NOTES FROM ANOTHER TIME ?

We are hearing a lot these days about mental health issues which have been brought to the fore by the Covid pandemic.  Now in every life a little rain must fall but it is interesting to see how people are dealing with varying degrees of precipitation - how they cope with the occasional shower, the onset of heavy and persistent rainfall, the less than frequent deluge or the full blown tempest.

Now of course I have every sympathy for those who are finding life particularly difficult right now but I am aware of the tendency for anxiety, depression or the catch-all phrase of mental health issues to be seen almost as `fashionable`, especially for those in the public eye who seem keen to expose their anxieties to a receptive audience; and that for someone not to be suffering from those issues is perhaps missing out on something.

Sadly there have been a few cases of people simply not being able to cope - for example there have been a couple of instances where university students have passed from us - and the Government is committing £3million to fund increased services which are designed to help universities deal more effectively with the stresses experienced by students who have been confined to university halls.  

So here goes with the notes from another time and I begin by wondering how, or even if, some people today would have dealt with some situations experienced by older generations. For example, I recall my own experience of being pitchforked in my late teens/early twenties from a rural innocence into the mayhem of army conscription.  In the course of one day, my life changed from relative quietude to abject confusion.  Of being hustled and bustled, shouted at, taught things I didn`t want to do, subjected to continual inspection and kept constantly on the move, but with the consolation of knowing that each day that passed was one less of the 731 I had to do.   But we just got on with it and did it without ever thinking that we might be suffering from any form of mental health issue as a result of it all.  Maybe there just wasn`t time.

But those recollections of mine are as nothing compared to the experiences of my late father who, having been captured at Dunkirk, spent five years confined to the relentlessness of Stalag V111B in Lamsdorf in deepest Silesia until in January and February 1945 he, along with countless other PoWs, was thrust on to the Long March by which Allied Prisoners of War were forced across some 900 miles in appalling winter weather with little protection, sparse food, much sickness and exhaustion and spending nights in any barn they could find.  Many were lost along the way but my father somehow survived until finally being liberated by the American army, only to be dismissed after 18 years of army service for being `unfit for duty.` 

More than enough to bring on anxiety, depression and any other form of mental health issue, never mind the physical ones, but he rarely, if ever, mentioned any of it despite living the rest of his life on his nerve ends until passing away, all too suddenly, at just 62.

And so these reminisces have made me wonder how some people of today might cope with such situations; I fear many would not and hope they may not have to face them; but today`s recognition and acknowledgement of mental health issues might make it possible for them to cope better with adversity rather than simply ignoring it, bottling it up and carrying on regardless.   

Now on the other side of the world, they seem to have it sorted, where Australian stress counselling goes something like this:-

 

For more about the Long March, please see https://www.lamsdorf.com/the-long-march.html