Celebrating Mental Health

Ooooh, hang on a minute - he's off with the fairies again or going to be controversial (unusually!) - "Celebrate Mental Health, what are you talking about Steve?"

It's Mental Health Awareness week next week and I know that for many people it will evoke thoughts of "here we go again" or "I know I'm struggling - I need help, not reminding" or "at last, a whole week dedicated to raising awareness of key issues." Or, <<insert preferred perspective here>>.

I want to make two distinctions firstly - 1) I'm talking about Mental Health (i.e. your overall wellbeing and what's affecting your thoughts and behaviours) and the myriad of conditions that affect or determine our mental health - NOT mental illness which is a whole different subject. And 2) Everyone has Mental Health - right now while you're reading this, YOU have mental health! Just as you have physical health! I lose count of how many times I pick up on posts, comments or conversations where I hear "they're struggling, they've got mental health" - yep, just like the rest of us! We all have mental health - how we deal with it and whether we struggle with it and how, is as unique as our fingerprint.

So, with MHAW being next week, 9th to 15th May, it dawned on me that rather than dwell on possible negatives, downsides, issues or challenges and then apply ideas and thoughts to "fix" it in the name of supporting each other - let's do something incredible AND different AND in line with latest Diversity and Inclusion thinking and celebrate the fact we all have mental health and its diverse outputs is what makes us all human, unique and beautiful!

For long enough, we've had this kind of invisible "centre line" of normality where we (elements of our societies and cultures) try to do what we can to bring everyone back to! This is, however, changing massively and we're seeing more and more great stuff around gender balance, diversity and inclusion, embracing visible and non-visible disabilities, sexuality etc - the list, thankfully, goes on. So, let's dedicate next week to adding to all of that the huge diversity of issues that are around Mental Health!

Now, I'm not advocating jumping around shouting "yay I've got PTSD, let's all have a party" cos apart from being hugely incongruent, it would also be unhelpful - but, I am advocating celebrating in the form of embracing our mental health, recognising how it's shaped / shaping us, the positives it's taught / teaching us and the good things it's bringing to our lives.

I know first-hand the devastating effect of poor or inconsistent mental health and I hear stories all the time of those who are or have struggled - but what I'm advocating is not to pigeon hole people or give false sympathy and least of all to provide fixes - instead to support the diverse mental health issues that exist with acceptance and no judgement and to celebrate it's what contributes to making us all unique.

I'm delivering a talk next week around the subject of the impact of poor mental health and the impact on those around us - so, if we can embrace someone's uniqueness in other forms, isn't the key to supporting those with mental health struggles, empathy, acceptance and love?

So, come on, let's use Mental Health Awareness Week to celebrate a core element of our uniqueness - our Mental Health.