LETTER: We need to check in on each other
A reader urges people to care for one another during a testing time.
I don't normally watch Jimmy's Farm but I did what I shouldn't and had a nap this evening and woke up to find the programme on. Almost immediately I saw them trying to get a lamb out of a distressed mother but it was stillborn. For whatever reason I began to wonder whether the mother would understand the loss and become upset.
With coronavirus we can generally see its physical impact but with mental health problems the distress of it is not easily communicated. As someone who has suffered it and having witnessed it happening and seen its sometimes terrible outcome can I ask your readers to be on the lookout, particularly as the physical effects of coronavirus may make us take our eye off the mental health ball.
The signs are a struggle to communicate easily (becoming withdrawn) and at the opposite end, angry outbursts. If someone says, so and so doesn't understand me, that is distress trying to find a voice.
Please make time for anyone who has been going through a difficult time and get them to see a doctor if things don't improve. Whatever you do don't say pull yourself together that is merely shutting down vital communication.
Finally if you know someone is on their own, communicate somehow; by phone or letter but please let them know they are thought about and cared for.
Roger Watts, Walsall
