She had already been living with depression for several years when she finally reached out for help. The main barrier she met, and still does, is stigma, the young woman told Sarah Carabott a few days after the launch of the nationwide campaign #StopStigma.

Flora Tanti: “Why do we treat a person with diabetes and a person with a personality disorder differently?” Photo: Jonathan BorgFlora Tanti: “Why do we treat a person with diabetes and a person with a personality disorder differently?” Photo: Jonathan Borg
 

When she learnt that her parents had called an ambulance, Flora Tanti packed her best outfit for burial. The last thing she remembers after her attempted suicide is being lifted into the back of the vehicle. That night, she survived.

Four years later, the medicine bottles on the countertop again caught her eye. But thanks to the therapy she received after that attempt – her second – she managed to turn her back on the pills and checked herself into hospital.

Flora Tanti revisits her struggle. Video: Jonathan Borg

“It took me several years and a lot of crying to realise that I could be something beyond my condition.

READ: 'You carry this label saying you are mental, not human'

“The road to recovery started with support from someone close to me, and with professional therapy,” the 28-year-old recounts.

Ms Tanti, now a mental health nursing student, knows that stigma pervades all sectors of society – from the next-door neighbour to experienced professionals – and it is one of the toughest hurdles to overcome for a sufferer like her. However, she also knows that help is out there and can be sought anonymously.

“If I was capable of overcoming stigma and learning to live with my mental health condition after three suicide attempts, everyone is capable of doing so.

“If someone is suffering in silence, please reach out. Help is out there. Taking that step to seek help is a quarter of the recovery.”

Ms Tanti first started slipping into depression when she was just 13, following a traumatic experience. Despite her initial reluctance, a year later she managed to open up about the incident with the school counsellor.

Sadly, her ordeal did not remain within those four walls, and the girl, still trying to come to terms with the trauma, was dealt another blow when she became the object of gossip among her peers.

READ: What it's like to spend your life living with OCD

It was a bitter experience and it shut her up again for years. But by bottling up her trauma she slipped into depression and started experiencing symptoms of paranoia, feeling unsafe even at home.

“The trauma remained untreated for years, and I believe I developed a separate personality to mask what I was really feeling. I remember carrying around a heavy weight of sadness that just sat here,” she said, tapping her chest. “At home I cried all the time. Sometimes I pictured my end. My drawings were always dark. But they too remained behind closed doors.”

Outside – at school and at work – she was a completely different person.

“I listened to other people’s problems. If you were to ask the people who knew me back then how they remember me, they would say I was Flora iċ-ċarċaruna. I was very bubbly.

If you cannot climb up you have to ask someone to throw you a rope

“Today, I know it was just a coping mechanism to mask what I was suffering in silence.”

Her first attempt at suicide took place when she was 17. It took her until she was 21 to seek professional help. For eight years, since she was 13, she had suppressed everything inside her. And even after she decided to ask for help, it took her a week to build up enough courage to call up the counselling service at the school of tertiary education she was attending.

Meanwhile, she self-harmed, believing the physical pain would rid her of her unbearable emotional pain. But it remained.

The 31 scars on her arm, which are nowadays covered by tattoos, and her old Facebook posts, often serve as a reminder of her cries for help back then.

Ms Tanti was eventually admitted to hospital through the Crisis Intervention Service and was told she would continue treatment at Mount Carmel Hospital. This was the “shock” of her life, she recalls – and it was mostly fuelled by her own stigma about the place.

“I was brought up in an environment where psychological issues and treatment were taboo, with Mount Carmel being the very peak of that stigma.”

Just before she turned 22, she attempted her second suicide, at home.

“I had always remained depressed. It is hard to explain how the sadness lingers on… it is in you and around you all the time. I was leading a lethargic life – no work and no school. I could not overcome the great sense of apathy I had. I had no aim and did not enjoy anything. I was recalling the past when I suddenly saw an opportunity in front of me: bottles of pills on the countertop.”

As soon as a friend and her parents realised what she had done, they called an ambulance. But an indifferent Ms Tanti just packed a bag with her best clothes, preparing for the end.

She woke up five days later in the ITU, after which she was admitted again to Mount Carmel.

She found help, or rather, help found her, when she hit rock bottom and there was nowhere else to go. Her third unsuccessful attempt came three days before Christmas.

“While I was recovering, a former lecturer visi­ted me and told me, ‘Get yourself together. The only way is up. The way you climb up doesn’t matter – whether you crawl up and get all bruised, or use a ladder’.”

This statement was the beginning of Ms Tanti’s recovery.

“I will repeat those words to whoever is going through the same situation. If you cannot climb up, you have to ask someone to throw you a rope.

“I started professional therapy, and that is what got me to where I am today.”

Ms Tanti started her recovery while she was a support worker with Richmond Foundation. When she relapsed into depression again last year, she admitted herself to the hospital.

“Through therapy I developed coping mechanisms and I could take a step back, understand what I was experiencing and look for help. I packed a bag and headed to the emergency department.”

Ms Tanti has one message: people with mental health conditions are not a disorder.

“I’m really hurt by all these labels. Why do we treat a person with diabetes and a person with a personality disorder differently? Why do we change our perspective?”

Do something about it. Look up the Facebook page Stopstigma to learn more about the campaign run by the Department of Mental Health within the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Malta and the Commissioner for Mental Health.

Calling policymakers…

The following are five measures that could be introduced to reduce stigma and encourage people to seek help, according to Richmond Foundation CEO Stephania Dimech Sant:

1. Train professionals, including teachers and youth workers, to help them identify, understand and know how to deal with mental health issues among students.

2. Make more information and guidance services accessible to young people, such as the online service kellimni.com.

3. Make more basic information available to the public through initiatives such as the Mental Health First Aid course.

4. Shift acute mental health services from Mount Carmel Hospital to Mater Dei.

5. Make a mental health crisis intervention service available 24/7, incorporating an ambulance serviced by a psychiatric nurse.

If you are experiencing prolonged sadness, confusion or any form of mental discomfort, call the Richmond Foundation on 2122 4580 for a free, confidential, professional service. If you are having suicidal thoughts, you can also call Richmond or Emergency Services on 112.

#StopStigma campaign

The Office of the Commissioner for Mental Health and the Department of Mental Health at the  University of Malta’s Faculty of Health Sciences last Monday launched a campaign to counter the stigma that arises from speculation and false beliefs about mental health issues. The aim is to increase awareness and better inform the public.

The #StopStigma campaign will present posters and an information leaflet in Maltese, invite a number of Maltese personalities to join the campaign as ‘ambassadors’ and ask local companies to act as strategic partners in promoting the aims of the campaign.

These companies will be encouraged to develop a mental health policy at their workplace, by coming up with creative ways to promote the campaign or the mental well-being of their staff and of society at large. 

In publicly endorsing and promoting #StopStigma, collaborating entities and individuals will be awarded certificates of participation at a public event towards the end of 2018.

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