Mental Illness and the UK - A Culture of Respect, Concern and Compassion

An article from the BBC website, this Friday just gone:


"ARREST OF ASBO 'SUICIDE' WOMAN

A woman given an Asbo for making repeated suicide attempts was arrested near cliffs just hours after failing to overturn the order, it has emerged.

Emergency services were called out near Aberystwyth last Friday to Amy Beth Dallamura, 45, of Hove, Sussex.

Aberystwyth magistrates had refused to lift her anti-social behaviour order (Asbo) just hours earlier.

A previous court hearing heard how she had cost emergency services nearly £1m after they had rescued her 50 times.

Ms Dallamura moved to live with relatives in Hove in September last year.

But she returned to Aberystwyth, where she once lived, on 20 February to try to persuade magistrates to lift the Asbo which banned her from going in the sea, onto beaches or the promenade in the town.

The refused, saying it would remain in place until further notice.

But later that day shortly before midnight, Dyfed-Powys Police, the ambulance service and the coastguard were called to Borth, near Aberystwyth.

Ms Dallamura was on cliffs near the village, said police. She was arrested, but was released without charge.

Earlier that day in court, she apologised for the concern she had caused in Aberystwyth.

But she argued that her Asbo was 'no longer necessary'.

Temporary Chief Inspector Mark James of Aberystwyth police said: 'We received a report from the ambulance service that they had been alerted to her being on the cliffs over Borth. It was outside the area from which she is excluded. She was arrested and released without further action.'

The Asbo was imposed for an indefinite period in January 2006 after Ms Dallamura, a former golf professional, made repeated suicide attempts.

She had waded out to sea and leapt off piers, jetties, rocks and cliffs when she lived in the Ceredigion seaside town.

Ms Dallamura breached her Asbo in 2007 and received a two-year supervision order."



I just don't think I have the words. We live in a society where mental health is seen as a priority only insofar as its effects "bother" other, "normal" people. We get headlines about Schizophrenia when an affected individual commits a violent act against someone else, bemoaning that they weren't locked up or "controlled" better. We get tabloid articles, and occasional ignorant and grossly misinformed comments from politicians, about how Clinical Depression either doesn't exist, or is best treated by the affected individual "pulling their socks up" and getting on with it. We are constantly reminded how much "these people" cost the NHS, the Benefits System, and the country generally, with the clear implication that "they" are lazy, work-shy, good-for-nothings sponging off decent ordinary folks.

And now, we have a woman in dire need who should be getting truckloads of medical help and resources thrown at her, effectively criminalized for being sick.

Mental Health services vary wildly depending on where you live, and how far you are able to advocate assertively for yourself (something, by the way, that is often particularly hard for people with mental health problems). My own experience of this patchy provision includes having to re-explain my situation again and again to a series of apparently random doctors and nurses, none of whom spoke English as a first language, and some of whom responded to me in ways which suggested that they only had the most cursory grasp of what I was trying to communicate, before being told to try going to Marriage Counselling.

At the time, I was suicidal, completely incapable of regulating my own mood or taking any control over the vicious cyclical ruminations that completely dominated my consciousness. I made serious efforts to try and get this across to the parade of mildly-bored professionals I had struggled to get the chance to see. On some occasions, my then-husband was with me, and in his frustration and bone-gnawing worry made valiant attempts to put his foot down and prevent them from fobbing me off completely. I was made to feel as though I were seriously wasting everybody's time, and it rapidly got to the stage where I strongly suspected that they didn't actually give a fuck if I lived or died. I wasn't wielding a machete and gibbering about how the voices were telling me to kill kill kill. If anyone died, it would "only" be me - a damaged, pathetic, resource-wasting person. So why invest time and energy?

We ended up concocting fraudulent evidence that we actually lived at my in-laws' address, in order to access better services in a different part of London. If we hadn't done that, I wonder if I would still be alive today.

But then, who cares? If I had thrown myself off a cliff, the only concern would presumably have been for the trouble and expense I was putting people to by necessitating the involvement of the Emergency Services.

My condition is now much better-managed, and I am able to find pleasures and satisfactions in life that I would never have thought possible again eight years ago. But even maintaining this level of stability and functionality is very hard work, and involves the contributions of extensive support services and resources. I am not able to work outside the home, and am therefore dependent on Social Security for my meagre income. That in itself is enough to make me worse than shite in the minds of many people.

Amy Dallamura and I are not pariahs. We are people. We have the same rights to first-rate medical care and simple human respect as anybody else who suffers from a serious illness. My illness has threatened my life, and sometimes I feel as though my society is a little miffed that I survived.