Losing It is a 4Learning drama about young people and mental health.
Young people with mental health problems are likely to feel very isolated and distressed. It is important for them to know that help is available and that they are not alone. And the sooner problems are tackled, the easier they are to deal with and the less they will disrupt everyday life.
'Sometimes I sit in my room staring at the walls and feeling very low. Or crying for no real reason. There's nothing I can do to make myself feel better.'
There are no instant cures for mental health problems, but there are lots of ways that they can be helped. Quite often a combination of approaches is the most effective, together with support from friends and family.
'After I felt depressed a few times, I knew I'd always come out of it. It was horrible thinking it might come back, though. In the end, I went for counselling, which helped me feel more in control of my life.'
On this website, you will find an 'abc' of the more common mental health problems, the treatments available and the health professionals involved. This is linked to 'Find Out More' - extensive lists of organisations, websites and books that will point you in the direction of further information, help and support. Family members and friends who want to help someone with a mental health problem will find useful suggestions in '10 Tips'. And '4Learning Xtra', which has been specially designed to provide support for teachers in schools and colleges, contains much of interest to anyone wanting to find out more about mental health issues.
People of all ages can find the subject of mental health
difficult, frightening and alienating. The starting point of the
programme is that mental health problems of different degrees of
severity can affect anyone at any time in their lives.
There was particular concern to locate the drama in the kind of
everyday experiences that anyone might have. The writer Malcolm
Campbell created three young characters - Jude, Tom and Muna -
whose lives connect powerfully for one week. From the outset, they
seem no more or less complex or troubled than many other young
people their age. But behind the front that we all construct to the
rest of the world, one of the three, Jude, is experiencing
difficulties ...
A reckless edge.
Bright, good-looking, athletic and 18 years old, Jude has a
reckless edge that makes him both attractive and dangerous. We
quickly learn that, behind the image he presents to the world, he
is experiencing difficulties with academic work. Exams, which he
sees as his passport out, are imminent and he's been
struggling.
He enlists the help of Tom, a student in his psychology class, to
help him study. Tom and Jude know each other but they are not
really friends. It's unlikely Tom has much social life at all
because he has been caring for his mother who is recovering from
depression. Academically a high achiever, independent, self-reliant
but a bit of a loner, he is intrigued and slightly flattered by
Jude's request for help. Jude is also able to capitalise on Tom's
infatuation with Muna, a young woman currently working as a local
radio presenter: if Tom will help him prepare for the psychology
exam, Jude will help Tom win Muna.
Trying to escape.
Muna is sharp, quick-witted, outspoken - in Jude's words, a
'motormouth'. She seems an unlikely partner for Tom, but in the
end, he gets to her without Jude's help. Tom lacks the confidence
to ask Muna out in person, but he is more than capable of finding
the right words to interest her via an internet chatroom. They fix
a date.
The night of Tom's date with Muna is the night before the
psychology exam. Tom is too nervous and excited about the evening
ahead to pick up on Jude's distracted state of mind. When Jude is
left alone to revise, we start to see that he is lost, troubled,
even in pain. He can't concentrate, can't focus. He has to escape
the room. While Tom waits for Muna, Jude goes running - trying to
escape from the problems and pressures building up inside. When he
returns, he seems to be on the point of turning to his parents, but
at the last moment, he can't find the words.
Still waiting, Tom calls Muna's show and manages to break through
her tough-talking on-air persona. His question, 'Are you really so
cold or is it just a front?' is disconcerting, and the call shakes
Muna's confidence.
No comfort.
Jude, meanwhile, has escaped the house a second time and is
drinking with his mates. But it is clear he is unhappy, alienated,
out of it. There's no comfort here, no conversation ... Jude is
very much alone.
Muna goes looking for her 'secret' date at the agreed meeting-place
and finds Tom. Intrigued by both his phone call and his
persistence, she agrees to have a drink with him.
Hiding in the toilets at the pub, Jude hears his mates talking
about him.
Muna tries to explain why she stood Tom up and is clearly surprised
by his responses. He refuses to fit the stereotype she has
constructed for him, and she finds herself able to drop her guard
and let a little vulnerability show through.
Walking the streets and chatting, they come across Jude, who has
taken a beating from some unknown lads. There is a moment, when
Muna touches his face, when Jude could possibly open up to them
both, but it passes and he refuses any help, reassures them that
he's fine, and disappears before they can stop him. But the story
he has told them is at odds with what really happened. Jude was no
innocent victim of a street fight - he had actively provoked the
beating.
The hardest bit.
Jude and Tom sit their exam the next morning. Afterwards, at home,
Jude hears Tom calling for him, asking Jude if he wants to talk,
saying the teacher has been looking for him. His mother's anxious
voice can be heard on the answerphone. He goes looking for Muna,
who is having the worst possible day at the office. Jude is there
waiting for her when she leaves.
Tom, too, tries to find Muna with a Woody Allen video to share, but
when he discovers her at her flat with Jude, he walks out. Muna
goes after him to try and explain. She had been sacked from her job
and run into Jude, and they had tried to take comfort in each
other. Reaching a kind of understanding, Tom and Muna return to the
flat to find that Jude has taken an overdose.
In hospital, Jude talks for the first time about how he's been
feeling - hurting, desperate, alone, frightened he is going
mad.
Some time later, we see Jude once more. He's different. Although
he's sure it's not all over, he's done the hardest bit - asked for
help. And these days he can't stop talking as he tries to make
sense of the past and looks forward to some kind of future.
Definitions of mental health and mental illness.
Losing It takes as its starting point the idea of viewing
mental health as a continuum, ranging from stress and anxiety,
through simple and clinical depression, eating and
obsessive-compulsive disorders to self-harm/suicide, schizophrenia
and trauma. Mental health problems can affect anyone, but it's
important to recognise that some people are more vulnerable than
others.
Identifying the signs of a mental health problem.
The central character Jude is concealing his anxiety, distress,
loneliness and feelings of worthlessness. Because he is widely
regarded as capable and confident, an achiever - someone who gets
on with his life - family and friends don't see anything worrying
in his behaviour. This is partly because they don't expect it and
partly because Jude tries to conceal what is happening to him. The
situation is complicated because Jude doesn't actually know what is
happening to him.
What are some of the symptoms of a mental health
problem?
Although Jude's condition is never labelled, he is depressed. In
the drama, he experiences some of the more common symptoms of
depression: sleeplessness, restlessness, feelings of worthlessness,
sudden mood changes, difficulty in concentrating. He is also
spending quite a bit of time alone in his room. On the other hand,
he drives himself hard - running, forcing himself to socialise and
taking risks that lead to a kind of self-harm: getting himself
beaten up.
Gender and mental health.
Jude doesn't talk to anyone about his feelings. Being unable to
cope is both terrifying and shameful to him. Like many young men,
he doesn't have the language or confidence to articulate his
feelings. This is not to say that young women don't conceal things,
too, but Jude's friendships (until Tom) appear to function on the
public and social rather than the private and intimate level. There
is no obvious support structure among the young men he goes around
with.
Tom provides a different perspective - he is more emotionally
expressive. However, he is socially very shy and, at the point we
meet him, preoccupied with a girl. Perhaps he could help Jude, but
through a mix of circumstances, both let opportunities for
confidences go by.
The causes of the mental health problem.
There is no sense in the drama of exactly what has 'caused' Jude's
depression. The focus is deliberately on the experience of it
rather than the factors that might have contributed to it. But in
Jude's life there are signs of intense loneliness and a lack of
intimacy, of feelings of low self-worth, of exam pressures and of
fear of the future.
Losing It avoids signalling strong personal and social
'causes' such as a dysfunctional family, bereavement or social
disadvantage, so that there is no neat equation of cause and
effect. Tom's introduction of the idea of genetic predisposition is
designed to stimulate wider investigation of biomedical factors
such as brain dysfunction, biochemical imbalance and
heredity.
Risk-taking behaviour, self-harm and attempted
suicide.
Rates in self-harm and attempted suicide are rising, especially in
young men aged 15-24 where they have doubled over the past two
decades. Self-harm is a major cry for help and a person who
self-harms is far more likely to commit suicide than someone who
does not.
When we think of self-harm, we tend to think of young people
(especially girls) cutting themselves. Jude's actions suggest a
different way of looking at self-harm. He goes out drinking and
provokes a beating. To what extent is this just 'ordinary'
behaviour? To what extent should we regard it as a form of
self-harm?
Getting help.
The drama goes no further than showing Jude starting on a process -
hopefully towards recovery. The key is the ability to talk about
the problem, and Losing It makes it clear that this is difficult
for a variety of reasons. But in the end, Jude takes two of the
most important steps: acknowledging the problem and asking for
help.
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