Sir, – I would like to commend Rosemary Mac Cabe for her open, balanced, and moving “Depression can be a slow ebb” (HEALTHplus, December 6th).
As someone who has lost a sister to suicide can attest, depression to an onlooker is a very subtle state of mind, on the facade, my sister was bubbly and very sociable, with only glimmers of the darkness beneath. We will never know how any person truly feels, but we must all try and empathise with those who open up about feeling unhappy with life.
Publicity in the wake of Gary Speed and Kate Fitzgerald’s very public deaths has been all about suicide. However, talking of suicide is talking of something that is too late, something that can’t be salvaged. We need to hear more stories like Rosemary Mac Cabe’s, stories of the “multi-faceted affliction”.
One in four of us will suffer with some mental health problems during our lifetime. We must start with people owning up that they don’t feel mentally well and reaching out to the community and state for support.
According to the Mental Health Reform 2012 pre-Budget submission, mental health difficulties cost the Irish economy 2 per cent of GNP, or €2.5 billion. Most of this cost is in the labour market; through lost employment, absenteeism, lost productivity and early retirement. A quarter of people in the State on illness benefit and 20 per cent on disability allowance, have a mental health difficulty as their primary health problem. Mental health recovery is vital for economic recovery, a cyclical effect.
We need to start an urgent discourse in this country about the mental health of our nation, and start talking about the real road to recovery. A change foremost in emotional wellbeing rather than economic well being.
I wish Rosemary Mac Cabe well in her search for a more permanent and fuller happiness. I hope her search as an individual becomes our search as a nation. – Yours, etc,