Australia has had a mental health crisis for at least the last 20 years. Why is still nothing significant being done about it?

@Jlol Hi there. Back about 4 years ago, through my GP I found out about free telehealth consultations with psychologists, (im presuming thanks to the Government). Yippeeee. At least thats something. I havent researched to see if theres anything else out there since then because lucky me, i havent needed it.

@Jlol I was actually dwelling on a gripe like this last night. I got to wondering that maybe the reason nothing ever gets better is because, if the world did get fixed, then all these beaurocrats who spend all their time writing reports about how bad things are would have nothing to do.

Maybe the problems persist because the people we put in charge of solving the problems have a persistant interest in seeing that the problems go on and on forever. 😞

Hi @chibam, I somewhat agree with you. Though I think it's not bureaucrats, but our broader, capitalism fuelled, society in general.

Consider this: I would say one of the main reasons I and my immediate friend circle and unhappy and mentally unwell are for the following reasons:

• Housing affordability
• Wage stagnation and lack of career aspects
• Cost of living crisis
• Little or no free time to pursue other interests or health concern

And I know this isn't just me and my immediate cohort feeling these issues. Just the other day I saw a report that 43% of Millennials are now working a 2nd job or side hustle to earn extra income - that's the generation that's meant to be in their earning prime right now, by the way.

These factors, naturally, make people unhappy. The problem is we are surrounded by politicians, organisations, medical professionals, etc telling us that if we are unhappy we must be (mentally) unwell. Go to a GP. Get some medication. "Talk about it" with a shrink. In other words you are unwell and you are the outlier and need to be fixed.

No one really considers that maybe there's a good reason we're unhappy. Maybe its not a mental illness to be worried about how to pay next weeks rent, or feeling sad because you decided not to have a family because you're not sure you can provide for them, or being exhausted from working your 2nd job. No - it's drilled into us that unhappy = mental illness = your problem.

100 or so years ago people were forced to work in dangerous jobs, with poor pay, and long hours. They banded together and unionised and won themselves, and us, things like the 8hr work day, weekends off, fairer pay, etc. Maybe we need to do something like that again. Come together and say "No, f*ck off, we're not taking on a 2nd job because you ruined the housing market", "No, we deserve the right to buy a place we call our own and not rent eternally", etc.

The problem is other parts of the system are designed (intentionally or not) to keep us from coming together and organising about this like they did 100 years. There's a book written in the 90s called "Bowling Alone" which tracked the decline in external social clubs like golf, bridge, or bowling clubs. These declines were paired with the advent of radio and TV - it was easier after a long day of work to blob in front of the TV instead of go out and socialise. Now we have internet, TikTok, and Netflix. It's easier to login and whinge about things like I'm doing right now (or to just watch something on a screen) than to organically organise something.

Anyway TL;DR: It's probably legitimately due to external factors that we are unhappy and being diagnosed with a mental illness is covering the problem up and making you think you're the problem so we don't step out of line and try to change anything.

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@Jlol wrote:

It's probably legitimately due to external factors that we are unhappy and being diagnosed with a mental illness is covering the problem up and making you think you're the problem so we don't step out of line and try to change anything.

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I very much agree with you there, which is the main reason why I'm eager to see the grossly-overpaid, pill-and-electroshock-pushing psychiatrists ditched from the NSW mental health system, in favor of a new cohort of therapists who will actually endeavour to fix their miserable patients' problems, rather then simply medicating them into miserable silence.

And while I do agree with you that capitalism is no friend to happiness/mental health, I don't think that there's been any major shift recently in regards to the ugly side of capitalism.

The media would have us believe that our precious economy has only recently gone to pot, over the past few years. But IMHO, things are not noticeably worse today then they were before the global financial crisis of 2008 - back when the economy was in a supposed golden age, and we supposedly had "a lot of career freedom and prospects". I'd only gotten one job offer pre-2008, and have had zero since, so that's not a massive shift one way or the other.

There's more to accessability then simply being able to afford stuff. You need it to be offered to you.

And besides, the most important things in life can't be bought with money. You can't buy love, for example. And if you don't have love, none of the trinkets or supplies you can buy with money will ever matter.

I’d like to get back to the original question posed around a ‘mental health crisis’ and why it is that no government (state nor federal) is doing anything about it.
In response to other replies above I feel it is grossly unfair to say that the increase in diagnoses of mental health conditions is due to being a part of a more wealthy society and the subsequent shift in working / social lives of this modern society.

I would like to pose that we as ‘mental health consumers’ are quite simply under-represented, mis-represented, maligned, misunderstood, and ultimately stigmatised.

The whole mental health sector is in fact all of these things too.
This affords a lack of accountability from government towards any ‘mental health crisis’…. The mass media are not going to champion a cause that is too complex.

This ongoing circumstance of not being asked “what do you want?” as the person with the severe psychotic disorder continues….
Where do I turn to speak on behalf of those like me who have been afflicted by such a diagnoses as schizophrenia?

I’ve been (a forgotten ~ it seems) member of the ‘SANE speakers program’ since its inception (1999), a (temporarily) ‘recovered’ full time worker in outdoor education (I was so proud to get off the DSP ~ even if it was fated to only be for a few years), a Peer Support worker for both an NGO (Wellways - at an APARC) and government agency (Peninsula Health in CAT, community health & ‘on the ward’) for 4 & 2 years respectively. Trained in Intentional Peer Support practices. On the board of VMIAC for a couple of years…? Whatever ~ I’m qualified and yet I am silent about “what do you want?” from the mental health system (especially if it is in crisis)? Because a) no ones asking b) my needs are (as I’ve said) misrepresented, misunderstood, marginalised and stigmatised.
These two things in conjunction with the complexity of the potential myriad of answers (and an associated media bias against complexity) also create the lack of a public ‘face’ of mental health needs. This aids in a lack of any real force towards government accountability in the entire mental health sector.
If we are going to hold our government accountable for required actionable changes in the MH sector we need a public ‘face’ that represents ‘our’ needs which is not undermined by prejudices but rather is encouraged for its simple truth.
As ‘consumers’ the movement away from ‘naming the beast’ has created a perfect storm to encourage misrepresentation, misunderstanding, marginalisation and stigma also.
I have schizophrenia and I accept this as an appropriate diagnosis. If you have issue with me saying this then it is in fact your issue.

Mental health crisis…. Our response (As SANE Australia) must be to provide a platform for the experienced voice of those who are able to represent the needs within our community who can become a public ‘face’ that creates the a more personal type of accountability for government and is responding directly to the primary question of “what do you need?”