Trigger warning: mental illness, suicide and self-harm
Recent research and statistics reveal the prevailing issue of mental illness and suicide ideation in Australia, opening the doors for speculation on the government’s current policies and available resources to reduce the number or at least its contributing factors.
Although the Australian Government’s Department of Health and Aged Care infused their COVID National Health Plan with consideration for the mental health implications, the unexpected disadvantages brought forth by the pandemic and evolving social practices are still being grappled with today.
Headspace’s 2022 National Youth Mental Health Survey examined the relationship between our current cost of living crisis with a declining wellbeing amongst, finding that the unprecedented pressures of housing affordability and financial instability affect the mental health of over half of young people in Australia.
Dr. Professor Samuel Harvey, academic UNSW psychiatrist and pioneer of the Black Dog Institute’s research into mental health, notes the flaws in Australia’s ‘under-funded mental health care system’ (Harvey, n.d.) that dissuade financially challenged individuals from securing appropriate and effective mental health support.
The Black Dog Institute is one of many independent not-for-profit organisations in Australia that aims to limit the startling number of lives lost to suicide each year. Of the thousands that take their lives each year, more than half of these identify as male.
Data sourced from: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
(https://www.aihw.gov.au/suicide-self-harm-monitoring/overview/suicide-deaths)
Other institutions, such as MensLine Australia, have been established to combat the stark disparity with free telephone consultations and counselling targeted towards struggling males.
And while males show an overrepresentation when it comes to deaths by suicides, mental illness continues to be a genderless issue.
Notably, females are statistically more likely to be hospitalised for self harm injuries.
Data sourced from: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
(https://www.aihw.gov.au/suicide-self-harm-monitoring/overview/self-harm-hospitalisations)
Elysia Paniz, one of Lifeline’s 3,500 Crisis Support Workers, has observed that a majority of calls made to the service are women, particularly those of a younger age demographic.
“Most of the young female callers who have self-harmed do not actually intend to commit suicide, but see it as a way of coping with what they are dealing with,” she says.
She believes that government-issued mental health education in schools or the workplace–particularly those in rural or remote areas–will not only ensure that struggling individuals can seek the necessary outlets for support, but will also diminish the social and gender-based stigmas that aggravate feelings of isolation.