‘I struggled with psychosis like Phil Mitchell in EastEnders and it was a wake-up call’
Phil Mitchell was sent to a mental health unit after a psychotic breakdown in EastEnders. The scenes moved fans but why are we lacking the same compassion off-screen?
Phil Mitchell’s psychosis storyline is the wake-up call we need (Image: BBC)
Walford hardman Phil Mitchell has been thrown into a psychosis in EastEnders, leaving fans concerned for his mental health – but it’s time we extended that same empathy off-screen.
The reigning doof-doof king, played by Steve McFadden, has been spiralling into isolation – his marriage to Kat Slater has collapsed, his son Ben is facing fraud charges in the U.S., and he’s been left alone at No.45 with nothing but his thoughts.
With nowhere to turn, Phil has sunk into a deep depression, haunted by ghosts of his past – literally. His parents Peggy and Eric, reappeared in his mind, pushing him to the brink of suicide.
The situation reached a crisis point when Phil put a gun to his own head in recent scenes of the BBC One drama, with Linda Carter (Kellie Bright) and Nigel Bates (Paul Bradley) witnessing the scene in concerned shock.
His brother Grant (Ross Kemp) returned in a last-ditch effort to save him, but tough love did little to help. The intervention of mental health professionals at Mitchell’s Autos became his only lifeline.
Watching the scene unfold, I was frozen. My friend nudged me. “Your food’s getting cold,” she said. I hadn’t touched my plate. My eyes were glued to the screen as I watched a fictional version of what I’d lived through just months before.
“We’re the mental health crisis team,” I heard from the TV. I let out a nervous chuckle. “Ah, I know you guys,” I said, more to myself than anyone else. “Glad it’s not me this time.”
I joke about it often. I make light of my struggles with Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD) because it’s easier than unpacking them. My autism only adds to the awkwardness, so I mask it all with humour.
“There’s no such thing as inheritance in my family, “ I like to tell new friends, “Only addiction and mental health issues.” They laugh. I laugh – it’s easier that way. But last year, I had more in common with Phil Mitchell than I ever wanted.
I fell into an eight-month psychotic episode. And like Phil, I was mostly alone. The English Channel already separates me from my French family, but I became even more isolated when I moved to a new town.
No more impromptu shopping trips with friends or spontaneous after-work drinks. Just me, my thoughts, and the growing feeling that something wasn’t right.
By May 2024, the symptoms crept in. I lost things. Slept less. Felt the urge to look over my shoulder every time I left the house. As a woman, I’ve always been aware of danger. But this was different. I wasn’t just wary of the dark or empty streets – I was scared of everything.
I couldn’t go on a simple walk without intrusive thoughts hijacking my brain. “What if a dog came out of that bush and disfigured you?”, “What if someone pushed you in front of that train?”, “What if they’re not responding to your texts because they’re dead?”
I tried to drown it all out with work, but by summer, my mental state was unravelling. “You should go out,” my mum said. “Some fresh air would do you good.”
She smiled at me from the bathroom mirror. The only problem was that my mother has been dead for almost a decade. I’d seen her before – just a shadow in the corner of my eye, a flash of her grin before she’d disappear. I brushed it off. Lack of sleep, I told myself. Too much stress. But she kept coming back.
By September, I was suffocating under the weight of it all. I ignored my phone. Stopped eating. Stopped showering. And then, I tried to end my life for the first time. It didn’t work.
So, like Phil, I carried on as if nothing had happened. I muted the voices in my head and threw myself back into work. Until one day, I didn’t. It started with a trip to the shop. Painkillers. Alcohol. I hadn’t touched a drop in years, but something in me wanted out.
The character has been isolated from everyone in Walford for months, leaving him to sink into a deep depression
The rest of that day is a blur. The paramedics filled in the gaps. All I remember is my dead mother’s voice, coaxing me to swallow as many pills as I could.
I wrote goodbye letters – to my best friends, my father, even an ex. “You’ll be better off without me”, they read. Months later, watching Phil spiral, I realised his story wasn’t just a well-written plot. It’s a wake-up call.
His breakdown is a reminder that mental health isn’t just about depression and anxiety. Trauma rewires the brain. It shapes how we react, how we cope, how we survive.
Phil Mitchell’s life has been punctuated by violence, power struggles and loss. His breakdown was years in the making – it’s the culmination of decades of unresolved trauma.
I see myself in that. My childhood didn’t involve guns or money, but it did include violence. That’s how I ended up with C-PTSD, the root cause of my psychosis.
You’ve heard of PTSD. Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD) is its evil cousin. It’s the trauma that keeps happening. The kind that changes how your brain works. Emotional dysregulation, chronic fatigue. Anxiety so deep it takes over your body.
And yet, despite everything, people will still argue that I’m “crazy” when my condition becomes unmanageable. Phil Mitchell didn’t get that treatment.
I can’t help but notice the difference between how he’s been portrayed versus other characters like Ella Forster in rival soap Emmerdale, whose trauma-fuelled mental health crisis has been welcomed with far less sympathy.
According to the Mental Health Foundation, people encountering mental health challenges are among the least likely of any group with a long-term health condition or disability to nurture steady, long-term relationships, live in decent housing, be socially included in mainstream society and even find work.
Harmful stereotypes around mental health have often left me feeling like I had no right to speak out about my struggles, terrified of what others would think. But the silence only worsened my symptoms.
I know many endure the same stigma – in 2023, the Office for National Statistics revealed that 6,069 people died by suicide in both England and Wales, the highest suicide rate since 1999.
Ella Forster in Emmerdale has been hit with a wave of negative comments after displaying signs of mental health issues ( Image: ITV)
In 2015, France was one of the two European countries with Germany that recorded the most suicides (9,200) – my mother was among the statistics, ending her life after decades of silencing her own struggle with Borderline Personality Disorder.
It’s time to realise our understanding of mental health disorders is skewed as Phil Mitchell’s recent psychosis struggle points beyond the “socially acceptable” mental health issues. Much like Denise Fox’s own psychosis storyline, and even Carla Connor’s in Coronation Street.
For too long, discussions about mental health have focused on conditions that feel easier to understand – depression, anxiety, stress. But real-life struggles aren’t always neat or predictable. They can be chaotic, terrifying and messy.
During my worst days, I’ve found myself lashing out at my loved ones, unable to control my emotions after an emotional flashback. And while I’m lucky to have their support, it hasn’t always been easy for them to understand my behaviour or triggers.
For too long, mainstream media have shied away from other life-changing, and too often vilified, mental health conditions like Cluster B and Cluster C personality disorders.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder and even Antisocial Personality Disorder – all these conditions are just as real, just as painful, yet rarely shown with the same care as depression, anxiety or even schizophrenia. .
Other conditions that never get the spotlight they deserve – like Borderline Personality Disorder – also include psychosis in their long lists of symptoms, making them more relevant today than ever before.
For me, recovery meant medication. A single pill each morning to give my brain the serotonin it can no longer produce on its own, after my psychosis changed my brain chemistry to the point of no return.
It meant stepping away from work for two months. And yes, it meant relapses. A neighbour once found me curled up in the bathtub, convinced bombs were falling outside. The world felt unsafe, even when it wasn’t.
We need to move beyond surface-level conversations and start talking about the complexities of trauma, psychosis, neurodivergence and personality disorders with the same openness and compassion.
For those of us living with such conditions, representation isn’t just about seeing our struggles on screen – it’s about knowing we’re not alone. Phil was given a second chance. So was I. And maybe, by telling these stories – fictional or not – we can help someone find theirs, too.
