MIND MOVES:New campaign challenges politicians to deliver, writes TONY BATES
ONE DEATH is a tragedy; a million is a statistic. So wrote Joseph Stalin. His words came to mind on a recent visit to the Imperial War Museum in London, where both the nobility and insanity of two World Wars are laid bare for future generations to contemplate.
I was struck by the experiences of young men along the trenches that formed the Western Front in the first World War. Never in the history of the world has there been a war like this. Twenty million people died in the space of four years and centuries of culture were obliterated.
Every human soul involved in this tragedy left some personal imprint of their time here. Some would make their mark by surviving. Others would leave inconsolable families or alter forever the lives of orphaned sons and daughters, who would visit small European villages in later years, searching for a way to connect with their brief existence.
During my visit to the museum, I picked up a book of poems written by some of these young men. Words scribbled on the backs of envelopes, in makeshift diaries, and in letters to loved ones; raw words poured out with an urgency a person feels when they know that every line might be their last.
On October, 1916, at the Battle of the Somme, in a trench filled with mud, rats, lice and death, a young man named Leslie Coulson wrote the following lines days before he was killed in action:
“A singer once, I now am
fain to weep.
Within my soul I feel strange
music swell,
Vast chants of tragedy too
deep – too deep
For my poor lips to tell.”
His words carried the reminder that so many of our most powerful life experiences, especially those that wound us, remain beyond words.
The accounts of these young men made me think of their counterparts in today’s world. It’s tempting to view modern society as a much kinder place for young people and to remind them how fortunate they are to have so much going for them.
It is true that many of our young people are thriving in a time of peace, where there are rich learning opportunities available to nurture their innate talents and abilities. But for a great many of them, adolescence feels like a battlefront for which they have no language.
They feel caught between two worlds – childhood and adulthood – one that has become unbearable and the other which is unknown and terrifying.
Their parents are at a loss as to how to help, and often times with best intentions at heart, make demands and judgments that only make things worse. Schools may provide some sanctuary, but they may also be places where they are taunted by bullies or oppressed by teachers. The distress they feel may be acted out recklessly or turned against themselves in self-loathing.
We encourage our young people to talk about what they are feeling, but more often than not they do not know of any safe place to which they can turn for support. Even if there was such a person or place, we underestimate how hard it feels for many of them to put their distress into words.
As a society, we have become more aware of the vulnerability of young people in recent years. And thankfully we are beginning to take steps to reach out to them. A new campaign is under way that aims to ensure the needs of young people most at risk are not forgotten. This campaign is called Get on Board for Youth Mental Health and is targeted primarily at those contesting the forthcoming election.
The organisers have commandeered a bus and will travel to each constituency to invite local candidates to literally “get on board” and thereby indicate their willingness to consider the mental health needs of our young people in their new programme for government.
If we collectively recognise the mental health needs of our young people and work to provide support that works for them, we can change the trajectory of their lives so that they do not end up as tragic statistics in our prisons, our psychiatric hospitals or in the coroner’s court.
Tony Bates is founding director of Headstrong (headstrong.ie). Full details about the campaign are available on getonboard.ie