The Calendar Gods have spoken and decreed that it is, once again, Mental Health Awareness Week. This isn't going to be a particularly consistent super-article so starting as I mean to go on (with a sidenote): I've always found it weird that sometimes an "awareness week" seems to be for negative conditions of which we need to be made aware, and sometimes it's used by organisations to bring attention to their cause for ostensibly positive reasons. It leads to the amusing situation that one week you need to be aware of the dangers of dementia and the next week being aware of the dangers of seafarers. Watch out for the Navy. You can't trust them. The Theme of 2018I have no idea what kind of six hour meeting with focus-groups and marketing experts came up with the theme this year of "Stress" but it's actually kind of genius. Yes sir. See, one of the easiest ways to try and imagine what it's like suffering from depression is to imagine the mental state you were in at one of the most stressful times of your life. Even if you're the biggest most swaggering grinning optimist of your whole car-sales team, there's probably been at least an instant when you were so totally in over your head you actually contemplated giving up trying to sell a 4.4 litre V8 BMW M5 sport saloon to that lovely old couple looking for a replacement for their broken 1986 Ford Escort. You know that brief, fleeting instance where you just think everything has gone wrong, what you're doing is pointless, and you've completely lost sight of any positive aspects of your life? Focus on that feeling; that total abject despair and desperation and sadness and hopelessness. I won't say that's exactly what depression is because it varies waaaay too much, but stretch that feeling of out over a period of days or weeks and you could probably get a reasonable approximation of what some people deal with. The Mind charity website sums up another important feature of stress as well: even though everyone goes through stressful situations and stress itself isn't a mental health problem, stress can lead to mental health problems and (conversely) mental health problems can lead to stress. There's also the added bonus that for anyone not particularly interested in learning more about depression and other mental health concerns (I hear some selfish gits actually have jobs and lives) there's some pretty useful practical advice for anyone looking to improve their own wellbeing. Mind's website even has some pretty specific examples of stress triggers and some useful tips for each one (from study problems to benefits woes). The Mental Health Foundation's website has some more material if you fancy a further read.
Or if this all sounds really boring, just look up memes I guess:
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Author28 year old computer scientist/physicist with major depressive disorder, a need to write, and a deep-rooted mistrust of beetroot. Categories
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February 2018
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