, but we feel the opposite. They are both still involved in psychiatric after care and regularly visit their psychologists but in seeing each other they also are able to use each other as a crutch and understand any feelings they don’t think anyone else will understand. Without YoungMinds, this connection would not have been built.
Back to original TV studio
Presenter1: That gives you some kind of an idea as to what YoungMinds can do. Their help meant that Holden and Susanna have been able to regain their lives and relax into a life that we all take for granted. We’re delighted to say that 18months on, Holden has been accepted for a place in university to study English and Susanna is writing a novel about her experience in a psychiatric hospital.
Shot pans to a grinning Holden sitting in the audience with his sister and Susanna next to him.
Presenter2: Come on down kids, come and have a chat.
They come down the steps from the audience and sit on stage with the two presenters.
Presenter1: So, how did you find that?
Holden Caulfield: I think it’s kinda great that we’re able to express what we want to say to let people know how important this all is to us.
Susanna: I’m loving the idea that people know what’s going on and some of the stigma is being worn down. Since I’ve been out of hospital, I’ve found the negatives attitudes that I face from people have been worse that the actual mental illness.
Presenter2: That, people, is why we so need your money to help us change the stereotypes employers, friends, family and anybody else make about people with mental health problems.
Presenter1: We’re going to have to cut to another commercial break but don’t go anywhere. Up next is Rick Stein, cooking up a storm in the kitchen.
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