{"id":18056,"date":"2019-05-16T15:43:59","date_gmt":"2019-05-16T14:43:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=18056"},"modified":"2020-11-12T12:56:29","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T12:56:29","slug":"mental-health-must-top-agenda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=18056","title":{"rendered":"Mental health: \u00e2\u20ac\u0098Must top agenda\u00e2\u20ac\u2122"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

It wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t until Davy McCord was hit in the head by his wife, wielding an iPad, that he knew he had to get help.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bI was asleep but woke to find I had my hands around my wife\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s throat. She grabbed the closest thing she could find, which was the iPad.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Davy, a lorry driver and Unite shop steward, suffers from complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) after a career in the army that lasted 17 years. Davy has witnessed unthinkable violence in multiple conflicts, from Iraq, to Bosnia and others.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe Balkans was particularly bad,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he tells UniteLive. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bPeople talk about ethnic cleansing as a concept but we had to witness the actual reality of it \u00e2\u20ac\u201c we had to watch first-hand. Kids screaming is one of my triggers.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Thanks to counselling and medication, Davy says many of his symptoms, such as anger, have improved. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hopeful that a new therapy he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s recently started, Eye Movement and Desensitization Reprocessing (EDMR) will help, too. But managing the disorder will be a long battle for him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0098Little things\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bLittle things can still set me off. Sleep of course is a big struggle,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Davy explains.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As a lorry driver, Davy endures working conditions that often exacerbate mental health issues.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe long and erratic hours, the time away from your family and friends who are your emotional support system, lone working \u00e2\u20ac\u201c all of these issues in the sector combine into a toxic mix for anyone with any mental health issue,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But Davy believes it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to be this way.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIf someone suffers from sleep problems, then they shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be put on a 4am start. Employers need to stop simply paying lip service to mental health and actually support their workers when it counts. Where I work at Musgrave, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re good about mental health on paper but when I ask to come in late because I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t sleep, they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t care.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe long-hours working culture in our sector needs to end too,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Davy added. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWorking 80 hour weeks isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t good for anyone, whether we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re talking about mental or physical health.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Davy, who has been a Unite member for more than a decade and a shop steward since 2013, believes the union must do more to place mental health at the top of its agenda.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe need to help union shop stewards with mental health training. Reps are there on the frontlines dealing with our members who are struggling to get help. We can refer them to their GP but what do we do afterwards? People need support and they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not getting it.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Keep talking <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Above all, Davy believes we all need to keep talking about mental health.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bI know more than anyone how difficult it can be to talk about mental health. I kept things bottled up for so long without even realising it \u00e2\u20ac\u201c when I finally started talking there was this immense sense of relief. I urge anyone who is suffering from mental health issues to open up about it and get help. If you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t help yourself, no one else will.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Davy said that talking about mental health with family, friends and colleagues should go hand-in-hand with talking about mental health in the public arena.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe only way we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll end the stigma is through more action and talking about it publicly. The only way that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll get employers to take mental health seriously is if we keep hounding them about it and we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t stop.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Davy points to the Equality Commission\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mental health charter<\/a>, which he has lobbied his employer to sign up to and so commit itself to a mentally healthy workplace \u00e2\u20ac\u201c so far they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve refused, but Davy says he will keep trying.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to be a long drawn out fight to make mental health a priority in workplaces across the UK, and if I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m being honest, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not particularly optimistic. But until I shuffle off this mortal coil, I will do whatever I can. We cannot give up on this.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If you have a mental health issue and need urgent help, find out more on MIND\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s website here.<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Mental Health Foundation, which has spearheaded Mental Health Awareness Week this week (May 13-19) has additional mental health resources here.<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t until Davy McCord was hit in the head by his wife, wielding an iPad, that he knew he had to get help.   \u00e2\u20ac\u015bI was asleep but woke to find I had my hands around my wife\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s throat. She grabbed the closest thing she could find, which was the iPad.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165   Davy, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15095,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[922,404,522],"wps_subtitle":"Mental Health Awareness Week: Unite lorry driver with PTSD speaks out","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18056"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18056"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18056\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25283,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18056\/revisions\/25283"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}