Imagine public services we can trust because we know their ranks are mentally healthy and well adjusted. It seems this might be only a fantasy if we’re to consider Laura Mackenzie from Inverness whose offer of a position with the Scottish Police was withdrawn because she was taking antidepressants.

Under Home Office guidance, applicants must be two years free of prescription antidepressants on entering training. Mackenzie is now taking her case to an employment tribunal stating that this equates to disability discrimination.

This Herald exclusive, and excellent follow-up articles by Caroline Wilson, revealed this is often decided on a case-case basis in police forces across the UK. However, I was stunned to learn that the guidance that many police forces use was issued in 2004, that the advice is almost two decades old.

In that 19-year gap the world has changed significantly, as has our understanding of mental health. Indeed, one in four people suffer from mental health problems. NHS data shows that 8.32 million patients were taking antidepressants in 2021/22, almost 6% higher than 2020/21, with use increasing every year for the last six years.

READ MORE: Police Scotland sued over 'outdated' antidepressant rule

I take antidepressants. I was 37 when I started. I should have gone to the doctors earlier, before I couldn’t stop crying in public, when I started to feel the surging fizz of anxiety more than nerves, less rational than just everyday worries.

Before, I woke every day with dread in the pit of my stomach. But eventually I did go to the doctor. ‘I don't feel good’ I told him in desperation, in tears, ‘I’m struggling.’ He didn’t look at me and only said one word, ‘OK’ before sliding a wonkily printed tick-box form and a chewed up biro across to me. The form asked, among other questions, ‘How often have you been bothered by feeling down, depressed or hopeless?’.

I ticked every day. I was done, he gave my answers a cursory glance, like a menu at a restaurant he ate at regularly, and prescribed me antidepressants. He didn’t tell me about the side effects, or why I'd been prescribed 40mg daily, he did tell me, finally meeting my eye with an encouraging smile, ‘Some women actually lose weight on these.’ I didn’t know that blister pack of lemon and lime pills, Prozac, would change my life but they absolutely did.

I'd always felt like I was finding things harder than other people. I understood why: a childhood punctuated by poverty, my teens, featuring homelessness, sexual assault and rape. Of course, I did not move through life like many other people did, believing that everything would be fine, because hadn't life taught me otherwise? But I was often disappointed and angry with myself for not coping better.

READ MORE: Police Scotland facing legal cases over antidepressant rule

But, with the help of antidepressants, I was able to have the life I had worked hard for and deserved. I was still absolutely myself, just not frightened or stressed all the time. I didn't anticipate the worst and I dealt calmly and rationally with challenges. I started enjoying things again. I finished the book I was writing. I moved to London with my husband. I travelled and went to festivals. I had the most successful year of my career.

I didn't know that taking antidepressants could be life-changing in other ways, potentially blocking me from jobs and opportunities, and I wonder if I did, would I have ever gone to the GP and how would things have ended for me?

I've seen a lot of rationalising around the case of Laura Mackenzie, purporting that somehow she would not be fit for the job of police officer. But I would suggest that the person who is not fit for duty in a public facing and vital job are those who have never tackled their mental health problems. The real problem is those who would self medicate with drugs, alcohol or self or socially destructive behaviours. Indeed, hasn’t the recent woeful track record at the Metropolitan Police shown that mental illness is in fact rife in many public service jobs whether we’re calling it that or not?

I tried to think of the most important job I could trust someone with and I thought about my beautiful son, two and a half years old, a golden child who sings Whitney Houston while he eats his Shreddies in the morning. I would set myself on fire alive to protect him. I can tell you, hand on my heart, if a childminder came to me and said they were on antidepressants, if they told me they were having therapy, that I would feel 100% safer, giving my child to them to care for because I knew that they were self-aware and strong enough to seek help.

My greatest fear is that this will put people off seeking treatment for mental health because they are afraid to take medication and the impact that might have on their career. Particularly, since talking or alternative therapies are harder and harder to access on the NHS which, Mind, the mental health charity, recently said was, ‘At breaking point’, stating, ‘A bruised NHS has stumbled on with mental health care post-Covid, battling with an increasingly inadequate budget that doesn’t give our services the chance to catch up and recover – let alone improve.’

Surely, it can only benefit our public services and public safety if those at the very heart of it are more aware of their mental health? Talking therapy should be available to them all with no stigma and if they need antidepressants, then of course that should be supported if that’s what they medically need to be well.

In case you're wondering, I could make a great police officer. At night, I’d take my two Prozac capsules and in the morning, I'd wake up and would be able to face the day, calm and compassionate and responsible, responsive without being reactionary.

I would specifically be good at the job because I've looked after my mental health for many years now. Because I am aware of how I behave and interact with other people. Rather than being penalised for caring for their mental health, the applicants to the police force should be commended for making themselves healthier so that they might make society healthier too.