My first contact with the term “mental health” occurred when I was nineteen. As a rookie cop, I was bombarded with a welter of legislation – after all, I had to know roughly what I was arresting someone for. Part of this legal lexicon was the Mental Health Act that allowed us sensible servants of the monarch to detain anyone who was barmy. Mental health was – I am ashamed to say – considered by me and many of my peers as an abstract occurrence that only happened to others. How wrong I was, as at this precise moment I developed a mental health issue of my own anxiety; perhaps one of the mildest forms, but nonetheless a debilitating condition that had its roots within my initial police training.
Sitting at the front of the class, the lesson that afternoon connected with the Misuse of Drugs Act. The trainer popped a video into the player and the monitor sparked into life showing an outstretched arm. A sudden and unexpected swoop of the other arm with a clenched fist and blood erupted everywhere as the needle was rammed into the addict’s own
