We spoke to a number of people on the streets of Luton and discovered that most people thought that in today's society you couldn't necessarily help being in a poor state of mental health. They blamed external factors in the environment for this - and the media featured prominently in their list of blame! Chris West, 24, is a salesman from Cumbria. He said that he saw mental health as being the way people feel, in general, in themselves, rather than any extreme versions of it. He also feels that everyone has their own form of mental health problems at some point in their life. "Stigmatising certain people at certain times in their life because they've got themselves into a certain emotional state is wrong" he says. "Environmental factors such as if you’ve just lost your job or if your girlfriend has dumped you can affect you. Any number of situations can make you feel depressed or angry and at the genetic level, certain people may be predisposed to feeling a certain way at a certain time" he adds. "Or you can even have a proper genetic or medical condition." Worthwhile He says that being content and happy with yourself where you can function and feel you are worthwhile and contributing to society constitutes a good state of mental well-being but bad mental health often manifests itself in denial. "I would say you were in a bad state of mental health when you put other people at risk and don’t realise it and try to block things out without seeking help" he says. But he definitely places the blame on the way that we live now, for the way that some people feel. | "Stigmatising certain people at certain times in their life because they’ve got themselves into a certain emotional state is wrong." | | Chris West |
"We’re in a consumer driven society so if you’re in a rubbish job and you’re not getting paid a lot you may feel less worthwhile than someone who’s doing another job but is being paid more" he explains. "I’ve done lots of low paid jobs and it does make you feel demeaned and fed up with society. You go home and have a beer to calm down and that’s your life. That makes people feel depressed or anxious. "I don’t think you can pin it down to either the environment or genetics" he continues. "It’s a mixture but it’s more to do with society - definitely the media - with adverts saying ‘buy this product and look beautiful’. "Then when you buy the product and you don’t - you’re not going to be that happy" he adds. "I think lots of people don’t feel worthy because you turn on the TV and there’s beautiful people. You open the newspapers and there’s beautiful people but you look in the mirror and you might not be beautiful. "You might not have a good job and you might not have all the things that adverts say that you require in order to be happy." And if there was one bit of advice he would give to anyone feeling low or depressed, it would be to believe in yourself. "Things change really quickly" he says. "You will not stay the same, you’re a constantly developing and changing person so just try to develop in a way that you can be happy with yourself and don’t try to conform to what other people’s ideas of happiness are." Well-being Georgia Kapsi is a 22-year-old psychology student from Greece. She also feels that environment affects your mental well-being and that sometimes it is more important than our physical health. She says that mental health depends upon our mental stability and the way we deal with things. "If it’s not in the genes to be schizophrenic, it can be from external factors such as the way you are living" she says. "If the environment is negative or a person perceives it negatively, that can contribute." Describing a lot of other mental illness from anorexia and bulimia to manic depression, she believes that not having negative thoughts and doing sane things, without using drugs, is vital to having a mentally healthy mind. Pressures Rosie Webb is a 17-year-old student whose brother has been diagnosed as having schizophrenia. "He is 24 now and it first hit him at university in his 2nd year whilst studying really hard" she explains. "I think the pressures of university got to him and as a result he had a mental nervous breakdown." "He suffers from hearing voices and he can’t watch television because he gets paranoid about programmes. He thinks people are out to get him. He’s very nervous and just a recluse from society." Rosie’s brother is in hospital a secure wing at the moment because he lashed out at a nurse and she says that she prefers not to go and visit him and hasn’t for the past four years. "I don’t want to see him like that" she says. "I just don’t know how he or I would react." With her experience of mental illness, Rosie seems ideally placed to give her opinion on what she feels constitutes a good mental state. "Someone who is happy, healthy and someone who really values life" she says. "Someone who goes out and gets what they want and does the best they can do in life has a good mental state. "But there needs to be more emphasis on mental health and people need to be more aware of it" she continues. Special She also feels that while a special set of circumstances for someone may affect them, today’s society also contributes to a person’s mental state. "People in a bad state of mental health may have been locked in institutions and after several years when they are released, they can’t get a job because of it and are abandoned - there’s no quality of life for them" she says. "But I also think that TV and the media can have an affect on mental health –violence on television is also a bad thing for kids growing up" she explains. "And things that happen in the news don’t help, politicians don’t help. I think there needs to be greater concern for it. "And it’s not just things like schizophrenia. I would describe depression as a mental illness, especially in today’s society. Our country suffers greatly from stress with work load and work pressures and it’s just getting worse. "If you look at other European countries their emphasis on work is a lot less than ours. There’s a lot of pressure on people today and it’s just too much." Hansa, 17, agrees. "Images in magazines and newspapers contribute to poor mental health" she says. "For example for weight. It’s such a big thing for teenagers to be thin and everything. Everybody is more conscious of their appearance now. They care more about it and they are more worried. "They see it everywhere so mentally that is affecting them because it’s affecting their confidence. It’s a competition - who can be better than the other person in every area of life, not just in their looks." Misunderstood She also says that people can’t help getting depressed and are often misunderstood. "It’s something that’s actually wrong with their health - an illness" she says. "Just like cancer it’s something that can’t be helped. "Everyone just thinks that being mental is when you’re crazy but it goes a whole lot further. It could be anything - like depression" she adds. "But people often aren’t aware of what is wrong with them, they just think it’s probably normal. People should be made aware that it is an illness and they can get help because not everybody knows this. "There’s so much stuff mentally that people are unaware of." | 
