Guess who’s back? Back again, dinos back, please like and share.

So it’s been a while, I’ve had to do lots of writing for work recently, which hasn’t left me with much brain capacity to write for enjoyment, but I’m back and return with a rant.

This week is Mental Health Awareness Week, and the theme is stress, which is ironic as stress and work are the reasons I haven’t blogged recently. It often feels like a week can’t go by without there being some kind of awareness day/ week/ month. So far this year, we’ve had time to talk day, self-injury awareness day, university mental health day, eating disorders awareness week and no doubt many others.

This month is borderline personality disorder awareness month. Normally, I’d write something about these or use them as a springboard to write about a related subject, but this time I’m writing about other people’s way of promoting these awareness days.

I know that I often use these awareness days and campaigns to promote my blog, and that’s not what I have an issue with, but people using it to promote their illness or compete over who is the sickest, especially on social media.

Mental health problems and chronic illness already have so much stigma attached, and there are so many misconceptions around them. The biggest areas of stigma I’ve found are within the medical system, from doctors and medical staff. I’ve had several occasions where I’ve been poorly treated and discriminated against due to my mental health, and especially self-harm. So why, when there is already stigma attached, do people within the mental health and chronic illness “communities” claim to be “raising awareness” by glorifying their illness or posting things that just add to the misconceptions?

Posting pictures of your self-harm as part of an awareness day isn’t going to reduce stigma, posting pictures of your face scratched up or countless pictures of your starved body is shocking and attention grabbing but ultimately adds to the idea that self harm is purely graphic and bloody, that personality disorders are all about self harm or that eating disorders are about being thin and fragile.

Mental illness is complex, and it’s often not pretty. We don’t need more images of fragile, delicate white girls or bloody and bruised bodies in the name of raising awareness. If I had £1 for every time a health professional made a throwaway comment about people with personality disorders or treated someone’s self-harm in an unprofessional or even cruel way, I would be a wealthy Dino.

We need to change how we raise awareness and avoid glorifying mental health problems as a way to show the reality of living with mental health issues, because the reality isn’t just what’s visible, and just showing that side of things not only gives a very narrow view but also undermines people who don’t experience mental illness this way.

It’s a broad spectrum, and everyone is different. We all have different experiences; everyone has different symptoms and lifestyles. Mental illness is invisible. Not everyone has scars (at least not physical ones), and that should be the message we send: mental health problems aren’t uncommon, they’re increasing, and you can’t always tell just by looking at someone.