Mental health has definitely been getting more of an awareness in the last few years particularly with politicians consideration the impact that the lockdown will have. However, until researching more into it, I didn’t realise how much I am affected by the stigma that still surrounds mental health.

If you experience a serious physical injury, you would rush to get medical assistance. Is it the same when you experience deep emotional pain? An example of this I’m sure a lot of people can relate to is if you have to let someone know that you have to drop out of doing something because of how you were feeling, what would you say? Would you be more comfortable saying “I have a headache” rather than “I am feeling extremely depressed”? Or you might use other physical health problems and say “I just haven’t had enough sleep” or “I just haven’t been eating well recently”. Of course, physical factors can have an impact on our mental health but when I have used similar statements, I have sometimes downplayed more serious emotional issues. I do sometimes struggle to be fully honest in conversations with people. It can be not always knowing to fully explain how I’m really feeling in a way that people will understand and other reasons that I will talk about in another instalment but on the whole, I am seeing some improvement in that.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the survey it put up a few months ago when I asked if and why you struggle with sharing your mental health problems, it was good to get a better idea of what some of the issues are and I hope this particular post helps you. I noticed that fear played a big part in people’s struggles including fear of being a burden, being judged and being misunderstood and labelled.

The following videos helped me to think more about this, particularly in the first one with the hands in front of the face, stopping you from seeing the real people behind them.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope you find it helpful. As always, fee free to get in touch with any questions/feedback/comments, I always love to hear it. Stay tuned for the next instalment.

Until next time

Kathryn