Today has been a little bit of a whirlwind of stress and tiredness (yay for auditions with anxiety!!) so today's post is going to be a little one, but hopefully important all the same.
I've thought about this a bit today, and realised that so far both in yesterday's post and on my blog in general I speak primarily about mental health issues themselves, and the stigma, fears and general bizarreness that surrounds trying to deal with them whilst having to attempt being a 'normal' human being. I'm 100% okay about this, because of course we need to keep opening up conversations about mental illness, and as a Time to Change Young Champion it's my job apart from anything else!! However, I think it's hugely important too to recognise that Mental Health Awareness Week is about ALL mental health, all of us - not just mental illnesses or the bits we struggle with.
The most important thing to realise, in terms of helping shift attitudes towards mental illness too, is that we all have Mental Health. Every single one of us, no matter how much we might struggle with it or to what degree, have mental health that affects everything we do, every single day. The problem is that a) society isn't too cool about acknowledging that, and b), no one teaches us how to look after it. If you get a cold, most people know that the things that might help include honey and lemon, curling up under blankets, throat sweets, hot water bottles and sleep. If we sprain our ankles, we know to rest it, pack it with frozen peas until it goes numb and elevate it onto all available chairs/tables/dogs etc - but no one teaches us how to help look after ourselves when your mental health decides to take a little nosedive off a cliff, even though it might hurt and stop you from doing the things you love (and hate but kinda-have-to-do) just as much.
When I say that I'm 100% behind Mental Health education being compulsory on the school curriculum, I don't just mean that we should be taught about mental health conditions the same way we are taught about sensitive physical illnesses. We need to teach, nurture and enable ourselves to understand, recognise and be aware of our own mental wellbeing - the things that make us sad, the things that affect our ability to concentrate or feel joy as incandescently or the things that calm us down. We need to learn that the things we feel are valid, no matter how silly or tiny or impossibly scary they might seem inside - and if we can learn how to practice self care and kindness when we need it, that'll be a huge step both for us and for helping understand and recognise the importance of our mental health too.
It's so impossibly hard to find ways to practice self care when we need it that don't feel like selfishness, because we're taught that putting ourselves first is wrong - but sometimes your own mental health and wellbeing just has to come first. I struggle with this desperately and it sends my anxiety and stress reeling and makes me feel like the absolute worst person in the world, but sometimes you have to try and be brave in understanding that the best thing in the world for you right now might be to sleep instead of going out, or have a bath instead of going for a run, or eating your own weight in pizza just because it's what you feel like right now. No matter what your mind or society tries to tell you, your feelings are valid, and you deserve to look after yourself. Really really.
The truth is that no matter how much mental illness might or might not affect you or those you love in your lifetime, we all have mental health, and it really is okay and so incredibly necessary to talk about it and care for it. Fingers crossed that shiny & brilliant little initiatives like Mental Health Awareness Week might be a little nudge to help us to need to recognise it, accept it as part of us, and one day learn that's it's okay to look after it too.
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