Everyone deals with things differently, whether that be stress or anxiety, however we need to talk about how sexual harassment can affect mental health.
There are multiple ways in which this affects people, whether that be through the stress caused by the perpetrator’s actions or the reporting procedures. Our view, as an organisation, is that supporting victims’ wellbeing is a matter which is not being addressed correctly by organisations and it is at the front and centre of our campaign.
Sexual harassment can have a profoundly damaging impact on victims, causing them to suffer from anxiety or depression, and in some cases PTSD. It is not enough to simply provide victims with links to mental health support services, a failure to take a holistic approach is a failure to support victims sufficiently. This is, of course, only worsened by ever-strained mental health services on the NHS and as a result many people have to seek support from the private sector.
Whilst it is important to recognize that safeguarding teams have limited resources, and that their representatives work hard to support victims, parties need to invest more into allocating more resources for victims of sexual harassment. One of our focuses, as an organisation, is to work with parties and their safeguarding staff as to how they can better support victims.
This could take many forms, such as working with private mental health service providers to help assess the victim’s needs and discuss with them how best to support their needs. It could even be as simple as providing additional training to safeguarding teams and relevant party members, in relation to mental health support.
Earlier this year (2023), I was subjected to sexual harassment by a member of my former political party, over a social media platform. As someone who suffers with severe anxiety, this only worsened by mental health and simply reading the messages made me feel sick to my stomach. To give some context, I tend to suffer a panic attack once a week on average – when this happened I suffered from at least three a week. This resulted in me increasing my antidepressant dosage and taking a full daily dose of Propranolol (if you have anxiety, you likely know what this is) – this is not to be taken as medical advice.
However, the worst of it only started when I went public, and despite receiving a lot of support on social media from people of all political backgrounds, this was caused by the perpetrator’s behaviour. As a result of this behaviour, I had to contact the party safeguarding team and the perpetrator was administratively suspended prior to investigation – which is quite rare. It is important to recognize that in addition to being subject to sexual harassment, the behaviour of the perpetrator upon going public can cause a profound impact on a victim’s wellbeing.
In my case, the perpetrator would make threats on Twitter, such as threatening to report me to the police for simply talking about it. This caused me to suffer panic attacks, every time the perpetrator would tweet about it. As someone who suffers with severe anxiety disorder, this would not only cause panic attacks, but I would also spend days in bed, consume more alcohol and wouldn’t even leave the house.
Moreover, while it is important to support victims during all stages of a complaint, it would be a disservice to treat every case as though it’s the same. Every victim has differing needs, many of which relate to mental health and disability, we believe that parties must work with victims to assess their needs and offer them the best support possible.
If you believe victims deserve better and wish to support our campaign, you can do so by getting involved through volunteering or simply sharing this post!
Jack Carter is a member of the Liberal Democrats and campaigner for Our Voice Matters, based in West Somerset, England.
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