Can we have a MH campaign?

[TheOrchardKeeper]

There have been a few threads lately that have made it seem like a good idea.

Anyone else?

Maybe one with different people's experience of the same MH illnesses & how it effects those around the person too. Or something like that. Am sure someone else could come up with a better idea but you get the gist!

I'm with you :)

I've had various degrees of MH issues over the last ten years, but I think they started in my early twenties when I got S.A.D and spent a whole winter in bed, gibbering. I've only told a handful of people, close friends and not many relatives tbh. People just don't understand it. It's so hard trying to keep a façade of 'normal' when inside you're breaking. I have to admit, it would be so much easier to just be open with people when I'm having an episode, but there's still so much of the unknown about mental health.

I do think that it's hard to seperate fact from fiction/expectations and stereotypes sometimes, even when people mean well. There's a lot of focus on 'coming out' about MH problems but not as much on what it actually entails to live with one or a person suffering. Dealing with a loved one that has a MH issue is difficult in it's own right I think. My DP was plunged in at the deep end recently when I had a relapse (i'd not been ill since we'd got together) and I think he felt pretty clueless/helpless at first.

Yes, same with my DH. Looking back, I think that we almost split up during my first breakdown during our relationship. He used to tell me to pull myself together, get a grip etc. He just didn't know how to deal with it. He has learned, though, how to be there. It must be awful for him to deal with and it makes me feel so guilty.

Yes I'd like this to happen. MH still has a horrible stigma.

It's almost like the twats have had to find a new target now that the forum has tackled disablism.

DP didn't say anything like that but actually said "Well I'm really stressed with work right now and this is just such a bad time" - I then had a panic attack because I was so angry that he reacted so badly

Because I seem quite high functioning (anxiety has a way of making you look 'busy') I think he thought I was exaggerating. He thought I was dying when I had the PA though and as much as I was embarrassed about having one in front of him it's completely changed his opinion of it & he's been my rock since. I'm having CBT soon so it'll pass but it's very hard for all involved.

^ I was angry and panicking that I was going to have to deal with a break-up/heartbreak on top of everything else, hence the PA. He's never been close to anyone with MH issues so just has a 'rough grasp' of most of them but no idea really, not that it's his fault. He's never needed to know in the past and just knows what most people without MH issues probably knows.

My mum was the same until she trained as a SW and now she's a bit of an expert.

Scuse the rambling.

But you can see how it's not a bad idea to do something on the issue.

I'd like this to happen too. I'm sick and tired of people treating mental illness as if its something we have chosen and we could just snap out of it if we wanted. Or that some of our behaviour caused by the MH is disgusting and there's just no excuse for it like I was told on a thread here the other day after trying to defend an OP who was being told she couldn't possibly have OCD because she had mucky pants in her house. I've started having to hide a lot of threads because people are so rude and ignorant about mental illness. If they said similar things about physical illness like cancer or diabetes, there would be uproar.

Same wally

The OCD thing gets my goat, even though I don't have it and no one I know has it. People use it very loosely to describe being anal and think that if you're not very very clean then you don't have OCD, but it's about obsessive compulsions to do things and those things don't always involved cleaning.

Anyone else?

Oops I had my first ever deleted post on that thread going at the moment about MH. Am a bit touchy about it, it seems

Hi all,

Thanks for the suggestion.

We will flag it to our campaigns team. I do know that they are very busy with our TIMC campaign atm and there are other campaigns in the pipeline but we will defo ask them to have a think.

Thank you