Mental ill health does not discriminate.
That is why I do what I do every single day. I’ll keep talking about mental health, and continue supporting adults and children improve their mental health. I’ll keep challenging the system that lets people down. To raise awareness, I’ll keep running workshops.
Even when it makes some people feel uncomfortable, I’ll keep sharing my story. I hope others continue to share my posts, and tell people about the work I do. One small change we can all implement is to learn to have supportive and open conversations about mental ill health and mental health.
Families are affected by suicide every day, families are living with mental illness every day. The more we talk about it, the more opportunities we give people to open up and not feel so wrong, lonely or isolated in their own minds.
This isn’t going away, this isn’t happening somewhere else. It doesn’t end after a funeral or a story dies down – this is real life for a quarter, maybe even a third of our country.
1 in 4 adults and 1 in 8 children
Please get on board every day.
From my own experience, I didn’t tell anyone about how unwell I was for fear of rejection, judgement. Being seen as the failure I felt because that is how society makes us feel when we are unwell. By not talking about mental health, casting judgements on ‘crazy’ people, it contributes to the stigma. The harsh words we use, the cruel media portrayals – we can do better.
The lack of boundaries on social media, the absence of common decency and the intolerance hidden behind ‘I am entitled to my opinion’ – yes, you are entitled to an opinion. But unless you know the whole story, it’s just a perception of something you may well know nothing about.
I wasn’t ‘crazy’ or ‘mad’. My brain and my system was unwell. I helped myself get better and fought to understand myself. In the end only I could do it and support was nice when I did get the right people involved.