Update from Sherry – Mental Health Awareness

In my bid to stay on top of things and give our readers some great, helpful and timely information I recently researched Mental Health Awareness day/week/month. Unfortunately, the answer wasn’t quite as simple as I imagined. There seemed to be many days/weeks/months that popped up in my search, that I wasn’t sure which was which, and which ones were the right ones.

In my frustration and as I glared at my computer, it got me thinking, why do we acknowledge a ‘cause’ just on one day, one week, one month? Dry July, Movember etc.  All of these causes are a wonderful and an excellent reminder to each of us to look after ourselves, our mates and our loved ones.  We talk about them at the time, we discuss them and generally enlighten ourselves about the subject matter a bit more than we did the day before and often, we join in, because seriously who doesn’t love a Mo-Tash in November?!

But why, only once a year do, we think about these issues? Shouldn’t they be a something we think about more often? Once a month, once a week, once a day? I guess this comes down to ‘awareness’ – awareness that there are things going on around us every day that we just don’t always see. Our friends, our family or even our workmates could be struggling through something and we aren’t even aware! It’s a bit of a scary thought.

So, what can you do?

Personally, I think enlightenment is the key. I know, I’d like to know more about Mental Health Awareness, because after all, that is what started me off on this journey, so for now I’ll start small but end big! Here are my tips …

• Earn about Mental Health – Educate yourself & others
• See the person not the illness – Strive to listen, understand, tell you own story
• Take action – Spread the world, raise awareness, make a difference

…and just in case you are wondering which is the correct date check out the Mental Health Awareness Week website