'For us, the bigger crisis in Caithness has been suicide, not Covid-19'
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Suicide is a bigger crisis in Caithness than Covid-19, according to Steven Szyfelbain. It's a stark assertion, but he insists the figures back it up. And his experiences since forming the campaign group No More Lost Souls have reinforced his belief that mental health provision in the area is inadequate.
As well as pressing for better services, closer to home, Steven and the other core members of the group are determined to do everything they can to break the stigma of talking about mental health issues.
Steven (31), from Wick, launched No More Lost Souls in July last year.
“It came out of tragic circumstances," he explained. "I’d lost a friend due to suicide.
“It was his mum that I was closest with, but because we were family friends he was like part of that bubble. It just took the heart out of me because that’s a mother now forever grieving her son.
“Thereafter there were a number of suicides – it was almost a little mini-pandemic in itself, and it basically spurred me on.
“I started it off with a letter that I wrote directly to the Scottish Government. At that point there had been three Covid deaths [in Caithness] and at the moment I believe that’s the same as of this year, versus five suicides. If you do that as a percentage that shows there is a bigger mental health problem than there is a Covid problem.
“I wrote a letter basically asking the Scottish Government, ‘please give us more help up here’."
The response to that initial letter, he said, pointed towards online self-help resources. “Frankly, that’s what the government thinks is sufficient for it," he said. "No, it’s not. You wouldn’t expect a patient with a broken leg to splint it themselves, so your mental health is the same.”
Steven has made a number of impassioned, powerful videos for the group's Facebook page in which he talks openly about his own experiences with mental health. He is adamant that provision locally has suffered from long-term neglect.
“When I spoke to one of the mental health nurses, she basically said that Wick and Thurso and the surrounding areas have been seen as a deprived area for 25 years," he said. "That’s an entire generation. That’s failure.
“Children have been born, have grown up and have started their own families and things still aren’t getting better. A lot of that has been a result of things being downgraded and this dreaded centralisation to Inverness, as if nothing exists beyond that part of the Highlands.”
Ideally, No More Lost Souls would want Caithness to have a safe and secure mental health facility similar to New Craigs Psychiatric Hospital in Inverness. The journey to New Craigs, he says, "has just been a step too far" for many people in desperate need of professional help.
Steven mentions one case where a person from Caithness was “in a suicidal state” and their parents had to pay £360 for a taxi to Inverness and back late at night. The person signed out of hospital "and ended up walking out into the unknown" before being found by the taxi driver and taken home.
“That’s a shocking experience for a young person,” Steven said. “They [New Craigs] are not quite fit for purpose because they’ve also been downgraded.”
He maintains that as a minimum requirement there should be two dedicated psychiatrists full-time in Caithness, embedded within the GP system.
“Having to relive your trauma with a different psychiatrist each time is in itself deeply traumatic," Steven said. "I’ve had three or four in the last two years. They are locums, and for whatever reason none of them have had my notes, which I find very strange, because they should be able to be emailed through from one department to another.
“And you have to sit and relive all the traumatic experiences that have led you to that point – the suicide attempts, the dark thoughts. And you sometimes feel like a broken record that you’re repeating the same story again and again, and you just feel like you’re stuck in an ever-decreasing rut.
“The last advice I got from a psychiatrist when I told her I was feeling suicidal during this most recent lockdown was to exercise more and eat more salad.”
Steven considered this advice to be “utterly infuriating and abhorrent”.
He added: “I do understand that a part of your mental wellbeing is the physical wellbeing, but what I was trying to stress to her was that I was stress-eating junk food because you do get a short, sharp serotonin hit from eating junk food. It wasn’t the junk food that was the problem, it was the need to stress-eat that should have been identified.
“I was on the phone for over an hour. I’d been waiting for the call because you’ve got to jump through so many hoops to get in contact with a psychiatrist.
“I had an experience over Christmas where I couldn’t get medication because the psychiatrist I had spoken to had failed to put my notes through. It’s just a shambles, to put it politely.”
Steven said he was pleased with the backing for No More Lost Souls from two Highlands and Islands MSPs, Edward Mountain (Conservative) and Rhoda Grant (Labour). “I’m very grateful for Edward Mountain’s support," he said. "He has been one of our strongest supporters, along with Rhoda Grant."
It is all too clear, he says, that some people's mental health problems have been exacerbated by the pandemic.
“It was an epidemic or a crisis in itself before the lockdown," Steven pointed out.
“I have no issue with the fact that both the Scottish Government and UK government took every measure that they could to combat the Covid crisis but they seem to be continuing to ignore the mental health crisis. And respectfully, if people keep taking their lives, there’s going to be nobody left to vote for these people to give them the positions of power which they so happily wield.
“For us, the bigger crisis in Caithness has been suicide, not Covid-19. I know there are still instances of it in the community, but it is not taking lives the same way that people are taking their own lives.”
He admits that two-metre social distancing has brought its own challenges.
“I’m one of the world’s biggest huggers," Steven said. "I love meeting my friends and putting my arms around them, because it’s the most welcoming and safe gesture you can do – it goes back to ancient times to show that you weren’t holding weapon and that you’re not going to stab them in the back.
“Everybody who has been in touch with the page has said what they want more than anything in lockdown is not going to the pub, it’s not a foreign holiday, it’s not going out and driving the car or whatever – it’s getting a hug from the people that matter to them most.
“That is a huge psychological burden for any person. I know a lot of people who haven’t got mental health issues have been affected by this. But if you are somebody who suffers with their mental health, that bit of contact is so paramount to your wellbeing.
“A hug releases serotonin, it releases a feelgood factor, it boosts your immunity, and that’s surely something that’s far more beneficial. As long as somebody has gelled their hands and got a mask on, a little bit of human contact can’t be that bad a thing.
It’s still somewhat taboo – it should be as freely spoken about as any other form of health.
“I do feel that in the mainstream media there has been a lot of fear pushed out – it’s always the death cases, it’s always the negatives. And that destroys you on a mental level. You can try and stay away from the news, but it is inescapable. You’ll hear on the radio, you’ll catch it on your phone, you’ll see it in a newspaper. It has made things incredibly difficult for people.
“Nobody chooses to get Covid. But with regard to suicide, that’s a conscious choice.”
Steven emphasises that No More Lost Souls began as a campaign for better mental health provision and its members are not trained to give advice.
However, the group puts Facebook users in touch with a range of support organisations and services including Samaritans, Mikeysline, James Support Group and Caithness Mental Health Support Group.
“We’re not affiliated with any of those groups but we’ve got a selection of numbers on the page and we can direct people to those," Steven explained. "We’ve actually been able to help people get help that they weren’t aware was available, so that’s something I am very proud of.
“It’s still somewhat taboo – you mention it to people and it makes them uncomfortable. It should be as freely spoken about as any other form of health.”
One of the group's aims, post-pandemic, is to have a safe place where people experiencing mental health problems will be able to come and talk.
“Hopefully when better days come we’ll be able to have somewhere that we can go, like a drop-in centre, and they can come in and have a cup of tea or coffee and just talk about what’s on their mind without fear of stigma, without fear of judgement, and just be among like-minded people," Steven said. "That’s as good for your mental health as anything – knowing that you’re not alone.”
