April 1, 2015 - Written by: Becky Solomon

Talking About Mental Health

Whenever mental health hits the headlines, there is an outpouring of ‘the need to talk about it’. Suddenly over every social media platform there was articles discussing the importance of getting it out in the open, and how we shouldn’t feel uncomfortable talking about it, so the stigma can be reduced and so people can admit when they are struggling.

I read article after article and status after status about how important talking about mental health is. Each one of these felt like a way of this person admitting that they had suffered in one way or another. Yet not one of them openly said, ‘I have depression/OCD/Anxiety…’

Yes, we can talk about the need to talk about mental health. But how many of us are open to talking about their personal experiences, or even admitting it to those who are close to you?

How many of you share that with your work colleagues, your friends or your family? How many of you have thought there is nothing wrong and you just need to ‘pull yourself together?’

I had depression.

I am not ashamed of it but I don’t chose to tell many people. As calculated as it may seem, I sort of like to hear people’s honest reaction to mental health rather than listen to their masked response after I’ve told them.

I think it’s so difficult to talk about it because there is absolutely no denying there is a stigma attached. It makes a lot of people uncomfortable simply because they can’t imagine it. It’s treated as something to tiptoe around and be politically correct about which is why I don’t really go around telling people.

One of the biggest fears I experienced at the time, and one of the things that lingered around afterwards, was people acting differently around me as soon as they knew. They checked in on me more, measured their action and responses. The last thing I wanted was to make people feel like they were walking on eggshells, even if at times I couldn’t quite keep it together and they were.

The Germanwings plane crash turned the media’s attention back to mental health. Despite some of the truly shocking headlines, there was a quote from James Fallows that said, ‘…it is worth resisting the temptation to think that some new regulation or device can offer perfect protection against calculated malice. Unfortunately no-one can’.

(Image via)

Although we don’t know whether it was ‘calculated malice’, the point is that perhaps pinpointing a reason, such as depression is not the most useful reaction.

Mental health issues can happen to anyone at any time and think to use it as an explanation, massively oversimplifies the situation.

I am 24, I have had depression and I no longer consider to have depression and I certainly don’t believe I should be judged on it or treated any differently. To be honest, it’s probably now what makes me motivated, determined and always willing to give something a go.

Watch this video from Get the Picture campaign:

People always wonder why I do so much. Well, it felt like I lost two years of me life. We take for granted so much the fact that we are healthy. It’s not a given, and we should do what we can, when we can.

So this is me, talking about mental health, hoping to join the others out there to convince the daily mail readers, we are just like everyone else. 🙂

If you enjoyed this article, why not check out ‘My Body, My Buddy – Taking Care of Me’?