My infant has lately discovered to talk, and she or he speaks as if she’s recording her podcast, an unedited until the roll of mind with a small pause for congratulations at the cease. Occasionally she will be able to…

My infant has lately discovered to talk, and she or he speaks as if she’s recording her podcast, an unedited until the roll of mind with a small pause for congratulations at the cease. Occasionally she will be able to prod me for a reward. “That was a lovable story I just advised, wasn’t it?” Yes, toddler. “I piggy pardon?” Yes, that became a lovable tale.

It very regularly is a lovely tale, but a time will come, perhaps while she turns three, when she will be able to learn that speaking isn’t always enough. Talking is not often the give up – speak is the car, the bus, the motorbike—the meandering adventure to some other place.

Talk is cheap. And that’s the hassle, for me, with our current consciousness on “focus.”

This has been Mental Health Awareness Week, with coverage that’s various and shifting. Much is invested in cognizance at the moment – of mental health, of abuse, of sexual violence – in speak approximately the things which have been traditionally hidden. And regularly, as with Prince Harry discussing how grief affected him, communication has been essential and provoking. And regularly, as with Stormy acting on the duvet of the NME towards his will in a chunk about despair, it sparks new conversations.

Has long questioned the darkness of your moods, the places your mind takes you at moments of stress, and Prince Harry – a man with literally everything except a surname – admits he sought help for similar feelings, and you think, I could do that. I could get help like Prince Harry did. So you make an appointment with your GP. It’s in two months, but OK. You plan a morning off work. And two months roll on, speckled with panic attacks and weekends in bed, and then suddenly, there you are, describing your break-up, the way you get obsessed with things like cloud cover, and how you felt suicidal last week at a Holiday Inn off the North Circular. You are put on a waiting list, and there you stay, for months. For almost a year, in fact, in which time the wait itself sends you spiraling. Aware, but spiraling. But aware. But spiraling.

Theresa May has pledged to tackle the “stigma” around mental health and praised Harry for speaking up. But the mental health crisis has been fuelled by her party’s policies and exacerbated by the scything of services. We can weigh it in our hands. Here, the fact that the number of young people arriving in A&E with psychiatric problems has doubled since 2009, and two-thirds of British adults say they’ve experienced mental ill-health. Here, that spending on mental health services is being cut by millions. And you glance down, and you feel slightly, “stigma,” do you not?