Let’s face it, since the pandemic in 2019, mental health whether people liked it or not was brought to the forefront. In the past, it seems that mental health was only discussed if people were acting out of character, going ‘off the rails’ or ‘losing the plot’. So, I’m wondering whilst many people are still recovering from the aftermath of Covid-19..is mental health still a tricky topic to bring up? Has the stigma around mental health worsened or improved? Maybe it’s not the kind of topic you want to be discussing at a dinner table. Are people still afraid to open up about what’s going on inside their head? Do people even know what’s going on inside their head?
It can be a mess up there at times. It has become clear to me in the past week or so since reintegrating back into the UK society that everyone is very, very busy. Time seems to be stretched beyond belief. When do people get the opportunity to consider how they are feeling mentally let alone sit down for five minutes and take a moment to pause. I feel myself getting caught back up in this whirlwind of life which I have detached myself from so easily for the past three years.
Moving abroad, I have realised, gave so much more than the experiences of another culture. It gave me time, which I believe to be the greatest currency of all. Time is not infinite – we don’t know how long we’ll have on this precious planet yet we so easily get caught in the juxtaposition of life itself. Living away from UK society, and on my own, I had a lot of time to self reflect, to understand myself on a deeper level, why I do the things I do or react in the ways I do. Would I have been able to develop this understanding of myself had I not been offered the gift of time? I sincerely doubt it.
Fortunate as I am, not everyone has the opportunity to afford themselves this experience. So does that mean that they don’t get to understand their mind? I don’t think so. Once you begin to notice your own awareness, this in itself leads you into a new way of thinking about your mental health. Mental health seems to be discussed in a negative way. It has negative connotations – maybe because mental health struggles in the past were quite often swept under the carpet. I know one of my parents mentality is very much “there’s nothing wrong, just get on with it”.
Just getting on with it may also be all well and good however, there is a growing body of research that supports how stress, anxiety and depression can manifest themselves in the body in physical form. Consider the word disease. What do you associate with this word? Maybe it’s something that is inherent in family genetics or something you can pick up from the external world. Have you ever considered the prefix of the word? Dis-ease. The definition of this is lack of ease.
When you consider the busy lives that the majority of us are leading and the amount of mental ‘stuff’ we have to juggle from financial matters in paying bills, family commitments especially if you have children because you’re also managing their commitments too whether it’s school, homework or extra curricular activities, home life from getting the washing done, keeping the house clean, cooking and then there’s your fitting in your own hobbies, socialising with others and that’s not even including those of us with a 9-5 job. There is no doubt about it, the lives we are leading does not serve us in our true essence of being human! No wonder everyone sighs a great big sigh of relief if someone in the WhatsApp group cancels plans. We are on burn out mode.
So where does mental health come in to all this? That’s exactly my point. Where does it? There’s no time for it yet we are asking so much of our mind and body that we barely even have time to reflect on it and therefore it just start to manifest in ways like stress, insomnia, anxiety or depression. When you feel the effects of these building up, you might go to the doctor, explain how busy your life is, your overwhelmed or just got a lot on your plate. What usually happens next? You are prescribed a pack of happy pills that mask what is actually going on in your body. Have you got to the root cause of your mental health issue? No, of course you haven’t but now you can pretend it’s not bothering you for a while at least whilst you continue on with the rat race of life. Some of us are more than happy to live like that, in fact, some people truly thrive off it whilst some of us feel trodden and beaten.
Alongside the masters I’m undertaking in psychotherapy… I’ve just applied for a job recently to teach a mental health literacy programme in schools..imagine learning all these tools and techniques on how to understand your mind as part of every day education? I wish I’d learnt these as a younger, anxiety riddled adolescent.. I wonder how my life would be different.
So I really would like to find out… do you feel like you could learn ways to better manage your time and dedicate more of it to yourself, to untangling the mind and understanding more about yourself and what your mental health is speaking to you? Are you intrigued or scared? Do you feel like mental health is still a taboo subject or can you speak openly and honestly? I invite you to share openly and honestly. Let’s make it easier to speak about mental health and turn the taboo into woohoo!