Upon doing the research for the programme, I discovered that, at first, they were considering using the name 'My Mad Diary' as the title of the show, and was initially put off. In a show constructed to divert society's eye away from the stigma of 'madness' and 'insanity' and the isolation sufferers of mental health illness's face, using the adjective of 'mad' to describe each and every volunteer in the show is incredibly contradictory. It could also face problems in attracting the wrong audience, with some people settling down and expecting to watch a show of lunatics and psychopaths wreaking havoc for fun.
However, once the title was improved, I was more inclined to watch. And it was definitely worth it. The show kicks off by using the young people themselves to explain their own mental health problems to you, without the aid of doctors, psychiatrists or counsellors, something which I applauded for two reasons; one being that where the professionals will typically use the highest quality medical jargon the second the camera is switched on, in the hope of impressing the audience; the sufferers themselves were actually given a chance to explain their illness' the way they see them, and how they affect them personally. The second reason is that, in another programme of the season, the budget cuts and bad performances of the medical health units in the NHS are explored, proving to the audience that simply 'getting some help' for mental illness really isn't as easy as it sounds. In one young woman's condition on 'Diaries...' she visited her GP and asked for some help with anxiety, and was refused treatment, as the waiting list for CBT was over four months long, and was left to suffer alone.
The young people themselves have also been very well casted, showing themselves to be as diverse as their illness', further breaking through the stigmas and stereotypes of mental illness. The volunteers ranged from teen anorexics to early twenties schizophrenics, with all of them presented as 'normal' young adults in their videos. The overall message of the programme seems to be not just a refresher course of mental illness' for those who are sorely lacking in information about them, but also to prove the point that mental health problems can affect anyone, yet when they do, it doesn't have to make them 'mental' or 'crazy'; and that what they have is simply an 'illness' which can be treated, and does not make them any different from you or I.
Throughout the show, the young people are asked some very generic questions about their mental health issues, such as 'when did you first discover your mental health problems?' and 'would you get rid of it, if you could?' but one of the questions I found the most shocking, for me personally, was 'do you take medication?' as the resounding yes from nearly all of the young people was completely unexpected. For many of us, medication for mental health problems is seen as quite a last resort, and are only familiar with 'anti-depressants' in the scale of treatment for mental health. However, they succeed in proving us wrong as many of them produce a wide variety of pills and procedures, all designed to help heal their 'broken minds', and even more worryingly so, many of them have been on them for years, some starting at a scarily young age.
Of course, we are shown clips of weeks when a few of the young people try to come off their medication, and how violently it can affect them in themselves, providing some of the more emotional scenes of the show. Whilst there is nothing too upsetting, or violent shown, both for our benefit and theirs, the moments where the sufferers lose control and are hit by the reality of their illness are often hard to watch, especially from an outsider's point of view. In my opinion, however, without these scenes, the documentary would be a sham, and would be doing mental health sufferers across the country a severe injustice, as well as creating yet another false image of mental illness, at the other end of the scale this time, and still getting it wrong.
There are other factors, of course, which help to make the show an interesting watch, not just an interesting one, including a slight overuse of jump-cut editing, set against a modern and fitting soundtrack, with music from Jessie Ware and Rudimental documenting the sufferer's lives. This too helps to include the sense of normality and familiarity mental illness has been lacking so far, without going so far as to insult their audiences by pointing this out.
Personally, from both an insiders and outsiders point of view, I found 'Diaries of a Broken Mind' to be not only an insightful documentary, but a relatable one as well, reaching out to those who suffer from mental health problems, and those who don't; with one beautifully simply message to sum the whole show up: 'You are not alone.'
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