What the f*** is a wellness farm?

After reading an article on this topic, laying out all the laundry and receipts, I am furious.

The neglect of adolescent mental health, and indeed mental health care for everyone, has been an issue for years and years. Classically seen as oversensitivity, emasculating, or hysteria, mental health, mood, and behaviour disorders have only recently been pushed to the fore. A physical illness is visible, and therefore seen as more “believable” and objective, and while this is not an essay to deny the importance of treating these conditions, it is an essay to encapsulate why mental well-being is just as essential.

America America

This is a huge problem currently in the US, with the likes of Robert F. Kennedy heading the ship, in spite of his lack of hands-on experience in the medical field. The canonical vaccine denier, to have such a figure making decisions regarding the health of a nation is absurd and almost unbelievable; it truly does feel like we’re living in a dystopian canon.

Amongst the denial of multiple clinically certified and thoroughly tested medications, some of which have been efficacious for millions for years, is the pushback against medications used to treat ADHD and depression, amongst other similar treatments. Preventing people from receiving these medications is not only dangerous for those who feel like they have tried everything else, but it is also horrifically stressful and detrimental to those who have used them for extended periods already.

An especially horrifying element of recent events is the turning-over of the Biden administration’s recognition of LGBTQ teens in mental health treatments and research. By denying anything remotely linked to gender and sexual diversity, the current federal government are denying autonomy and visibility to a great many bodies. By classifying people as either male or female because it is “biological” is complete rubbish; intersex people have existed since the beginning of time, and in fact, many do not know they are intersex because physically, they “appear” to fit the binary. Gender and sex categories are constructs of society, entrenched since our very beginnings to set people into groups because humans crave the comfort of organisation and boundaries. Our beliefs are cultured by our surroundings, so our very selves are constructs of the powers and people about us.

Scary thought, right? I hate to break it to you, but people can be as fluid as they want to be. Perhaps those who embrace this are the most free.

UK, UK (it doesn’t have the same ring, does it?)

The UK cannot get off so easily. The culture of mental health care, particularly for children, is messy. There is still a lot of discourse around about how “it seems like everyone has some disorder nowadays”. Well, I’m sorry, Karen, but perhaps higher diagnosis rates do come along with actually recognising these very real issues that have previously been ignored. It must be said, there is an almost '“fad-ification” of these conditions, such as the glamorisation of depression on Tumblr and its recent rebrand on TikTok, but this cannot be put in the way of proper diagnoses and treatments.

I remember clearly my dreaded first encounter with a GP regarding mental health. My appointment was for another issue, which I actually cannot remember now, but I mentioned at the end that I’d been feeling “low” or even just “sad” over an extended period.

Well.

Wasn’t that a can of worms.

Promptly, the GP went into a side drawer and offered me a leaflet for a children’s community group. We’d sit and talk, play, etc… To me, it seemed like a fob off — or at least that is what I’d call it now. But the biggest thing that gets me today is that if I’d been taken a little more seriously, perhaps I could have been referred to help sooner than I was, when it was already too late. Now, my body is permanently changed, in some ways that may not manifest for years.

The NHS is stretched, true, but a little more care from a single GP wouldn’t have gone amiss.

Conclusions

So, what happens from here? The outlook is scary for the US, and admittedly it may be four years until we see a change. There is such a dogma around “fixing” things, and this is not new with the advent of the Trump administration. While “fixing” something physical, from a cold to a broken leg, is something of a correct verb usage, the “fixing” of other physical illnesses, such as diabetes, is just not biologically correct. Rather, it is by implementing strategies to “manage” a condition that drives the scientific and medical communities on.

Hence, mental conditions must be treated in the same way. Medications offer one of many ways in which people can function in a world built for neurotypical brains. By the very nature of being human, we are inherently diverse and therefore respond to things in varying ways. Where one person with a condition requires medication, the other may be happy with CBT, and the third with journalling and affirmations. It is all greatly personal, and just because something works for one person doesn’t mean that it should be forced on others. Indeed, medication itself is like this: one pill may not help everyone, even having side effects for some, and then we look into alternatives. That’s science.

I don’t know about you, but sending an already struggling child to a “camp” does not seem to be the best approach.