Virtually all the people interviewed using relevant services reported poor mental health, mostly related to depression and/or anxiety, and suicidal ideation was commonplace:


“I’m seeking psychology [counselling]. I need to focus. My thought patterns are terrible. I’ve got this - it’s an interruptive thought pattern. It’s not nice and calm. It’s stormy. I’m waiting to see psychology. Psychology’s the number one, maybe number two I need in my life. I just need somebody to tell me that I’m doing things right, like that reassurance is something that I strive [sic] on.” (Male, 25-29, urban)


The female interviewees especially spoke of their addiction as being triggered by their poor mental health:


“Heroin, Valium, alcohol - and I was just using it to try and block everything out that’s going on in my life. … Just because everything that’s going on in my head, it’s just to block everything out.” (Female, 25-29, semi-rural)


“I was using as many tins [of gas] as I could get


a day. It was just to block out reality.” (Female, 30-34, semi-rural)


For several, the traumatic loss of a family member triggered a major mental health episode:


“I took just a major breakdown; I walked on to the actual railway bridge, wanting to… I stepped back, and then slept in a close….I broke down, and everything like that, and that’s the worst I got. Well, I thought that was the worst moment in my life I got to, until it came to Boxing Day, then I got a phone call saying my wee brother had just put a rope around… The worst thing was, he was in the jail when that happened, when he did it.” (Male 25-29, urban) 129


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