Tuk-Tuk to the Road. Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent
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3.5 million Britons are popping pills daily. Fluoxetine, citalopram, paroxetine, sertraline, mirtazapine…you name it, we’re on it. In the past decade, our collective misery has seen prescriptions of these pills rise by more than 120 per cent, costing the NHS £400 million a year. Alarming stuff. And not to mention that the World Health Organization predicts that depression will be the second biggest health problem globally by 2020. Mind and other charities campaigning for better mental health hence need all the support they can get.
The article in the Independent on Sunday made quite shocking reading. Are that many people really suffering from clinical depression caused by a neurochemical imbalance? Maybe, maybe not. Unfortunately, there are no conclusive scans or blood tests that can be carried out by clinicians to diagnose mental health problems. Diagnosis is based on reports from the patient and observations from clinicians, friends and family.
Is the fact that modern life is so stressful the cause of so much unhappiness? A recent report in a scientific journal demonstrated that animals exposed to high levels of stress can exhibit depressed behaviours. This is not exactly a new finding, and extreme stress can lead to the development of a state called ‘learned helplessness’, characterised by apathetic behaviour.
I often feel stressed, but I usually feel stressed because I choose (or have learnt) to interpret situations as stressful. For example, when I am stuck in traffic and am going to be late for an appointment, there is little point getting stressed, as me being pissed off and uptight will not clear the motorway of traffic. I am sure that there are a lot of people out there who get stressed about things that they cannot alter. Over long periods of time, high levels of stress can eat away at one’s physical and mental health. But are our lives today really more stressful and harder than those of people growing up 50 years ago? Are the causes of stress in modern society really the end of the world? No, they are not. I think in many cases we all need to re-evaluate our lives and work out what is important and what is not. Also, we need to remember that being a stress-head is generally not helpful and conducive to being a contented individual.
Another problem is that GPs are under huge pressure to treat patients within a finite period of time; it takes more than a ten-minute consultation to diagnose and treat mental health problems correctly. Unfortunately, the waiting times for non-drug therapies can be far too long—often months. While a patient waits for a referral for a talking therapy, is it better to just prescribe them antidepressants? Many people may be better suited to a talking treatment rather than medication, but what can GPs do with such long waiting lists for these psychological treatments? It also very much depends on the individual patient: some respond brilliantly to medication alone, some to psychological therapy alone, and some to a combination of both.
From personal experience, I honestly believe that antidepressants saved my life, although it took a while to find the one that worked best for me. I think the government needs to invest a huge amount of funds into NHS mental healthcare, because the problem is only going to get worse. It has been predicted that the cost of mental health problems to the country’s economy already runs into billions of pounds. Surely that in itself is reason enough to increase funding?
I also believe that we need some kind of social revolution in this country. What has life come to when the majority of assaults are drink-related and 30-year-olds are being treated for cirrhosis? I think the media need to become more responsible to the young people in today’s society, because many popular media aimed at young people are promoting superficial ideals. The majority of women are now dissatisfied with at least one part of their body, and many are just too caught up in our ever-expanding consumer society. We need to wake up to what is really important in life and get real.
Aside from raising money and awareness for Mind, one of the best things about doing a trip like this is the people you meet. In the past few weeks we’ve met and spoken with a plethora of explorers, world record holders and all-round expedition gurus. Each of them has been truly inspirational. We’ve already recounted our meetings with Sam Rutherford and Hugh Sinclair, but since then we’ve had the pleasure of speaking with two more remarkable individuals, Simon Wilson-Stephens and Olly Hicks.
First up was Olly. Olly is younger than Jo and I—23, I believe. On 28 September 2005, after four months at sea, he arrived at Falmouth having rowed solo across the Atlantic, the youngest person ever to do so. Mind-boggling: just him, the ocean and a pair of oars. And not a lot of food by the sound of things. My great-uncle won a bronze medal in the Olympics for rowing, and I was always pretty good on the rowing machine at the gym, but the thought of rowing all that way—on my own—defies imagination. Even more remarkable is Olly’s next project—rowing around the world solo, due to lift off at the end of 2007.
Next in the line of remarkable people is Simon Wilson-Stephens. Simon had suffered from depression since the age of 15 or 16. His depression came to a head after the turn of the new millennium, when, as Simon says, his ‘wheels came flying off’ and he had a breakdown, his foundations crumbling as he tried to settle back into life in the UK after a stint in Africa organising safaris. Simon recovered and decided to go back to East Africa and follow one of Henry Morton Stanley’s expedition routes by bicycle and kayak. He, with new friend Stanley the dog, completed the trip and in the process raised £16 000 for the Charlie Waller Memorial Trust. When I spoke to Simon a few days ago, he had just run the London Marathon and Stanley the dog was off for a walk.
It’s Simon’s fault that we’re now booked in to give a talk at the Royal Geographical Society on 12 December. The prospect fills me with more horror than a wrestle with a Ukrainian gangster.
And finally, Jimmy Goddard. I haven’t actually met or spoken to Jimmy, but my friend Tom Townshend is in training for not one but two triathlons this year in order to raise money for Jimmy’s Trust. Jimmy is in his late twenties and was paralysed from the chest down by a horrific climbing accident in 2004. Jimmy refuses to be beaten by his disability and is about to be the first paraplegic person to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. Hearing about people like this is a humbling experience and makes you regret those times you whinged about your own petty problems.
Only 16 days to go until we leave for Bangkok, and there are still a million things to do. Our main tasks are fundraising and sponsorship. Letters have been flying out of Tuk to the Road HQ beseeching individuals and companies to part with their hard-earned cash. Subsequently I come down to breakfast most mornings to find a pile of cheques, which I rip open in anticipation—£790 came in one day last week, and over £200 arrived this morning. Mental health is something that affects so many people, and almost everyone we speak to about our trip and Mind has been affected by it either directly or indirectly. No wonder the cheques are flowing in. We’re up to about £10 000 now, but I am sure that once we get on our way and show people that we are really doing it—really driving 12 500 miles in a pink tuk tuk—then more people will donate. They had better do, because otherwise Jo, being a naturist, is going to tour the country naked on our return. And ‘they’ thought the Naked Rambler was bad.
The past few days have been frustrating in terms of sponsorship. Although we have been consistently bowled over by the kindness of individuals, when it comes to dealing with big corporations the matter is very different. One particular company, which shall remain unnamed, has led us up