Mental Health Awareness Week 2020

This week marks Mental Health Awareness Week (18-20 May 2020). MHAW, first started in 2020 and is hosted by the Mental Health Foundation annually,  Over the years it has become incredibly successful in raising awareness of the scale of mental illness amongst the population and removing the stigma  about talking about mental health and aims to support communities, families and individuals in driving change towards a mentally healthy society for all.

The event  raises awareness of particular issues by focusing on a different theme each year.

From depression, to anxiety, to eating disorders, one in four of us will experience a mental health problem each year. Many of us increasingly experiencing daily life as a battle. Emotionally, our heads are only just above water. Mental illness scares us and shames us. Those who suffer are often, like me, ashamed to speak of it. Those who are lucky enough to be free of mental illness are terrified of it. When it comes to mental illness, we still don't quite get how it all works. Our treatments, while sometimes effective, often are not. And the symptoms, involving a fundamental breakdown of our perceived reality, are existentially terrifying. There is something almost random about physical illness, in how it comes upon us , a physical illness can strike anyone – and that is almost comforting. Were mental illness to fall into that same category, then it too could strike any of us, without warning. And that is terrifying.
But more than simple fear, mental illness brings out a judgmental streak that would be unthinkably grotesque when applied to physical illness. Imagine telling someone with a broken leg to "snap out of it." Imagine that a death by cancer was accompanied by the same smug head shaking that so often greets death by suicide. Mental illness is so qualitatively different that we feel it permissible to be judgmental. We might even go so far as to blame the sufferer. Because of the  stigma involved  it often leaves us much sicker.
Mental ill health is a real and important thing in the exact same way as physical illness, trauma and inherited conditions. It is however to say that in a better organised world our lives would be less pressured into brokeness, despair and ill health. Our minds, like our limbs, break under stress. Our lives within the capitalist system are harmed by the system, often we medicate not to make ourselves well, but very often we medicate in order to continue to function in a broken society, and capitalist system where our only immediate  value is in how they exploit us. It should be noted  that many  people believe that our Governments policies are actually fuelling the current  mental health crisis. Budget cuts to mental health services combined with no genuine support are driving  many people to the edge. As a result many young people and adults are left isolated facing long waiting lists for mental health therapies and diagnostic assessments.
This is a MHAW with a difference , with many of us worried about coronavirus and how it will affect us and those we love, with experts saying the months spent under lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic could have a ‘devastating’ and long-lasting impact on our mental health. According to organisers Mental Health Foundation: ‘We think it could be the most important week we’ve hosted, not least because our own research shows that protecting our mental health is going to be central to us coping with and recovering from the coronavirus pandemic – with the psychological and social impacts likely to outlast the physical symptoms of the virus. ‘
The Covid-19 pandemic is the prime environment for anxiety  to rear its head, and it is no surprise that rates of depression, and anxiety have increased significantly. The crisis has turned up the volume on mental heaalth issues for so many people.The theme of Mental Health Awareness Week 2020 was intially set to be sleep. However, the focus of the event was changed by the Mental Health Foundation to kindness in response to the coronavirus pandemic on 9 April, with the organisation saying it would return to its original theme at a later time.

Mark Rowland, Chief Executive of the Mental Health Foundation, wrote on the event's website: "We have chosen kindness because of its singular ability to unlock our shared humanity. Kindness strengthens relationships, develops community and deepens solidarity.

"It is a cornerstone of our individual and collective mental health. Wisdom from every culture across history recognises that kindness is something that all human beings need to experience and practise to be fully alive."

One thing that we have seen all over the world is that kindness is prevailing in uncertain times. We have learnt that amid the fear, there is also community, support and hope. The added benefit of helping others is that it is good for our own mental health and wellbeing. It can help reduce stress and improve your emotional wellbeing.
Beyond ourselves, the Mental Health Foundation's report reveals how inequality is rising in our society and its harmful effects on our health.Life expectancy is falling for the poorest for the first time in 100 years. As child poverty rises, children and young people in the poorest parts of our country are two to three times more likely to experience poor mental health than those in the richest.
After the 2008 credit crunch, it was the most vulnerable in our communities who experienced the severest consequences of austerity, with devastating effects on their mental and physical health. This not the hallmark of a kind society.We must not make the same mistakes after this pandemic.
Poor mental health is very much part of everyone’s life. If it’s not ourselves directly affected then then it’s our friends, our family, or our work colleagues who suffer. So in this Mental Health Awareness week it feels important to say that we have a problem with mental health, and it’s serious.  Meanwhile, Mental Health UK recommends (among other things) starting each day of the week by sending an inspirational quote to someone to start their day. These are tough times, if your struggling with your mental health, remember you are not alone, reach out to loved ones for support. In the meantime also try be kind to one another, share our vulnerabilities, our struggles,  keep strong, take care and keep safe, the world is still full of hope, and what better way of  spreading fairness and making kindness matters, than after the current crisis ends, to continue to rage against injustice and a time that we must build a better society, a new system that gives us a healthy context in which individuals might thrive and our mental health can flourish, in a society where we are free from economic and social fear, and we can develop into our own best selves. Remember no act of kindness is ever wasted, solidarity and mutual aid are acts of kindness too, long may they give us strength. ,

"Be patient and tough, some day this pain, will be useful to you " - Ovid

 ' Not until we are lost, do we begin to understand ourselves .; - Henry David Thoreau