“I didn’t realise for a very long time that I’d been a carer” – Jonathan’s story

Looking back, I can see that mental health services struggled to really help my mum as they only had a partial picture. This is so often the case with mental health where you only see the tip of an iceberg. When someone is overwhelmed by their experience, and is perhaps frightened and confused, it asks an awful lot for them to trust the mental health system. Although there is more talk about mental health now, misconception and stigma remains. This acts as a block to people finding help and having open conversations. Stigma can equally affect the carers or family members, too. 

I didn’t realise for a very long time that I’d been a carer. I worked in the mental health system for years, without really acknowledging this fact. Carers were not valued; in some cases, seen as part of the problem. How different things could have been if a more whole or ‘holistic’ view could have been taken.  

I now know that I’ve carried an immense amount of guilt from a young age. Why did Mum leave? Why is Mum so unhappy? Why can’t I make things or people better? My own feelings became subjugated in an atmosphere of someone else’s highly expressed or inappropriate emotion. I had real problems in acknowledging or even recognising my own feelings. I became depressed, and remember staring at myself intensely in a mirror with no recognition of the figure that looked back. 

Carers of mental health remain a very isolated group of people. The single thing that has helped me the most has been meeting other carers. This happened by accident when I started to work with carers at Rethink Mental Illness. As I facilitated a course for carers to come together, with the aim of finding acceptance, knowledge and ways to better cope, I began to realise that I was learning as much as anyone else in the room. Sure, I’d worked in mental health for years, but this only told me so much. The really important learning is about who we are as people, our stories and how things might be better.