*TRIGGER WARNING: This story briefly mentions suicide*

Hi, I’m Nathan Jackson and I’m campaigning for the mental health crisis to be taken seriously in education.

I would like to see compulsory sessions added to the school curriculum that talk about mental health and provide the tool kits necessary to ensure a healthy mind. Every person that has finished school in the last 15 years has been taught how to use a computer, how to maintain sexual health, how to be active and physically healthy, first aid is also taught briefly. These are very important things but mental health education is minimal at best. People should not have to wait until a crisis to learn about mental health. 

Young people need to learn things like the potential causes and dangers of mental illness, where they can go for help, coping methods, how to talk about mental health/mental illness, crisis intervention, what things they can do for others and, most importantly, how they can keep their own minds healthy among many other crucial factors.

I believe that all of this will eventually lead to a culture in which speaking about mental health, whether good or bad, is normalised.

I see mental illness as a monster that people keep running away from. I think it is time to turn around and stop running. We need to fight this monster. For how long are we going to place the metaphorical water bucket under the leaking roof?

I have seen first-hand how many close friends and family have had difficulty with their mental health without realising the little things they can do to help themselves. Most of them depending on a therapist to point them in the right direction which can come months after realising the problem due to waiting lists or a lack of services for example.

I’ve also seen how mental illness can really shake a family. In August 2018, my uncle Stephen lost the battle with his mind at the age of 29. The following months were the hardest that our family had ever had to endure and for most of us the guilt is still as raw as it was on the first day. We were rocked to our very cores, everything changed.

Stephen was more than an uncle to me, he was a mentor, a man that I idolised growing up and, most definitely, a friend. He was the strongest man I knew because he fought off the world for so long. I think back to him helping me learn to drive and am reminded of his kind-hearted and hilarious nature – he could leave a whole room in stitches and always had a story to tell. At his funeral I told the story of a family trip to Cornwall in which Stephen was sun burnt beyond belief - but his hands were his usual skin colour. Because by making sure everyone else had their sun cream on, he’d forgotten to apply his own. His selflessness knew no bounds and he definitely did not deserve this. 

And the worst thing about it is that he's not the only one...

According to the Office for National Statistics (2019), there were 6,507 suicides in the UK in 2018, an 11.8% increase on the previous year. Despite awareness being at an all-time high thanks to our tireless work. Suicide still remains the largest cause of morality in young people (Papyrus, 2019). More so, it has been reported that 75% of mental illnesses begin before the age of 18 (Young Minds, 2019) and 3 children in every classroom have a diagnosable mental health condition (YoungMinds, 2019). Surely it’s time to educate these people?!

I first met my monster (Anxiety) as a teenager and my path ever since has been fairly unsteady. It has taken me to some very unpleasant places. From continuously pretending to be ill to avoid school, to dropping out of University to eventually spending unwanted nights with an emergency crisis team. At first, I had no idea why I was so different. I just wanted to be normal, like everyone else. A couple of years ago however, I decided to befriend my monster. I started learning about it, what made it appear, how could I help it and more significantly what it even was.

This education saved me. Every day I wish that Stephen could have been saved by this education. Everyone deserves this education.

Everyone deserves the toolkit that I now possess.

Sign the petition to make it happen. You can help to stop the monster in its tracks. Please visit us on Instagram​, Twitter and Facebook.

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