Category: Awareness campaigns

Mental Health awareness week 2021

A cartoon of an outdoor setting. There is a cloud with the word nature in it and a tree with a small bird flying towards in. On the ground is a hedgehog ontop of grass where the words mental health awareness week 10-16 May 2021 are written. In the top righthand corner is the logo for the charity Mental health foundation.

I am aware of mental health. I’m aware of Eating disorders, I’m aware of Autism and Tourette’s and Fibromyalgia, I’m even aware of Goths (yes, there is a Goth awareness day), and I’m very aware of how tired of awareness days I am. At the moment, there is (rightfully) a lot of focus on the mental health effects of the pandemic and lockdown; however, those of us who struggled before feel like we’ve been yelling about social isolation and the 9-5 lifestyle being detrimental to our mental health for years, but no one listened.

The thing about gaining awareness is that it’s meaningless. How do you quantify awareness? How do you evidence it? What exactly is the aim?. People with mental health problems are aware of helplines and Time to Talk campaigns, we’ve heard all the talk to someone messages, but who do we talk to? And what happens when talking isn’t enough? Or when no one listens?.

We’ve tried talking, we’ve asked for and begged for help, we’ve called the helplines, the crisis lines, we’ve been to A&E, walked until our shoes wore out, coloured in our colouring books, we’ve drunk more tea than we can count, and we’ve had a fucking bath. We do all the things we’re told because otherwise we get labelled as difficult or told we don’t really want help; since the pandemic started, the already stretched services are at breaking point. There is no one to talk to.

The messages are well-meaning, but there is a limit to what helplines can do, and even being in contact with services doesn’t guarantee support. In the last two years, three people I know have taken their lives, and all three were known to services. Being told to talk didn’t help them; awareness couldn’t save them. They had all tried talking; they had all tried reaching out.

In less than two weeks, it’ll be two years since Juliette died.

This is why I don’t like awareness campaigns; they’re meaningless, hollow gestures with no real purpose or motive that don’t address the real problems or try to change the systemic problems with mental health services.

Please don’t tell me to reach out, talk or ask for help. I’ve done it for so long, and I’m tired now.

For Nancy, for Juliette, for Ella.

0

Part of the problem?

Dinos back
A green background with a pink dinosaur cartoon carrying a black briefcase and a pink walking stick. The words dinos back are at the top in black

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.

0

Website Powered by WordPress.com.

Up ↑