Talk about it

The third theme for Movember is awareness of mental health and suicide so that's my focus for this week. My initial concept for the title this week was 'it's ok to talk' but I changed to a more direct 'talk about it' as I feel that direction rather than permission is the right way to go.

I guess that all of us feel low from time to time and I don't think that I am unique in my firmly held belief that when someone asks me how I am feeling, they don't really want anything more than "I'm doing fine thanks, how are you?" But I also think that there are times when people really are interested in knowing just how fine.

Roman Kemp shared his own experiences in BBC Three - Roman Kemp: Our Silent Emergency following the suicide of one of his friends. His encouragement to others afterwards is to ask more than once. Considering that men are three times more likely to commit suicide than women, it seems that there is a clear need for us to find different ways to talk.

It's hard that anything related to the brain or feelings is lumped together as mental health as it makes it more difficult to talk about. There's a difference between not feeling so happy, feeling a bit low, feeling melancholic, finding it hard to smile, being depressed and considering suicide. And I don't think that there's an automatic progression from one to the next. I do know that when I have mentioned I am feeling a bit down I then start to get anxious that the person I have told will start to want regular updates or expect me to talk about it the next time we meet. And yes you may have realised that I am one of those people who finds it really hard to talk about this type of thing!

On the other hand however I am acutely interested in making sure that my friends are doing ok. I am more than willing to be a listening ear, not judging and making sure that I check back from time to time how they are getting on. I am just not good at accepting it in return.

I found this website Worried About Someone's… | Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) to be an interesting one and I liked the simple guide that they had put together to help people to talk about mental wellbeing. I also thought that the Movember section on mental health Movember - Men's Health - Mental Health & Suicide Prevention offered some practical advice and their ALEC mnemonic was a handy way to navigate conversations.

When I completed my postgraduate qualification on the psychology of wellbeing, I found the shift in focus to how we can maintain our mental health to be really useful. Some of the things that you may find useful included keeping a gratitude diary. With this approach you can just make the time each day to write down three things that you are grateful for. Maybe that's the first sip of a great cup of coffee, the train being on time, a bit of blue sky seen through the office window. Try and find different things each day. At the end of the week, or a fortnight (whatever works for you), sit down with a cup of tea (or preferred beverage) and read through the many things that you have appreciated. It really can help to choose to focus on the positives and to actively seek to acknowledge those.

Why not consider making a donation to Movember to support the three key areas of their work https://uk.movember.com/mospace/15261724 Thank you to everyone who has sponsored me.