***TRIGGER WARNING*** This post talks about mental health, mental illness and suicide. Although no specific details are shared, please only read on if you feel strong enough and safe enough to do so. For help and support please visit my mental health and suicide prevention support lines page. Ask for help rather than reading on if that’s what you need, and remember you aren’t alone. ***TRIGGER WARNING***
Mental Health Awareness week is, once again, upon us. For people like me, people who talk openly about their mental illness experiences and try to promote healthier ways of managing the symptoms, it creates a bit of a conflict of interest.
You’d be forgiven for thinking we all want to just take part, to be involved in a national narrative that’s drawing such a huge international audience, and want to help others during this week of open dialogue. For me that’s been true in previous years, but this year things have changed a little.
Let me take you back a bit. In 2021 I’d already been diagnosed as having multiple mental illnesses for about 7 years, and with the benefit of retrospect, I realised I’d been living with them for far longer…they just didn’t have a label for a prolonged time. I think I was masking most of it by hiding my self harm and getting drunk. Managing this kind of way is true for many people, especially those with a personality disorder. So when I started writing about my health on this website I felt I knew enough about all elements of my illness to be confident in my factual knowledge, support ideas, and personal opinions. The truth is, the last 3 years have forced me to learn, study, read and engage a lot more with the community, and the gaps in my knowledge actually turned out to be pretty big. Many gaps still exist.
Luckily I’m able to update and amend the information and thoughts I have on here so whatever I talk about comes with warnings and stays as up-to-date and appropriate as I can manage. However, my personal ability to stay on top of the news surrounding MH, and the faster pace of the mental illness epidemic following the COVID-19 outbreak, wasn’t something I’d thought about. How could anyone predict such complications? It takes time and effort to understand the whole picture, to understand what ‘mental health’ and ‘mental illness’ actually mean, and a huge amount of energy just to understand how to manage your own illness. With that in mind, this week I’ve been asking myself how on earth anyone can be expected to pick up such broad knowledge, enough knowledge to understand even the most obvious or well-known symptoms and diagnosis, in the space of just 7 days?
I know that’s not exactly what the campaign is aiming for, but the conversations that do take place are broad, with no real aims or objectives for us all to think about, discuss and act on, and action is what’s needed. To me at least, it doesn’t feel like anything helpful can really be achieved when the target on the dartboard is wider than the Grand Canyon is deep.
Surely by promoting the idea that #MentalHealthAwareness is well-served in such a short space of time, I’d also be promoting the idea that Mental Illness is something that is quickly solved, managed and understood. For those that look closely at what the week provides, the main topics coming out of social media surround the problems experienced within the ‘celeb brands’ of mental illnesses. That’s not to downplay in any way that specific diagnosis such as Depression, Anxiety, or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder are ‘simple’ or ‘easy to live with’. I know first hand that they can be impossible to handle, life limiting, and sometimes leading to the scariest, most unwelcome and difficult moments we can imagine. The problem is they get all the attention, and those people living with less popular brands of mental illness, such as Psychosis or Personality Disorder, are left without any support or even a mention during a week of campaigning that’s designed to help them.
So what’s the point?
As someone who writes articles and blog posts about this subject, it’s normal for me to receive press releases about mental health related news. Like all press, sometimes the information I received is more relevant than others. However this week, just because it’s #MentalHealthAwareness week, I’ve received multiple press releases from companies looking to abuse the hashtag just to promote the sale of their goods. Companies who have nothing to do with the subject who believe that being attached to the campaign in ANY way will have a positive impact on sales, regardless of how meaningless they’ll make such an important issue become.
It’s infuriating that such a widespread and important subject matter is being diluted in this way. So what do I think we SHOULD be talking about?
Again, in my opinion, the exact diagnosis needs to be put to one side. Whether you know the signs and symptoms of specific illnesses isn’t something you can understand after 3 years at university, let alone half an hour on TikTok. But spending that time online to better understand the mental illness community as a whole will promote an environment of inclusion, rather than excluding those who are amongst the most in need. Instead of talking about the things we’ve heard many times and know well – what anxiety feels like, how to control your breathing when you panic, diets to help with low mood, how to find a therapist if you feel depressed (you know the stuff) – we should be helping everyone to NORMALISE THE CONVERSATION in the real world.
What do I mean by normalise the conversation?
Well, suicide rates are generally thought to STILL be on the rise. Like most people I feel emotionally broken and triggered when I hear such painful stories on the news, and it seems to happen often. Relatives who had no idea someone they spoke to lovingly every day was desperate enough to take their own life have been left grief-stricken by their absence. But when I hear stories like this, rather than asking why the person who made this terrible decision chose to do it, I wonder why on earth they didn’t have anyone to talk to safely about their mental health concerns. It’s a shame isn’t it? They have people who love and care about them so much, but they couldn’t open up to them. It’s a shame that embarrassment and awkwardness are put before saving someones life. Because that’s what it boils down to. Our inability to sit down, feel assured, and take someone seriously when they say ‘I need help’ is leaving those of us who feel suicidal completely alone at the worst possible moment.
Having these conversations now, talking BEFORE a problem raises its ugly head, is exactly what I’ve been campaigning for throughout this year. The MOSAIC Campaign is a suicide prevetion tool that’s all about preventative conversations today rather than broken hearts and regret later.
I know from experience that, when you feel this low, you want to be taken seriously. You want someone to hear you and understand that this is real for you. You want someone to help manage the pain and symptoms in safe and considered ways that you can trust implicitly.
The LAST thing I wanted was to be told to ‘stop talking like that’, because it left me with nowhere to feel safe.
I want a world where everyone feels safe enough to talk when they have feelings or thoughts like this. I want people to know they have a place to go that’s familiar, comfortable and without judgement that’ll provide sanctuary and support, even if it’s all verbal.
I honestly still wish that, on the few occasions I’ve been so scared that I’ve talked out loud about not feeling happy on earth any more, that someone had the headspace and understanding to say more than ‘Please don’t talk that way.’…or words to that effect. My first suicide attempt was thirty years ago, and the response to my thoughts hasn’t changed at all in that time, despite the people around me changing beyond recognition. Nothing has changed, but we all have the power and ability to change it now.
In those situations there are many other useful, kind and effective things that could be said, but shutting someone down because they are saying words you simply don’t want to hear isn’t one of them.
Being comfortable with this discomfort is something useful that anyone can prepare for today, and that one act, that one change in attitude, could potentially save a life.
I’ve had the awful experience as a teenager of hearing others say that my attempts were probably just ‘attention seeking’, and that suicidal ideations are the same. I know that’s not true, but as I’ve said many times before, whatever the reason for these feelings, the person talking needs help. They need someone to trust, to listen, and to help find them the right long-term support.
Now, although I know what might have helped me, I wouldn’t pretend for a moment that I’m qualified enough to tell you how to talk to someone else about this subject. Thankfully though, several UK charities have dedicated pages on this precise subject…
Where to get advice on suicidal thoughts
Mind – please visit their How to help someone who feels suicidal page.
Samaritans – please visit their Supporting someone with suicidal thoughts page.
Re:think – please visit their Suicidal thoughts – how to support someone page.
The NHS also has help and support information on their Help for suicidal thoughts page.
There are many more contact details on my Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Support Lines page.
So, in conclusion, there is obviously a need for more people, everyone in fact, to understand mental illness as a whole. It’s not a discriminatory problem, and could come for anyone at any time. It’s like basic first aid, everyone should know what to look out for and how to react, and it certainly shouldn’t be ignored.
HOWEVER, if the only useful media attention we can give to the problem is limited to a week, then the conversation right now needs to centre around managing the bigger problems that are reasonibly possible and largely effective. Job one is getting comfortable with uncomfortable conversations so mentally unstable people feel assured that they can ask for help without being met with ridicule, judgement or prejudice. It should be the first thing we talk about…for now.
I will continue to promote mental illness coping strategies and support ideas throughout this week, as I do every week, but I’ll also be mentioning the need to talk for longer than 7 days in order for effective change to happen.
As always thanks for reading, and look after yourself. You aren’t alone. 💜
Creative Steph 