There is a majority of people who will read the title of this and skip over it, Mental Health still has a huge stigma clapped onto it. I am one of the 1 in 4 people who suffer with a 'illness', and I mean 'illness' loosely. Why do I mean 'illness' in that way? Because it's something that never be cured like an illness, and you will never really recover from it.
Mental illness is something that you live with, you learn how to cope, where to go if you need help and guidance. You have great, good, poor and horrid days (sometimes even minutes and seconds). Everyone also has different symptoms, different ways that it effects their life but also different ways of coping.
It's encouraging for someone like myself who are the 1 in 4, that there has been some progress - Time-To-Change that works towards openly talking about it, politicians and celebrities 'coming out', channel 4's Mad Season (however for me the name still re-enforced the 'mad part of mental health.). There are however many things that need to improve but the seeds have been sow.
There are many inspiring people out there who are knocking down the stigmas that people not in the know have. Rachael at Live, Food, Love writes the most honest and beautiful entries on her life that includes coping with Mental Health. Then, there's Amanda from Beauty From Pain Blog who not voices her opinions on Mental Health but SHOUTS about it for other sufferers, using her experiences to re-educate non-suffers.
You can also read my other entry Hope You're OK about my mental illness.
If you have read this, thank you for taking the time to stop, taking the first step of breaking the stigma and reading this rather than skipping over.
Channel 4 isn't known for their PC-ness but that reference actually made me laugh!
ReplyDeleteJust wanted to write to channel 4 and put the word 'smooth'. Whoever who paid person thought that should of been shot really.
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