Everywhere I turn there are conversations about someone dealing with extreme mental health issues. Friends, family, young people, older people who are struggling. People reaching out looking for services that sometimes aren’t available, are booked out, or aren’t helping. We are sad. We are scared. We are worried. We are lost.
We need to find a way through.
The system is broken, and it seems it’s not just the climate that pays, there is a human cost.
Us. Our mental health. Our happiness. Our sense of the future. Our meaning and purpose has disappeared. While we log on to Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok… our hearts have logged off.
Is our declining mental health the true cost of capitalism? I believe so.
Fracturing of community and family, the elevation and isolation of the individual, the glorification of achievement, the disconnection from nature. It hurts us.
At no point in history have humans been so connected but so utterly disconnected at the same time. So many are lonely. So many people are struggling to get by. Housing stress is crippling. Cost of living is on the rise. Our news feeds are full of war and violence. We know so much, but sometimes we know too little.
People live with the threat of homelessness just a rent rise away. The world is full of fear. Corporations continue to churn profits while governments look the other way. We live in the climate space that Professor of Public Ethics at Charles Sturt University in Canberra, Clive Hamilton, called ‘fucked but not completely fucked’. We have this tiny slither of hope. But it’s closing fast.
Mental health conditions are increasing worldwide. Here in Australia recent stats tell us 20% of Australians have had a mental health issue, with anxiety and depression being the most commonly reported. I’ve experienced it first-hand. And solutions can be hard to come by, especially in a regional area with limited funding and resources. I’ve had to wait in line. Been sent home. Been told that people are booked out.
In a conversation I had with local police, our Byron Head of Command, Inspector Kehoe, told me that some weeks up to 50% of the call outs for local police officers were for mental health. He stressed that he believed that mental health is not a criminal issue. It’s health. He’s absolutely right. Police should not be attending mental health calls. But they do, because the system is overloaded. We need to do so much better. At the time of our talking, we had the second-highest suicide rate in the state.
We survived the floods. But many are not in recovery, they are still in disaster mode. We are facing a summer of fires. We are doing it tough. And young people in our community are doing it toughest of all. Options for support for young people with mental health conditions in regional areas are limited. Some kids presenting with mental health issues are as young as ten years old. Parents in our region are desperate for solutions. For holistic support.
In a couple of weeks, I am doing a three-day walk of the Scenic Rim to fundraise for Human Nature – a mental health program for young people in our region that reconnects adolescents with nature. It’s a remarkable and unique program and it saves lives.
I am joined by my friends Danni and Zenith. Will you sponsor us? All the money raised goes directly to programs for young people from Tweed to Ballina.
It’s not much, but having the conversation, supporting services at the front line, reaching out is the least we can do.
Love, connection and finding the path back to your purpose and meaning is the only way home.
Walk with us.
Donation link is: https://humannature-scenicrim-2023.raisely.com/t/danni-zenith-mandys-team-page
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
