Inside My Mind or not

It has to be said that I haven’t really watched many of the ‘It’s a mad world’ season on the BBC and not because I don’t approve but more because I am prone to extremes of emotion in response portrayals of mental health by the media. But I did watch the program entitle inside my mind (found on iplayer here) It purported to be

                 The science behind the most common mental illnesses that affect young
                 people- why they develop, what's going on inside our bodies and what 
                 we can do to treat them.

A bold statement to be fair and it was the science part that got me curious. I am after all a scientist at heart. In fact I think I am bit too much of a scientist for this program which was a shame because I would dearly have loved to delve into the science behind mental health issues but sadly this was science on the same level as Tomorrow's World with slightly less detail. (If you’ve no idea what that was like then see the archive here)

I’m probably being very harsh but still it seemed more about the visuals than actual facts and figures and sadly the use of plain/simple English did nothing but annoy me.

Really I get it that people are not as well educated as me and I too get that for some the use of this language was a much better choice but I was left wanting more, much more in fact. And although I enjoyed the graphic representation of the brain areas I didn’t really feel that the flashing blue lines of the messages travelling in the brain was sufficiently good to really warrant so much time on these graphics and the blood ones were slightly annoying since they only ever included red blood cells. (My blood is made up of more than that)

So getting away from all the distractions what did I think about the stories?

Overall impression of the content was that it was overly simplistic. I guess the biggest problem for me is that I have quite a high level of education in biological sciences and my understanding of neurology, brain anatomy and it’s workings is, although I feel quite rudimentary, not basic and I didn’t need it to be quite so simple. I also have spent the last 23 years suffering with mental health problems and for the most part didn’t really hear anything that I hadn’t heard before.

I could certainly relate to different symptoms for each of the illnesses covered with ease and interestingly very little with the women with bipolar whom I have a diagnosis in common with. But I remind myself now, as then, that this program was not really aimed at me. I have more than a basic understanding of the brain and how it works and have a good understanding of, and quite a lot of experience of people with different mental health problems and this was more for the audience of tomorrows world (the curious rather than knowledgeable). It was an introduction, a simple basic understanding of common mental health problems for the person who has not really had much experience of them. And for them I think it was probably quite enlightening and the lack of specific detail or figures was not really a problem in the way it was for me who was looking for something a bit more in depth. But what was nice was that they included at least 2 stories from people who had problems that many people would not have heard of.

I will also add that for my personal taste I do object to some of the language used, such as ‘dysfunctional’ which I felt was too negative a way to refer to the persons emotional responses and may drive some people, as shown in the program to have negative reactions to themselves, because they feel this way. I don’t think there is any easy way out of it but still it reminds me of my own battles with feeling it was wrong to feel, which caused me significant problems in getting treatment.

It is not wrong to feel and the tone the people used when expressing that they wished they were not like this pulled at my heart because it sounded very much like they disliked themselves for their inability to change/ for being trapped as they were. Their despair and pain was for me quite plain and painful to see for I know that pain and it’s hateful.

I also found myself annoyed by the tendency to feel that the program was telling me how these mental illness come to be whilst aware that they were using what I would term the correct language - such as ‘risk of’ and telling the viewer ‘no way of knowing for sure’ and ‘this doesn’t mean that you will get it’ -to impart that they have no idea how or why someone becomes ill. I can’t explain it but it just rankled me and I felt that some people would defiantly come away feeling they had been told how and why someone might become ill even though they didn’t.

For instance the genetic factors that contributes to the risk of certain illnesses. It made me feel that you could test for these and work out your risk of getting the illness but they didn’t say they could and I’m well aware that they can’t do that but still it felt like that was what they were saying it was possible even though they didn’t.

Maybe I’m just too close to the subject to have an objective view of this type of program, which I feel is pretty much why I’ve not watched very many of them. In many ways I wished I hadn’t watched this one as it was unsettling and I feel it implied that our understanding of the brain and mental illnesses is far more advanced than I think it is. However for many it was probably very informative and certainly it gave an insight into the lives and treatments of some common mental health conditions that many people will never have come across, or in some cases even heard of, and for my part I think that it is a step forward even if I wasn’t that impressed with it. We certainly wouldn’t have had this a few years ago, however I don't feel it lived up to it's description.