After finding herself at a loss when trying to comfort a suicidal friend, Broadstairs writer Melissa Todd explores the modern mental health crisis…
Mate of mine, call him Steve, plans to kill himself.
Steve is a single dad to two small children, both with additional needs, stuck in a job he hates, unable to hope for a better future. He’s tried every anti-depressant going, but hates the side-effects and seldom sees much change to his mood. All that cheers him is the prospect of his own death, then telling me about it.
And I never know what to say.
One adult in four suffers at least one mental health problem in any given year. One in four. On average, one in every family. Mental health problems are the biggest cause of disability in the UK. There are around 56 million adults in the UK: 14 million have a mental health problem. Fourteen million!
And around 1 in 5 children has a mental health problem too, so add another 2.5 million broken young noggins to the mix.
Suicide is the main cause of death in the under-35s. Around three-quarters of those who kill themselves are male.
This is a public health emergency.
Thing is, we can’t cure everyone. It would take far more than 100% of GDP to put everyone in therapy. We haven’t enough money, we can never have enough money. And even if we print more money, we can never have enough brains to fix 14 million broken bods: brains are a finite resource, however eagerly we purloin them from other countries.
If we can’t treat the symptoms, we must treat the causes. But what are they?
No one knows. Or rather, we all think we know, but we all cite different causes. Social media, growing levels of inequality, insecure housing, permissive parenting, covid, porn, global warming, or assorted combinations, according to your own political persuasion and temperament.
Let’s look at the facts instead. First, this isn’t just a British problem. Things are just as alarming in America, getting that way in Europe, and following suit in China and Japan.
Nor is it just a reaction to the dangers out there. True, depression is commoner among the insecure—those facing domestic violence or struggling to afford housing or energy bills. Higher too among renters than homeowners. But conditions are better for almost everyone now than in our grandparents’ days.
In the mid-1930s, 1 British worker in 8 was unemployed, 3 times as bad as the employment market in 2024. Most people died 20 years younger than now; they left school at 14, not 18; and even corrected for inflation, pay packets were one-third the size of today’s. To be sure, most people didn’t need to fret about paying mortgages, since there weren’t any, or saving for retirement, since most were dead by 61; but if they had any sense they worried a lot about war with Germany.
When Jarrow’s last shipyard and steelworks closed, there were no antidepressants to dull the fear. Instead, the starving workforce got up and marched, all 450 km to London, to demand that the government act.
What did they achieve? In some ways, not much. They didn’t soften the government’s hearts. But they made a legend. They showed that even—especially—when times were hardest, people could pull together. They created a cause, a common identity, a shared goal. Nearly 90 years on, Jarrovians remain rightly proud.
And that’s what’s really changed in recent years. We’ve lost our sense of purpose. Familiar, well-worn identities have come apart. Too many of us don’t know why we’re here. God is dead; the European project has stalled; few now rally to king and country. Our planet is richer than ever and is enjoying the longest great-power peace since the 19th century, but we feel powerless in the face of climate change, galloping automation, the rise of China and the collapse of the comfortable consensus that everything will be for the best. And into the void have seeped the poisons of hate, prejudice and me-first.
So what do we do? Marching won’t fix these geostrategic problems, any more than it fixed those of the 1930s. But coming together does something that might be even more valuable at the personal level. It shows us we’re not alone. That we belong to something bigger than ourselves. We talk. We find out how different we all are and how our differences don’t really matter. Standing together brings out the best of Britishness. Tolerance. Humour. Kindness.
Fixing a nation’s sadness, the whole world’s sadness, is an impossible task. But fixing one person’s sadness shouldn’t be beyond any of us.
Steve’s sadness though? I just don’t know.
For confidential support on an emotional issue, call Samaritans any time on 116 123.
