Tag Archives: mental health

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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Take a compliment

11 Monday Sep 2017

Posted by in Advice, Change, Coping skills, Mental health, Stress

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I work with people daily who have extreme work stress and almost across the board they have the same complaint. They never get recognised for the good that they are doing but if they do something wrong, then they get a lot of attention.
It really upsets me that this happens. Why don’t people get credit and recognition that they deserve?
One of the reasons is that it is expected that you will always perform brilliantly- you should never make mistakes, you shouldn’t put a foot out of line and you certainly shouldn’t challenge management.
The problem is that when you work harder you are expected to keep up that standard. So you push yourself harder and work more and become more stressed and burn out and make a mistake. And then you are punished – for being stressed. For being human!

So how do we change this? Well the difficult part is that we are not going to change other people’s perceptions but you can change your own:
1. Accept that you can’t always work at 100% and be gentle on yourself
2. Don’t expect compliments (sad, I know) – work hard because you enjoy doing it not because it is expected of you
3. Compliment yourself when you know that you’ve done well (and that might even include a little gift for yourself)
4. Take the fact that people notice everything that you do (good or bad) as a compliment
5. Insist on occasionally taking a ‘mental health’ day – time out for doing something that nourishes your mind, body and soul

Be here for me on my cloudy days

29 Thursday Jun 2017

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

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A lot of people are fascinated by the job that I do – for many people it makes for great dinner conversations: “tell us about your crazy patients!” or “tell us about how you got threatened your bipolar patient…”
It is like I have some kind of brilliant and exciting job like a performer who gets shot out of a cannon every night at a circus (now that is a job that I wouldn’t mind having).
It just shows how so many people are ignorant about what mental illness really is.
What makes it worse is that most of you are constantly dealing with family, friends and colleagues who think that you are:
– crazy
– difficult
– attention seeking
– overly dramatic
(pick one or all)

I swing between the idea of standing up for yourself and educating others or just being quiet and ignoring their ignorance.  You need to be honest with the people that you trust though and make it clear that you need their support more than you need their advice, their criticism or their need to be able to “fix” you.
I found this beautiful piece by one of my favourite poets, Tyler Knott Gregson:

I cannot promise
I will never become restless,
that I won’t ache
in ways you don’t know
how to help.
There are clouds in me
and they roll in
from time to time,
I hope you learn to love
the dark mornings,
instead of always
fumbling around
for your umbrella.

In an ideal world, you would be surrounded by people who will love or respect you even on your cloudy days.  Unfortunately it will not always be that way but if you can find one or two people who really respect you for being you, who will see beyond the depression and the stress, then those are the people who you should be with.
It may even be worth sharing this poem with the people in your life.

Be proudly you!  Demand respect by starting with being respectful to yourself.
You know that you are worth it!

Thoughts on blessings

02 Thursday Feb 2017

Posted by in Advice, Attitude, Gratitude, Illness, Mental health

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This week has been a really horrible one on a lot of levels but for me one of the most horrific parts of the week was the news that 94 mentally ill patients have died in our province.  They died because they did not receive proper care.
It really opens up the conversation yet again about why there is such stigma and lack of education when it comes to mental health and illness.
My heart breaks for the families affected by this.

The lesson taken from this is how truly blessed anyone is to have access to healthcare.  Yes, it should be a right and not a blessing but unfortunately that is the way it is.
If you are not well but you have access to doctors and medication and therapists, you are lucky.
Take some time to appreciate that.
In a world where we are constantly comparing ourselves to other people, stop and look at how much you actually have.
Feeling sorry for yourself because you don’t have as much as the next person (seems to have) or you are not as healthy as somebody else is not going to help you at all.
You are so blessed to have what you have.
Don’t ever forget that!

Thank you for being an inspiration

12 Thursday Jan 2017

Posted by in Attitude, Being brave, Depression, Fear, Positivity

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Here’s to the brave ones:
The people that are brave enough to say no.
Who don’t stand for being treated badly or unfairly.
The people who do something about their problems rather than hiding away from them.
Those who are able to say “I am fine with being myself – don’t try to change me”

I hate the fact that I even have to use the word brave.  You shouldn’t have to be brave to be different.  You shouldn’t have to be brave to stand up for what you believe or to say how you are feeling.
Unfortunately, it has become difficult for people to say out loud how they really feel.  Because it is difficult to feel like you are different from everyone else.
The truth is that you are not different from everyone else – there are a lot of people going through hardships who also don’t want anyone to know or who see it as a sign of weakness to talk about their pain.
So what happens is you get a lot of people (apparently close to 40% of the population – although I think it is a higher number) who are all not feeling good and most of them put on a “mask”.  Then everybody thinks that everybody else is okay.

I am constantly inspired by the people who are prepared to drop the mask.  They are the people who say that they feel depressed, some that will admit that they are disappointed, those who say they are not sure if they were born in the right body, that they don’t want to follow the career that they were ‘meant’ to follow,  that maybe they married the wrong person…. The list is endless and there are people who speak up. They are the brave and inspiring ones.
I really hope that you are one of them.  Or that you plan to become one of them.
We need more people in the world like you!
Thank you for being an inspiration!

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

Depression – Part Two

28 Tuesday Apr 2015

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

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Last week’s blog about depression reached over 36 000 views which is a record for I don’t want to be stressed.
Obviously, I was elated that so many people had read my blog but it also saddened me to think that of all the blogs that I write, the one about depression would touch the most people.
Clearly this is a topic that needs to be spoken about and put in bright lights more often.
So, I will start here:
Depression is a real illness – it is not a mood or a random feeling, it is not attention seeking behaviour or feeling sorry for yourself and it is definitely not anything to be ashamed about!

The same goes for every mental illness in the book.  If an estimated 33% of all people have some kind of mental illness then there is a good chance that the people around you who are intolerant of your problems, probably have a mental illness too.  They are just not as brave as you.  They are your neighbours, your friends, your employers and your colleagues .  And while it might be obvious that your crazy aunt on your father’s side of the family is mentally unstable, it may not be so noticeable in the person who manages the entire company that you work for.

I believe that in a world where people are so intolerant of each other – whether it is because of race, religion, gender, social class or illness – we (yes, that means you!) need to be the shining examples.
We have to be the people who ask for help, who reach out to others, who express much more love than hatred.
We need to be the smilers, the huggers, the grateful, the hopeful and the true survivors.

Please spread the word. Nobody needs to be alone because of an illness.

Mental Health Awareness

01 Friday Aug 2014

Posted by in Depression, Mental health, Success

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July is over and it has been a really busy month for me.
It was Mental Health Awareness month and it has been filled with talks, meetings and events.
What I really hope comes out of all of this is that people become more tolerant.
Sometimes this world seems like it has gone crazy because there is so much intolerance. And it is bad enough that intolerance is based on religion, race or gender. But then added to all of that nonsense, there is intolerance based on a person’s illness and disability. That intolerance is what really frustrates me.
Just last week, another one of my patients lost their job because their employer was not prepared to help them by finding employment that is better suited to them (and by the way, in South Africa, it is law that employers need to find suitable employment within their company if a person is no longer functionally able to do their previous job).
And when I say patient, I’m not even meant to use that word.  We went from working with patients, to clients to mental health users!
But it doesn’t matter what word we use if those people leave our support and go into an environment where they get little or no support from others.

I can certainly try to change things, and I always make it my mission to fight for the rights of my patients and to educate others in understanding mental health.
But the best people to do this are the ones who have been diagnosed with a mental illness.
And there’s a good chance that it is you, or somebody else that you know and love.
There is nothing better than being the person who is diagnosed with bipolar mood disorder, depression or anxiety saying out confidently that they are ok with their diagnosis and are not only capable of coping in the world but are able to do even more than that.
Because you are strong, resilient survivors!

This morning I met a woman who had been diagnosed with a mental illness and who really battled to get the support that she needed.  So as soon as she was stable enough, she set up a facility that would provide others with the care that she so badly felt she needed.
That is a brilliant success story.
And it doesn’t have to be limited to just her. Or to just the brave ones out there.
Everyone of you has such potential no matter what is “wrong” with you.
When you break through all of the barriers and negative expectations that others have of you, you are truly going to be brilliant.

I look forward to hearing your success stories!