Tag Archives: education

World Mental Health day

10 Tuesday Oct 2017

Posted by in Advice, Depression, Lists, Mental health, Success

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Today is World Mental Health Day so here are some ideas on how to mark the day and make it meaningful:

1.  Sit down and discuss your diagnosis with somebody who may not understand mental health issues.  You don’t need to tell them about your problems or what happened to you but just share some information on what it is like to have anxiety, depression, bipolar etc.

2.  Do something nice for somebody who you know is going through a difficult time.  Buy them a cup of tea, share your chocolate, give them a flower, give a compliment.

3.  Do something to nurture yourself today – treat yourself to a manicure, lie down quietly with a book, doodle on a scrap of paper, start a journal, meditate, light a candle next to your bath.

4. Eat or drink something healthy and nourishing.

5. Offer to help somebody in need.

6. Greet every person that you meet with a smile (don’t worry if they don’t smile back – that’s their problem).

7.  Take a moment to count your blessings.  Write them down or share them with somebody.

8.  Spend a few minutes just breathing deeply (preferably outside in the fresh air)

9.  Send an sms or whatsapp to somebody that you haven’t spoken to in a while – tell them that you are thinking of them and that you care.

10.  Tell your manager (or your partner or kids) that it is World Mental Health day and for the sake of your mental health, you will be leaving work/responsibilities early today (okay if not today, make sure you schedule a day off or a few hours off for quality ‘me time’).

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Dealing with invisible illness

30 Wednesday Sep 2015

Posted by in Advice, Depression, Illness, Mental health, Stress

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This week is Invisible Illness Week – a week to highlight illness that nobody else sees.

http://invisibleillnessweek.com/
And because nobody can see it, there is a good chance that nobody (or most people at least) really don’t understand what you are going through.
How can they? There is nothing to see.
In order to be seen as sick, it is really helpful to have a cast on at least one limb, a drip stand would be useful, an awful sounding cough might help too.
Unfortunately, many people have an invisible illness and they suffer in silence.  In fact, most invisible illnesses become worse if you are stressed.
If you are suffering on your own, feeling tense and angry, it is only going to make your symptoms worse.

While I think it is so important to have awareness weeks for illness, it is more important for you to take responsibility for yourself:

1.  Speak up!  People can’t see what you are going through so you need to let them know.  You don’t have to spend ages moaning and complaining but you do need to let people around you know that you are battling.

2.  Ask for help!  There are no prizes for doing everything by yourself – believe me, if there were I would be overwhelmed by the amount of prizes that I would get.
Tell people what you need and what they can do for you – people often like feeling that they have an important role to play and by giving them a practical task to help you, they will feel good and it will benefit you – win-win!

3.  Educate!  You have a responsibility to educate people about your illness.  People are only going to understand if you become an advocate for your illness.

4.  Be gentle on yourself.  If you are going through a tough time, take some time out to recover and don’t (DON’T!) feel guilty about not being the perfect parent, spouse, partner, colleague etc.

5.  Putting other people’s needs before your own is not going to make you any better.  It is nice to be nice but know that you don’t need to be nice to other people to feel good about yourself – you are wonderful! That is enough.

6.  Take breaks!  If you don’t make the decision to take a break to look after your health, your body will force you to take a break when you burn out or your immune system crashes – it is your choice.

7.  You are NOT your illness!  You may feel that it totally dominates your life but it is a guest in your body, not the general manager.

Facing up to mental illness

16 Wednesday Sep 2015

Posted by in Advice, Attitude, Being brave, Mental health

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There is something that has been making its rounds on social media and I’ve read it a few times, and thought that is a bit harsh, but I’m going to share it anyway:

Telling someone with
Anxiety to “just stop worrying”
Depression to “just be happy”
Insomnia to “just go to sleep”
Anorexia to “just eat”
Bulimia to “just keep it in”
Self Harm issues to “just stop cutting”
Problems to “just get over it”
is like stabbing yourself in the stomach with a massive knife and saying “just stop bleeding” and then immediately feeling better.

I have a problem with the “stabbing yourself in the stomach” analogy because it is a bit ( more like very) violent but it is really true for people who battle with any mental illness (yes, that is what it is).
Whether it is family, friends or work colleagues, there are going to be people who really don’t understand what you are going through.
So we come to a dilemma:
How hard do we try to teach these people to understand what you really feel like?
There are people who are going to have no empathy at all – and those are often the people who would actually understand what you are going through if they were brave enough to face themselves and realise that they have problems too.  It is easier for those people to point fingers and to judge you than to look at themselves in the mirror.

I would rather you concentrate your energy on working on yourself and getting better than trying to prove something to someone who doesn’t actually want anything proved to them except that they are right.

Yes, you deserve better.
Yes, you deserve to have people who understand you.
But you need to be your own superhero.
Stand up for your right not to be OK, educate people around you, share your feelings and experiences with them but also humbly admit that some people are just not going to understand.  And that is OK too.

Let’s talk about Depression

27 Thursday Aug 2015

Posted by in Depression, Illness, Mental health

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Today is a special person’s birthday.
What makes her special?  Well, there are a lot of reasons but mainly that she doesn’t know how special she is.  She battles and battles with depression so this week’s post is inspired by her.
It is also inspired by all of you who continue to read my posts – if you are here and reading this, you are working on yourself and working to find ways to cope better and be well.  That means that you are more awesome and special than you know and I am constantly inspired by you!

Depression (and all mental illness) is one of the hardest illnesses for people to understand.
Let’s look at what it is NOT:
Depression is not just feeling sad.
You cannot just “snap” out of it, no matter how much you wish you could.
Depression is not about feeling sorry for yourself or attention seeking.
It is not just a psychological illness – it affects you physically as well, and sometimes the physical effects feel so much worse than the psychological ones.  The constant tiredness, low energy and ongoing pain can be the most debilitating part of depression.
Depression is not the same in every one – some people can have it quite mildly while others are in such a deep, dark space, they don’t even have the energy to contemplate killing themselves.
Depression is not that different from any other illness like diabetes, asthma or hypertension – it is just in a different part of your body – there should not ever be a competition about which one is more serious, which is more life threatening, which one should receive more attention and which one should get more funding.

Every illness is a battle but obviously depression is close to my heart because I work with it every day.
If you have depression, you have some responsibilities that come with it:
You are responsible for being an advocate for your rights.
You are responsible for being an ambassador for mental health and being a true role model for taking responsibility for your health and well being.
You are responsible for not using it as an excuse either – there are people with all kinds of mental and physical illnesses who keep on working at getting better and finding better ways to be the best person that they can be.  They don’t let it determine who they are or what they can or can’t do.

If you have depression, please share this with people to help them to understand you better and to start a conversation about mental health.
If you know somebody who has depression, be kind and understanding.  I could not say it as eloquently as Stephen Fry – the wonderful man who has really given a voice to depression:

stephen-fry depression