Media Storm - S2E8 Mental Health: The pros and pitfalls of diagnosis - with Scarlett Curtis and Kamilah McInnis

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Starting point is 00:00:56 Hi, everyone. Just a note, this episode contains references to mental illness, suicide and self-harm. If you feel you need someone to talk to, whatever you're going through, you can call the Samaritans for free from any phone on 116-123. Matilda, have you ever felt unwell and then Googled your symptoms to try and find out what's wrong? Okay, I have learned just about enough in life to know that that is a terrible idea, but the The one time I fall into that trap again and again, it's the one really big irrational fear I have, and that's getting pregnant. And sometimes I'll Google things, and all roads lead to needing pregnant.

Starting point is 00:01:46 I don't know if you know just how many symptoms I have pregnancy. It's nosebleeds, it's dizziness. It's whenever I get like a little spot or a breakout, look it up, pregnant. Right. But this is exactly it. We're all guilty of Googling our symptoms because it seems like the simplest and easiest thing to do. But here's the thing. If you search something and Google tells you you're pregnant or your head's about to fall off, you're probably able to rationally say, okay, I reckon that's not going to happen or that's not true. But more and more, people have been turning to online spaces to help them self-diagnose mental health conditions and neurodivert. And sometimes that's been really great. Yeah, I guess because online spaces like TikTok and Instagram, whatever my personal relationship with them, I know that they can be really good at community building, be really good at making people feel less alone. Exactly. But on the

Starting point is 00:02:45 flip side, mental health professionals have seen a rise in misdiagnosis because of these spaces. And you know how an algorithm works. You search hoop earrings and your whole feed will be hoop earrings and relate to jewellery within minutes, basically. Right, false bias. Also such a good example for you. Helena loves a hoop. I do love a hoop. Yeah, algorithmic bias, that's the term, isn't it?

Starting point is 00:03:09 If you search anxiety or even a symptom of mental health condition like insomnia, you are likely to get more and more content on that topic. So I can see how when it comes to diagnosis, it's a double-edged sword. Right, and exactly. And this episode, I'm going to be speaking in a person. capacity too, which is something I haven't done before. But I've previously been diagnosed with depression and generalised anxiety disorder and a few other things along the way. But when I was a teenager and I got diagnosed, we didn't really have social media in the same way as it exists now.

Starting point is 00:03:44 And do you think that if you did, you would have found it a help or a hindrance? Well, that's what I've been trying to find out. I'm off to speak to people who have been diagnosed, self-diagnosed or misdiagnosed with mental illness and to find out what the effect of that is and why so many people are turning to TikTok. And I'll see you back in the studio with some very special guests to discuss everything around this media storm. I just didn't want to be alive anymore. I'm sorry, I don't believe a word she says, Megapal. Post-COVID mental health issues. Growing concerns about the impact of social media on children's mental health. to whether the government's delivering its promises on children's mental health.

Starting point is 00:04:28 Almost half of teenage boys don't talk to their dads when they're depressed. The path to treatment is a long one. Welcome to Media Storm, the news podcast that starts for the people who are normally asked last. I'm Helen O'Owadia and I'm Matilda Malinson. This week's investigation. Mental health, the pros and pitfalls of diagnosis. I'm going over to my best friend. Chrisie's flat. We've known each other since we were 11, so she's pretty much been by my side

Starting point is 00:05:00 through every stage of my life. Oh my God, you still have this photo up. We really need to take more photos together. I know, this is the only photo we have practically. This is from your 18. God, we were such babies. I know, look at your eyeliner. I mean, the eyeliner, the side fringe, the side passing. Oh my God. It's so weird though, like, looking back at photos at this time, because this is probably the most depressed I ever was at this age. Yeah. I mean, we should have known. Look at the eyeliner.

Starting point is 00:05:30 No, we're just emo kids. Yeah. That was, at school or whatever, that was the most depressed I ever was. But then I didn't even get like an official diagnosis or anything until uni. But you'd been like depressed since what, like 15, 16, like all through. Yeah, maybe even younger. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:05:47 I know. I feel like I knew I was so overwhelmingly sad, but I didn't. But it's kind of like I just floated through life under this cloud. I don't know how to describe it. Like it was just normal or something. Exactly. You didn't realize that it was something that wasn't wrong with you as a person. It might be something wrong with like your brain or that you were ill, that you were ill.

Starting point is 00:06:08 I didn't realize I was ill, definitely not. Yeah. We didn't see it like that. It was just like, oh, just emo. Exactly. Put some more eyeliner on, that will help. We didn't need medication back there. That day we had eyeliner.

Starting point is 00:06:21 And one tree. Yeah, so went to a doctor, got the official diagnosis of depression. He gave me antidepressants and honestly like, I just remember feeling like so relieved. There was like a real sense of comfort from being like, okay, this is a medical issue and I know what I can do now and I can take this medication and I can go to therapy and and there was just, yeah, I just remember feeling like really relieved and like. I don't know, a little bit more in charge of it for the first time ever. But then it wasn't actually until another couple of years after that when I had that breakdown when travelling that I actually saw a psychiatrist and started with my now regular therapist.

Starting point is 00:07:13 But it was also really strange because it was, so I had that official diagnosis of depression. I've also had an official diagnosis of anxiety. Oh my God, also I found this. prescription when I was looking to write stuff earlier which look oh my god valium yeah hey why did you cash this in I mean that could have been helpful I'm sure but yeah medically supervised and advisable circumstances well only but obviously yes somewhere along the way had anxiety bad enough for valium and when I first saw the psychiatrist I he also said that I might have a form of bipolar which is mixed effective disorder and actually my medication was altered for that because at that time I was

Starting point is 00:08:00 experiencing really really high highs and really low lows and I think but now I just think do I have that I mean yeah I definitely remember when you got the bipolar um one because that's a biggie that's one that you remember that's one that feels quite significant and almost like a little bit different to depression and anxiety in some ways but I don't remember it necessarily changing much I think you I remember you mentioning it but then it was like okay cool like another one another one under the belt

Starting point is 00:08:32 added to the list added to the list of diagnosing but I don't remember that necessarily like it didn't like changing much about how I saw your you or your mental health or how you saw you or your mental health no and it's weird because like now I'm mostly stable go to therapy when I need it, and I know I have depression, I know I have anxiety, but I also know I can manage it. And I don't know about all the other diagnoses I've picked up along the way, but a part of me

Starting point is 00:09:05 thinks, does it really matter? I can't talk right now. I'm doing anxious girl shit. Put a finger down weird anxiety symptoms you thought nobody else had. If your right brain, you'll see a fish. If your left brain, you'll see a mermaid. If you have a neurodivergent brain, you're going to see the donkey from Shrek. Stuff I didn't realize was ADHD related, part three. Always OCD can show up.

Starting point is 00:09:29 Hidden signs of depression. You're always slouching. Hidden signs of OCD. That's a selection of videos from a very quick search on TikTok. On the app, the hashtag BPD, or borderline personality disorder, has 3.7 billion views. Hashtag bipolar has 2 billion. and hashtag DID or Dissociative Identity Disorder has another 1.5 billion views.

Starting point is 00:09:56 A search of the hashtag depression on Instagram. At first, brings up a message that says, can we help? And a button to click to get support if you're going through a difficult time. And then, the search returns more than 25.3 million posts. So, in what ways are people turning to social media? I knew that I had depression. I knew that that was something that I'd been struggling with. That's Thea Rickard, a 22-year-old journalist who lives in Bristol.

Starting point is 00:10:30 Theo found social media to be a positive step towards diagnosis. It felt like a massive word and I felt like I had no right to say it, partly because on the face of it, I had a really lovely life. I turned to kind of pages on social media that talked really openly about mental health, talked about what depression was, what anxiety was. And I think that was kind of my first point of contact for realizing that I firstly wasn't on my own. And also, secondly, these were very legitimate things that I was feeling and that I could go

Starting point is 00:11:01 to the doctors for and that I deserved to go to the doctors for as well. I think without social media, I really hate to think about where that would have taken me because I don't know whether I would have gone to the doctors. I would say, though, that social media can be really, really negative in terms of mental health. There's a lot of enabling that goes on. There was a lot of, like, people talking about suicide in a very unproductive way on Tumblr and massively glamorising it as well. Like, I remember there was these quotes that are like, nobody cares unless you're pretty or dead.

Starting point is 00:11:35 And people thought that was a really cool quote. And everyone was like, oh, my God, yeah, it's so true. Like, even though I was really lucky with it, I think a lot of people have sort of found the opposite as well. I mentioned before that hashtags like bipolar have around 2 billion views on TikTok. The hashtag ADHD, that has 14.5 billion views. Although ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, is not a mental illness, but a neurological disorder, I think it's important to mention here as it shows the real impact of self-diagnosis. Many doctors are noticing an increase in patient showing

Starting point is 00:12:14 up to their offices wondering if they have the condition. Lauren, an American business owner living in London, was one of those patients. I noticed that I was different, but I didn't know it was ADHD. And because I've been learning so much on TikTok, I mean, amazing. Excel training tips, like just amazing tips on there. I went on there and put an ADHD and was flooded, absolutely flooded with what it looks like in women. I was mostly following women with ADHD, but there was information from what symptoms can look like, how it can affect you at work, how it can affect relationships, how you can fight for a diagnosis,

Starting point is 00:12:56 what medications are out there. It was very helpful. When you started viewing content on TikTok about ADHD, did you notice that more and more content about ADHD was then coming up, for example, on your 4U page? 100%. Yeah, the algorithm really kicked in there. Sometimes it can be deceiving. So you just wanted to make sure, especially when it came to ADHD,

Starting point is 00:13:24 that I was doing further research on my own to make sure I could back it up. The power a TikToker can have in that misinformation and when they're wielding it for clips, when they're wielding it for money and you know they don't really, they may not even believe what they're saying. I've seen so much of that.

Starting point is 00:13:42 and you kind of have to have an internal filter that just says no. Zoe Aston, psychotherapist, mental health consultant and author, has seen how social media has affected her younger clients when it comes to diagnosis. My Gen Z clients seem to use social media to identify things. I had one client who sort of kept coming up with more things. If we are in therapy to solve one problem, or in treatment to solve one problem, if we're attached to having a problem, then it's very easy to go out and be like, oh, I've got tick, or I've got this hair pulling problem. Or I've got an eating disorder now. And kind of bring that in and kind of re-proplifies yourself over and over and over again. If someone came to therapy and was like, I saw this thing on Instagram, do you think I have autism or a personality disorder? I would use what I know about that person so far to be like, I've never thought that about you. So the likelihood is you probably don't, but if you want to explore it as a potential thing that you want to work on, then absolutely let's do it. One study published

Starting point is 00:14:52 earlier this year discovered that of the videos selected and analysed under the ADHD hashtag on TikTok, 52% of them contained misinformation. And the studied clips had an average of three million views each. So here's the double-edged sword. Social media can destigmatize conditions like ADHD and encourage people to seek help. But unqualified content creators can also be perpetuating myths that lead to misdiagnosis. And that can be dangerous. Suddenly I was stuck in this OCD bubble. Like all my social media was like OCD related. I think like the Googling must have like triggered the algorithm from one Google. Yeah, from Wow.

Starting point is 00:15:37 Sainab Muhammad, self-diagnosed with OCD or obsessive compulsive disorder after listening to a podcast about the condition and then Googling her symptoms. Every post and video, I was like, yes, I've definitely got it. I know it sounds really silly, like saying this out loud now, but like those little videos when they have like checklist and you check all the symptoms, you're like, okay, I might have this. And then when it happens again and again and again and again, you're like, fully convinced. Can you describe some of the content that you were seeing? You mentioned the

Starting point is 00:16:11 checklists. Yeah. I think all of them were similar. They'll have a person and then they'll have like different words like popping up on the screen with all the symptoms and stuff. So loads of those type of videos or videos that will say like you've got X if you do this, this and this. Oh, I know this again, this sounds very silly. There's like videos where they'll show you like a picture. and they'll say, if you see this, you've got a neurodivergent brain. And you're like, okay, all these little videos, like, worked together to, like, really convince you that you've got this. Now, you wouldn't classify yourself as somebody who has OCD.

Starting point is 00:16:55 Why is that? What changed? After a couple of months, it was happening again with ADHD. I was like, surely I can't have ADHD OCD. And I was like, I mustn't be the only one that thinks that I've got all, like, all these mental health illnesses. And I found in the British Medical Journal a piece in there that said, psychiatrists have found that young women were coming to them with a self-diagnosis rather than coming to them for a diagnosis.

Starting point is 00:17:22 And the common link between all of these young women were that they had consumed high levels of mental health content on social media, specifically TikTok. I was like, oh my goodness, I've done this. And I was doing it again, and I could, like, see the same, similar thing happening again. It's like watching a beauty video on TikTok. You take what they have in the video and you apply it to yourself, and I was doing the exact same thing. I was, like, taking this mental health experience of this other person

Starting point is 00:17:51 and applying it to my life. When you thought you had OCD, did you ever think about getting medical help? I did, and so when I did Google it initially, I went on the NHS website. but when you scroll down it'll give you like the waiting time and it was like a couple of months just to see a doctor for like a consultation and I was like unsure and also it's in the height of the lockdown and I didn't want to add like I felt bad adding strain to the NHS and also I was like

Starting point is 00:18:24 oh yeah I've got social media I can like turn to social media because I can get my information there waiting times are just one of the reasons people seem to be turning to social media. For Jack, misdiagnosis has played his life for over 10 years. Jack thought he might have ADHD and went to his GP. After a long wait, he finally saw a psychiatrist who misdiagnosed him. I saw him, and within the first 10 minutes of meeting this guy,

Starting point is 00:18:53 he literally just went, I know what it is, you've got bipolar, and just stopped it like that. And then he said, but carry on saying what you're saying. He interrupted me, like, you know. and then by the end of it he was like I've changed my diagnosis you have autism as Spurges

Starting point is 00:19:09 hard to recognise by the naked eye he said these were his words and that that stunned me because it's like from what I understood of autism at the time I was like that's not me like I've got ADHD and you know

Starting point is 00:19:21 how are you just throwing these things out there so I'm professional you know in the first 10 minutes to assess someone and he's prescribed the medicine called Alanzapine which is a heavy anti-psychotic medicine. That medicine just knocked me out. I couldn't wake up. I constantly ate and I put on three stone and I had no libido and I was just like, you've broken me. I'll come to you

Starting point is 00:19:44 in a vulnerable state and I've become more vulnerable. I've become more broken than I was. An ADHD specialist found Jack definitely had symptoms of ADHD but didn't want to put him on medication for it right away given the traumatic experiences Jack had had with wrongly prescribed medication. Instead, he suggested Jack get CBT or cognitive behavioural therapy, a type of talking therapy. Jack reached out to a psychologist for the CBT, but... I pursued CBT, which became an uphill battle. Everyone was like, why do you need CBT? It's not the golden ticket.

Starting point is 00:20:21 And I was like, because I need to work on my anxiety so that I can go back and get reassessed and get medication for my ADHD. and everyone put me off getting CBT even though that was the next step I had to take. So eventually I got referred and at the end he just basically told me in his own words that I don't think there's anything wrong with you where you describe about your anxiety or your symptoms. I think you just need a job and stability because you lack it. And I was gobsmacked. Fear, who you heard earlier, had similar complications when trying to access free men.

Starting point is 00:20:58 mental health care. So I walked in and I started crying pretty much immediately and I told them that I had had thoughts about ending my life, that I had thoughts of harming myself and that I couldn't really imagine life anymore and felt sad all the time and they gave me a leaflet and sent me on my way. And so that was my first kind of interaction with the NHS and kind of mental health services in general and obviously if you've been spending years and validating your own experience and that happens it's you know it's not like it's not a great thing how long did it take to get an official diagnosis from first reaching out to a medical professional i think it took about two months and i know that doesn't sound like a long time but i think it felt really long because i was also going to the

Starting point is 00:21:51 doctors like every week because i was like please help me you know like it felt like i got the impression that I was annoying them and that I was wasting their time. I think sometimes how lucky we are to have the NHS is often harnessed to make us feel bad for using GP's time and that's definitely how I felt in that moment. The number of people seeking treatment has grown at a fast rate, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Mental health services in England received a record 4.3 million referrals during 2021 alone. Services are not currently resourced to meet the increasing demand, resulting in long waits and high thresholds for treatment. Latest estimates put the waiting list at 1.4 million people. I put out a post on Instagram asking for people's experiences

Starting point is 00:22:46 with trying to access free mental health care and I was inundated with responses. It's important to say that many people have had good experiences and many wanted me to reiterate that they don't directly blame healthcare staff or the NHS for their experiences, but rather underfunding, austerity and the lack of adequate training. So I waited about a year and a half for CBT to get therapy. I think it was another year, but I didn't actually get the appointment. It never came through. The system in Liverpool seems to be a series of waiting. lists to see the wizard of Oz. Apparently the waiting list for adults for ADHD are four to six years. I expected to get help quicker than anticipated, found that I was being passed from one place to another. Things can only really get worse rather than better when you're not getting the specialist help. A CBT therapy knew it wasn't right for me. Express my feelings but was told

Starting point is 00:23:43 this was the process I had to go through. It told us that the only other thing that would have banched out the list would have been if she was suicidal. So she was classed as high priority. We had to wait six months to see a psychiatrist. So I currently pay £100 a session, and that means I don't have therapy regularly when I really should be. I have it when I reach a breaking point. He was assessed and he needed to be sectioned. There wasn't any available beds.

Starting point is 00:24:11 My experience over the last 50 years, nothing really seems to have changed. In the end, they had to admit him to A&E because he needed to be somewhere where he could be kept safe. I just think so many more of our young people are going to end up taking their own lives or having long-term mental health conditions because they're not getting the treatment that they need. It's very difficult to access that kind of support again

Starting point is 00:24:35 once you have already been through the system. If you've been deemed sound of mind and able to support yourself, it's very difficult to access free or affordable mental health support. Because the system is so overloaded, the waiting is for a private psychiatrist was even longer. That really getting him the free, help that he really, really needs because he can't afford as a schizophrenic any paid help

Starting point is 00:24:57 is absolutely impossible. And you really need to be on it daily. And he isn't because he's got schizophrenia. When you hurt your leg or your arm, you go to the doctor and they fix you. So why is it so difficult when it comes to mental health? Is it any wonder more and more people are seeking out a community online for something they can't find in person. There is always a sense of, if other people are experiencing it, I feel less alone. Ultimately, you know, one of our core human needs, our basic human needs is to feel like we belong. And do we seek firm answers and clear diagnoses because of how the media reports on mental health?

Starting point is 00:25:41 That takes us back to the studio. Thanks for sticking around. Welcome back to the studio and to Media Storm, the podcast that starts with the people who are normally asked last. Today we're talking about mental health and the media and with us are some very special guests. Our first guest is a journalist and podcast producer who can be found working for BBC News and one extra. She's a host and volunteer at Kind Fest and has written and reported on her own experiences of mental health as well as well-being in the creative industries. It's Camila McKinness. Oh my gosh, what a nice intro.

Starting point is 00:26:22 Thank you. I didn't even write that. I was so, honestly, I was sitting there smiling like, oh my gosh. Yes, that's me. Thank to having me. We should get that every time we walk into a room. Oh my gosh, it's only, yeah. Our second guest is a writer and activist who has published two Sunday Times bestselling books

Starting point is 00:26:38 and is the co-founder of the activist collective, The Pink Protest. Her second book, It's Not Okay to Fill Blue and Other Lies, saw 70 people sharing their powerful, funny and moving stories exploring their own mental health. It's Scarlett Curtis. Hi Scarlett. That was also a lovely intro for me. Thank you guys. We're going to start by looking at how the mainstream media has shaped our ideas of mental health. And while the media is often excellent at helping raise awareness of mental health initiatives, there are some common tropes and pitfalls it can fall into. In our research, one of the most common pitfalls in the news media is linking mental illness to violence and crime.

Starting point is 00:27:20 Camila, as a reporter, is this something that you've seen before? I think definitely I've seen a lot of like violence representations, particularly when it comes to things like psychosis and schizophrenia. I grew up thinking that schizophrenia meant that you had like multiple personalities. But actually the symptoms of like schizophrenia is often associated with things like slowing down. your speech or decrease motivation. But in the media, like when you watch it on TV, you'll see like visual hallucinations, bizarre delusions, things like that.

Starting point is 00:27:56 I think ways to kind of get around this is actually working with people with, like, lived experiences. So I remember, and we actually had him on our podcast as this amazing guy called Antonio Ferreira. And he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. And when EastEnders was doing a. a story with a character that had schizophrenia, they got Antonio on board to actually guide them,

Starting point is 00:28:22 give them guidance, help them. This is something that I think that the media and news organisation should be utilising when they're covering these kind of stories. As a person who was diagnosed at a very young age with a lot of mental illnesses, that was what I'd seen about mental illness, right? Like no one in my life had really spoken to me

Starting point is 00:28:40 about their experiences with it. And I left that doctor's appointment thinking that my life was kind of destined to be a life of violence or misery or like something really dark. We need to hear more stories about people living with mental illness and that's a huge part of what I've tried to do. Like most of this reporting is on people who haven't received the help they need and have reached this real, real end point. These diagnoses don't have to be a death sentence and yet we're only reporting on them when they get to the point where they've been so ignored and abused that they end up in a really horrible situation. Like, we live in a

Starting point is 00:29:19 country where 16 million people have mental illness and 75% of people aren't receiving help. I think the average wait time for young people for effective treatment is 10 years. The story should be that the help isn't there. The story shouldn't be like the worst case scenario because that terrifies people that are going through it themselves. I just completely agreed with that. A lot of the onus that we seem like the media and these kind of portrayals is on the individual. Yeah. And not like the society. And I can talk about it from like in a personal capacity.

Starting point is 00:29:53 I've been on the waiting list for counselling for over two years for NHS counselling. Just just waiting, waiting and waiting. I've had, um, suicide attempts, things like that felt really, really low. It's something that you see it on TV, you hear it on the radio. There's this huge stigma. I remember when I, and I've spoken about this before, so my mum will forgive me. But I remember when I, for instance, started at the BBC. And my mum told me, don't tell anyone that you suffer with depression.

Starting point is 00:30:25 Love my mum so, so much. But she obviously came from that kind of generation where it was like, she just assumed that I wouldn't get any work, that it was going to close some doors. I think my parents had the same view, but they were just said I would never get a boyfriend. I constantly talked about depression on first date, which they have kind of been proved, right? Maybe I take it all back. So let's do a bit more of a deep dive into the language used in the media when reporting on mental health. I think something that often catches us out is using sensationalist language.

Starting point is 00:31:00 Terms I've come across in tabloid headlines include Psycho, Nutter, crazed rampage. Have you guys seen language like that that you think is guilty of using mental health to create fear rather than understanding? Yeah, I mean something I've seen is and often it will be quotes in an article that they'll say this person was bipolar. That's something that I've seen.

Starting point is 00:31:28 Oh, he was behaving, he was so bipolar and that will often be like, it won't necessarily be in like a headline, but it'll be when they're quoting someone that said something. and I'm thinking, can you have asked them the question again or maybe not put in that quote? Bipolarist is a diagnosed mental health issue.

Starting point is 00:31:48 On that, Camilla, like, I know I've been guilty of in the past when I was younger saying like, oh, I'm so OCD about that or like, oh my God, he was such a psycho. I had a friend that would always say, oh, God, that person's so psycho, he's crazy. And it really, really actually upset me. It plays a huge role in the fact that mental illness, unlike any other disease, becomes an identity. I've suffered with a lot of physical illness as well. And it was so interesting to me

Starting point is 00:32:18 seeing that difference because when, you know, I had a back problem and I couldn't really walk, but I was just me going through something, whereas as soon as I started to be open about being diagnosed with depression and anxiety and OCD and, you know, all the labels I'm collecting, like Kim Kardashian. You know, you feel that's become. your identity like that's who you are you're like i am depressed i am bipolar you know it's never like i'm suffering from this i think that a trope we fall into and the media falls into is that are you sure you're depressed because you're you seem so happy and it's that kind of thing of like confusing emotions with having a mental illness and that's probably because of seeing it on

Starting point is 00:33:01 in the news or on tv programs and you just see this this exaggerating dramatic character, just completely consumed by their feelings and what they're going through, which is something that people do go through, but it, like you said, Scarlett, it's not their whole identity. More often than not, their disease is being used as a plot device, you know, if it's scripted TV. Like, there's a reason they have that disease and it's to propel some kind of storyline. It's true, because can you imagine Coronation Street if, like, the shopkeeper just had depression and how confused people would be. Where's this going? No, it's not going anywhere. life. They're not going to end up stabbing someone. They might take a few days off work sometimes,

Starting point is 00:33:42 but yeah, that's it. They're not going to bury someone alive? What? Mad, bonkers. I can say that as well. You can say it. A really particular theme that comes up both in fiction and in news media, it is suicide. I feel that it's kind of the one area of mental health in which all journalists are, in theory, given some training. And one of the most common phrases that members of the public will use when talking about someone taking their own life is committed suicide, whereas most newsrooms are aware of the Samaritans media guidelines which say to avoid using that. Scarlett, do you have insight to share with us as to why that is? You know, suicide used to actually be a crime. So to take one's life was something someone

Starting point is 00:34:33 committed like they would commit a murder or commit a robbery. I personally used the phrase died by suicide, reminding people that this is an illness and it's an illness with a really high death rate as horrific as that is. You spoke earlier about a mental health being used as a plot device. I wonder if this is something that happens with suicide because again in the news media, you are trained to not report on methods of suicide. And this is because of the really well-documented, is it called the Verta effect, which is, I don't know if you know the history of that, but there was a Goethe novel in the 18th century called The Sorrows of Young Wurta. It was about a kind of spurned lover who takes his own life. And it triggered a wave

Starting point is 00:35:25 of copycats suicides and now that term is used to describe the phenomenon when a highly publicised suicide event results in a mimicry of suicide and so in the news media we're definitely told not to report on methods of suicide i don't know is that something that we always comply by i feel like i definitely have seen yeah camilla you're nodding your head i know i'm nodding my head because i have i remember what happened with caroline flack i saw her method of suicide was reported everywhere. Yeah. It really, really, I found it really, really upsetting. I found it quite irresponsible. And something that I think is important for journalists and people to weigh up is do you need to say this? Is this actually necessary for the story? Do you need to add in those

Starting point is 00:36:12 details or is it actually just sensationalising it? There's that fine line that can be crossed between news and gossip and it's really upsetting when it happens. In both the print media and TV, they'll try to link a suicide to like one particular event or a particular bad day. You know, you'll read a story and it's like she had a fight with her boyfriend and then this happened. And it's the same in TV. It makes me so angry. You know, someone will get some bad news and then walk to a bridge and it'll be like the cliffhanger of the episode. And that is just so kind of the opposite of what we know about suicide. Like it's very rare that someone will take their own life who hasn't thought about it for a long time,

Starting point is 00:36:53 who hasn't attempted it before. That also implies, you're right, I haven't thought about that before, but that really also heavily puts blame on one individual, the person they had a fight with, the person they broke up in a way that surely must create so much trauma for people who have been in these real life situations. Yeah, I mean, there's so much guilt involved anyway and people are always looking for blame and the truth is, like, you know, again, you don't do that with any other disease. It's all topsy-tabby.

Starting point is 00:37:24 It's about thinking about their family and the friends of the person who has died because nowadays with the fact that everything's online forever and everything's on social media forever, it's not really a case of tomorrow's chip paper anymore. Their family and their friends will be seeing that coverage for years to come. If they have children,

Starting point is 00:37:44 their children will be seeing that coverage for years to come. There is a lot to be said for journalists to be thinking about the dignity of the people who are close to the person who has died? I think sometimes they're not thinking about it. I think they're thinking about getting the scoop and they forget that there's real lives and humans involved. Mental health issues don't discriminate,

Starting point is 00:38:08 but I wonder if the media does a good job of actually showing that. And what I mean by this is there are many ways that mental health can affect someone depending on their race or their gender or their sexuality or their class. When I think about or look at most articles on mental health, they often have a stock image of a white woman with her head and her hand. I wonder if you guys think that this portrays just that one view of mental illness. It definitely does.

Starting point is 00:38:37 It's particularly in things like there's like the trope of like the strong black woman and that we're not allowed to cry. We hear a lot of stories about men and suicide. But we don't hear about a black man. and suicide and that they're actually more at risk. You know, the majority of journalists are white and so tend to report on stories or are more inclined to report on stories about people that look like them, that they can relate to. And that's, that's the fact that there's research into that. That stock image of a white woman like goes so much deeper, you know, mental illness

Starting point is 00:39:14 can affect everyone, like you're never above it, no matter how much money you have or privilege you have but it doesn't affect everyone in the same way and I think it's it can be hard to express those two things at once the truth is it doesn't affect them and the access to treatment isn't the same the way you're then treated when you get there isn't the same even like stigmas we've seen so not the same across different cultures different classes different like groups of people but I also think it goes really even deeper into symptoms aren't the same so often what we have and what doctors have what the media has on like the symptoms of a certain illness are the symptoms of that illness

Starting point is 00:39:55 in a privileged straight white man. It's much rarer for a woman to be diagnosed with autism and ADHD because the symptoms are completely different and none had ever done that research. It's not just about that stock image, that stock image goes into affecting like the way people are actually treated. Yeah, that is such a good point. So earlier in this episode, I speak about my personal experience of mental health and that's the first time I've ever done that publicly. It's been particularly hard for me to speak openly about mental health

Starting point is 00:40:28 because I've literally heard some people in my community say, mental health isn't a thing, everyone uses it as an excuse nowadays. The South Asian community has actually got so much better on the whole in terms of addressing mental illness. But I often feel like my struggles can't be compared to theirs,

Starting point is 00:40:46 like generations of my family that suffered like real poverty and real hardship and they had to flee countries for new ones. I've had a very privileged life and like the feeling of not feeling like I should be depressed, massively deterred me too. Again, this is about identity, right? Like you'd never say, I shouldn't have cancer because I didn't go through all this in my childhood. Like we're not, we don't think of these things as diseases.

Starting point is 00:41:16 We think of these things we have the right. to feel or not feel or like should be ashamed of it so we're just still so twisted in the way that I think we talk about all these diseases Oh my gosh I'm so looking forward to to hearing your story I really really am Camila this is where we lose you but first we just want to say

Starting point is 00:41:38 a massive massive thank you and ask where can people follow you and do you have anything to plug Oh oh what oh this is lovely oh well first I just want thank you guys so much for having me. It's been lovely speaking to you all. I've learned so much. Yeah. I mean, you can follow me on Instagram. I'm on Twitter. At Camila McKinnis. And also, yeah, World Kindness Day is coming up in November. And so there's going to be another Kind Fest. So the details of that will be on my Instagram. I'll share that soon. It's a festival of kindness and it covers, you know, talks, music, DJ sessions, poetry, all kinds of things.

Starting point is 00:42:18 things that make you feel good. The festival in a nutshell. Time now to look at recent headlines around the topic of mental health. Our first headline is this from GQ. It worked for me. GQ writers share one change that helped their mental health. It is important to note that this article does start with the caveat. There are no simple one-size fits all solutions to mental health. But what we want to talk about is mental health content for the sake of content. It was World Mental Health Day on Monday when this article was published. And we saw a lot of media listicles like this one. Now, a listicle by definition is a non-expert piece that's easy to throw together

Starting point is 00:43:00 based typically on online trends. The piece, I can see it's quite lovely to put together. You ask your staff, what are their coping mechanisms? People talk about walks and escapism. But when I'm scrolling through this piece, I'm seeing ads for body conditioning exercise where you're jeans and expensive luxury getaways. And I wonder if it's fair to ask whether GQ is using Mental Health Day as an excuse for an easy content piece that will get more advertising revenue. Or is that just super cynical? Look, like, I don't think anyone is like in a black tower being like, I'm going to use this illness to make money. You know, I just think it's how the world ends up working in the media landscape that we're in, I personally made a decision, you know, because I do publicly

Starting point is 00:43:52 talk about mental illness a lot, to never always just share my experiences, not my advice. You know, when I was first going through this, when I was really in the depths of it, like, I got really stuck in a black hole of advice and things I should be doing. And it almost became a symptom in itself where every day I felt like I was failing as a mentally ill person because I wasn't doing yoga. I wasn't meditating. I wasn't walking. I wasn't, you know, eating all the right things that they tell you to eat. And this is probably the more cynical side is it has become an industry. Like there's a huge amount of money being made here. The amount of things I bought because they promised to calm me down or, you know, there's a thing in here about

Starting point is 00:44:33 an acupressure mat. And that's a purchase. And, you know, when you're, when you're struggling and you're searching for anything that might be able to help, you're going to spend the money on it. and you can end up just spending so much money and so much time stuck in these loops. I think articles or listicles like this and similar to this one can also fall into this trope of, oh, just go for a run and you'll feel better. There is a way in which that kind of advice can be quite triggering. You know, I very much got the go for a run and get an acupressure mat advice. So it can be quite trivialising that kind of content.

Starting point is 00:45:13 Yeah, and also I think it's just often coming from people who haven't experienced it because like the last thing I can do when I'm going through a depressed episode is run. You know, I can't even get out of bed. The next set of headlines we'd like to talk about are to do with the case of reality star Yasmin O'Kellu. Yasmin, known for being on the reality show, Tawi, was in a car crash in Turkey in July, which sadly killed her ex-boyfriend, Jake McLean. This article was published earlier this week in The Daily Mail to coincide with World Mental Health Day. It was the lowest I've ever been in my life.

Starting point is 00:45:49 Yasmin O'Kellu details her mental health battle following the fatal turkey crash which killed boyfriend Jake McLean. Similarly, the Sun has written articles about Yasmin's mental health. Yet, both these publications also publish graphic pictures and videos of the car crash scene. One article in the sun even overlays a picture of the crash car with a picture of Yasmin and Jake together. Do these publications get to celebrate mental health while also not exactly considering the mental health of the people that they write about? I think this ties to so many things we've been talking about throughout the episode. You know, the reality is these are gossip publications or these articles being published in the kind of celebrity gossip section of these publications. they're using tragedy and mental illness as gossip.

Starting point is 00:46:39 We will be ending this season with an episode that looks at death. And I'm sure that something we'll look at then in more detail is the reputation that these tabloids have harassing bereaved families and members of the public when tragedies do occur. These are among the worst publications to dispatch journalists to the doorsteps of people who have just been hit by overwhelming suffering, shoving microphones, in their face and doing whatever it takes to get an exclusive. If you really care about mental health as a news organisation, it's not enough just to throw out one episode every now and then in which you look at mental health.

Starting point is 00:47:16 It is about integrating better practice into your company at large because news outlets do not always have the best reputation when it comes to influencing people's, not just attitudes towards mental health, but actual mental health. Scarlett, thank you so much for joining us on Media Storm. where can people follow you and do you have anything you want to plug? You can follow me. I'm at Scar Curtis on Twitter and Instagram, although I never use Twitter. If you've been interested in this episode, I want to know more. My book, It's Not Okay to Feel Blue and The Lies.

Starting point is 00:47:48 It's a fun read and I hope that there's something sort of in there for everyone no matter what you're going through. Thank you for listening. We'll be back with our next investigation into anti-Eastern European racism in the UK. Media Storm wherever you get your podcasts that you can get access to new episodes as soon as they drop. If you like what you hear, share this episode with someone and leave us a five-star rating and a review. It really helps more people discover the podcast and our aim is to have as many people as possible hear these voices. You can also follow us on social media at Matilda Mal, at Helena Woodyer and follow the show via at MediaStorm pod. Get in touch and let us know what you'd like us to cover or who you'd like us to speak to. Media Storm, an award-winning podcast from the House of the Guilty Feminist is part of the ACAST creator network.

Starting point is 00:48:37 It is produced by Tom Salinsky and Deborah Francis White. The music is by Sam Fire.

Media Storm - S2E8 Mental Health: The pros and pitfalls of diagnosis - with Scarlett Curtis and Kamilah McInnis

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