Today is World Mental Health Day. But it’s really important that so is tomorrow.
I can’t actually believe how much progress has been made in the last few years in openly discussing mental health. It is so amazing that there is a day dedicated to it and that it gets such great media coverage. Its essential that people see others talking about mental health issues front and centre of their news feeds.
But its still a massive challenge and we have to make it normal every day. I speak about my mental health openly and frequently. I am pretty comfortable doing it in any forum and to any number of people. That’s a situation that has taken me a long time to get to. Just this week I recorded a short video to mark the launch of a Wellbeing network that I am going to lead across IHS Markit – the company where I have my day job.
I was thinking about the video on the walk to work this morning and something struck me. This year’s focus of World Mental Health Day is suicide prevention. And during my recording I talked about how I felt at my very lowest back in 2008, when “I was at the very lowest point you can get to. When I didn’t want to wake up. And when I just wanted things to stop.”
And I realised I was talking about suicidal thoughts, but I never mentioned the word suicide once. And as I thought that I had one of those shivers that occasionally wrack your body. I realised I was uncomfortable with that word. And as I said, I am so used to talking about my metal health journey in its entirety. So if I am still, after all these years, uncomfortable with making that admission even with a global day focused on it, I realised just how hard it must be for people wanting to talk to someone about any sort of feelings around mental health for the very first time.
So today is a really good day. World Mental Health Day is a really good day. But there is still so much more to do if we are to take that discomfort and stigma away completely. We have made progress but we all have more to do. And companies and employers can be at the forefront of that effort.
Make it OK to talk. Share your own stories inside your company. Bring in people to talk about their own mental health. Provide practical support for people who are struggling and people who are recovering.
Let’s make every day world mental health day until no day needs to be.
