Category Archives: Mental health

Where can you be safe in this world? Maybe we’re asking the wrong question | Jane Rawson

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The overarching project of my life has been making myself safe. But what is the point if everyone else is drowning and burning and starving?

  • This is part of a series of essays by Australian writers responding to the challenges of 2020

I am descended from people who factor a flat tyre into a drive to the airport. I own a personal, portable water filter, just in case. I am someone who patrols her boundaries. I am a list writer, a timetable checker.

The overarching project of my life has been making myself safe. No alarms; no surprises. It has become legend in my family that, at age 11, I ruined a holiday by demanding we move out of our accommodation at the foot of what everyone told me was a dormant volcano, because I thought it was too dangerous. (The volcano did erupt, on my 35th birthday.)

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Lockdown having ‘pernicious impact’ on LGBT community’s mental health

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UCL and Sussex University study finds younger people confined with bigoted relatives the most depressed

The coronavirus lockdown has provoked a mental health crisis among the LGBTQ community, with younger people confined with bigoted relatives the most depressed, researchers found.

A study of LGBTQ people’s experience during the pandemic, by University College London (UCL) and Sussex University, found 69% of respondents suffered depressive symptoms, rising to about 90% of those who had experienced homophobia or transphobia.

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Mask rage: ‘One man told me I shouldn’t be allowed out if I can’t wear one’

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With face coverings compulsory in many settings, people unable to comply for health reasons are being challenged and abused

In the past few weeks, Paul Feeley has been abused four times for not wearing a mask on public transport. “I have a disability lanyard, which signifies I have a hidden disability. I tried to show it … And all I got back was a complete torrent of abuse.”

The most recent incident took place just after he first spoke to the Observer on Thursday. The abuse has made Feeley, who suffers from fibromyalgia, borderline personality disorder and panic attacks, feel “extraordinarily angry, anxious and upset”. He is unable to wear a face covering due to his medical conditions, and legally he is exempt – but he is now worried about travelling on buses and trams in his home town of Manchester. “One man said to me, ‘If you can’t wear a mask, you shouldn’t be allowed out.’”

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Kim Kardashian requests compassion for Kanye West’s bipolar disorder

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The rapper’s recent string of erratic tweets prompted his wife to comment on his mental health for the first time

Kim Kardashian West has spoken for the first time about her husband Kanye West’s bipolar disorder after he posted and deleted a string of erratic tweets regarding his family life after the launch of his presidential campaign in Charleston, South Carolina, on Monday.

“Those who are close with Kanye know his heart and understand his words sometimes do not align with his intentions,” she wrote on her Instagram Stories.

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Fifth of vulnerable people considered self-harm in UK lockdown

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Exclusive: UCL findings shared with the Guardian underline mental health toll of pandemic

A fifth of vulnerable people in Britain thought about self-harming or killing themselves during lockdown, according to research shared with the Guardian, as a series of inquests underline the mental health toll of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Findings from University College London reveal that 8,000 out of 44,000 people surveyed (18%) reported thoughts of self-harm or suicide, and 42% had accessed support services. A further 5% said they had harmed themselves at least once since the start of the UK’s lockdown.

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Vogue Portugal under fire for mental health cover in ‘very bad taste’

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Front of magazine’s ‘Madness’ issue attacked as attempt to glamorise mental illness

Vogue Portugal has been criticised for insensitive treatment of mental health on one of its latest magazine covers.

The image – one of four covers created for its July/August “Madness” issue – features model Simona Kirchnerova crouched in a bath flanked by two nurses, with one pouring water over her head. The cover has been criticised both for attempting to glamorise mental illness and for the use of the outdated term “madness”.

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‘I saw so much killing’: the mental health crisis of South Sudan refugees

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Therapy is helping some of the thousands forced over the border to Uganda to cope, but funding shortfalls mean resources are becoming scarcer

As darkness fell, Rebecca closed the door to her makeshift home. The day was over.

The 29-year-old, who had been uprooted from South Sudan to a north Ugandan refugee settlement, sat on the bed where her four children slept and, at around 10pm, tried to take her own life. “By then I didn’t care about anything – not myself, not even my kids. The pain was too extreme,” she says. Her children awoke and their cries brought help from neighbours.

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Only 13% of UK working parents want to go back to ‘the old normal’

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Survey shows people want to continue with more fulfilling and family-friendly work environments

Whatever the new normal is post Covid-19, we don’t want it to be anything like the old one. At least, when it comes to earning a living.

Lockdown has given people a chance to sample new ways of balancing their jobs and family lives and they have concluded that something must change. Just 13% want to go back to pre-pandemic ways of working, with most people saying they would prefer to spend a maximum of three days in the office.

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Refugee on hunger strike over age dispute with Home Office

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Bristol man sees official record of his age as five years older than he says as theft of his identity

A young man who was given permission to stay in the UK after fleeing Gaza has been on hunger strike for more than 90 days in protest at what he sees as the “theft” of his true identity on his official records.

The man, who has learning disabilities and post-traumatic stress disorder, says he was wrongly assessed as being five years older than he is when he arrived in the UK. He regards his date of birth as a crucial part of his identity and a vital link to his late parents.

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Prince William volunteering for mental health crisis service

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Duke of Cambridge reveals he is trained volunteer for UK’s Shout text platform

The Duke of Cambridge has been secretly working as a volunteer supporting people contacting a crisis helpline for mental health support, he has revealed.

Unbeknown to those who have accessed the Shout 85258 text-messaging service, Prince William is one of its 2,000 trained volunteers.

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Coronavirus: millions shielding in England can go outside from Monday, says Robert Jenrick – video

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Goverment guidance requiring 2.2 million people in at-risk groups to stay indoors is to be relaxed in England from Monday, the communities minister has announced. Robert Jenrick confirmed that people currently shielding will be able to spend time with their households or, if they live alone, with one person from another household. The full guidance will be posted on the gov.uk website. 'Now that we’ve passed the peak, the risk to those shielding is lower,' Jenrick said.

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‘A lot of benign neglect’: how Ghana’s social changes are isolating older people

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The modernising economy is changing family structures – but can ‘western’ residential homes be accepted culturally?

After breakfast on a Friday morning, a small group of elderly people are engaging in gentle exercises – walking to one end of a walled compound and back. Some of them need the assistance of nurses or walkers, or both, to complete the journey.

“Usually, we do this a couple of times but it is a little bit cold today so we are going just once,” says Henry Ofori Mensah, administrator at Comfort For The Aged, a residential care home in Kasoa, a dormitory town west of Accra, Ghana’s capital.

At the turn of the century, a facility like this would have been hard to imagine in Ghana.

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UK gambling addiction much worse than thought, says YouGov

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New research also warns that half of those with a problem are not getting the help they need

Gambling addiction rates may be much higher than previously thought, according to research that also warns nearly half of those with a problem are not getting any help.

Related: Isolation will fuel gambling addiction. We must protect those at risk | Carolyn Harris

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Coronavirus Australia live news: Rockhampton aged-care nurse tests positive to Covid-19 – latest updates

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Queensland’s chief health officer says staff member in facility with 115 residents continued to work when sick. Follow live

One of the eight new cases of Covid-19 detected in New South Wales in the past 24 hours is an overseas traveller who recently flew from Brisbane to Sydney after completing their mandatory 14-day quarantine period, the state’s health department said.

Despite completing the quarantine in Brisbane, the person developed symptoms afterwards and NSW Health believes “it is likely they were infectious on the flight to Sydney”.

Look I know it’s not strictly coronavirus-related but this video, put together by my colleagues Steph Harmon and Becca Leaver, of beloved children’s author Andy Griffiths answering questions sent in by our younger readers is very good and fun and wholesome.

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Dutch court approves euthanasia in cases of advanced dementia

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Ruling means doctors cannot be prosecuted even if patient no longer says they want to die

Doctors in the Netherlands are able to carry out euthanasia on patients with severe dementia without fear of prosecution even if the patient no longer expresses an explicit wish to die, the country’s highest court has ruled.

The supreme court’s decision followed a landmark case last year in which a doctor was acquitted of wrongdoing for euthanising a woman in 2016 with severe Alzheimer’s who had requested the procedure before her condition deteriorated.

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Lockdown living: how Europeans are avoiding going stir crazy

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People across Europe are finding increasingly inventive ways to protect themselves against the psychological risks of isolation

In Italy they are singing and sharing recipes. In France, humour is saving the day. In Spain, communal staircases have become the new running tracks, and in Germany, ordinarily disorderly hackers are busy coding corona-busting apps.

As hundreds of millions of Europeans languish in lockdown, people are finding increasingly inventive ways to keep themselves entertained – and to counter what the continent’s psychologists warning are the very real risks of confinement.

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How to use your spare time during the coronavirus crisis – video

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Australian academic, psychologist and author Lea Waters shares some advice as other activities and social engagements are cancelled during the coronavirus crisis. The video forms part of a multipart series looking at ways we can all stay positive

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How shopping and Sinatra are helping in coronavirus isolation

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People from all walks of life are mobilising to support those coping with isolation

Amy Tan is preparing to burst into song with two fellow musicians on a deserted street in Acton, west London.

“We’ll do anything by Frank Sinatra or Ella Fitzgerald – the Rat Pack,” she says. “Or maybe they would like a song by Elton John or the Beatles?”

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