When I realised, I hot-footed over to my university email account to see if I'd missed something in my cursory glance of the weekly newsletter. One thing I am constantly impressed by is how often Swansea University informs us about various mental-health workshops and the times for the Wellbeing Drop-In service. Even though I rarely use these services, I really appreciate that there is a safety-net in place for when I have needed it. Although the newsletter contained several links pertaining to mental health within the university, there was no mention of the fact that this week we are supposed to be raising awareness of mental health issues. I looked in a couple of other places too, like the charity someone I know from Sixth Form founded to encourage teens to find a creative outlet for self-destructive emotions, Head Above the Waves, but no mention there either unfortunately. I am absolutely not saying that the lack of mention reflects badly on these organisations and programmes - just that it's a shame, and that the awareness week isn't very well publicised.
Even though this perhaps isn't as necessary it used to be, with the stigma surrounding mental ill-health slowly but surely reducing - I certainly don't feel as embarrassed about my problems as I did when I first experienced them - there's no use there being an awareness week if no one is aware of it. Sort of defeats the point.A quick look at mentalhealth.org.uk (it's a UK-based organization, so no excuse about it being an American prerogative that hasn't been adopted here) made me wish I'd known about it sooner, and that it was being publicised better. This year's theme is 'physical activity and exercise', in the words of the Mental Health Foundation, "highlighting the impact they have on mental health and wellbeing".
I can testify to the importance of this - when I first spoke to doctors about my depression and social anxiety, they suggested exercise, and I'll freely admit that I dismissed it. All the banging on about endorphins and feeling good had always sounded like nonsense to me, and I ignored the advice. Fast-forward a couple of years, and I took up running, in a half-hearted moment of wanting to be in slightly better shape. I didn't notice any huge difference that the regular exercise had on my mood, but I'd started it not to improve my mind but to improve my body. And I still had problems, which actually got worse while I exercised regularly. Then, after over a year of running regularly, I finally saw someone in the UK about my back problems who took them seriously. I mentioned that I was starting to train for the Bristol Half-Marathon, and the physio looked at me in a way that clearly said it was a bad idea. And running had seemed to make my back worse. So I stopped. About a month on from that decision, and I realised that my mood, which had been greatly improved by medication, was in decline again, in a scary way. At the start of this week, I joined the dots and realised that I'd been in decline since I stopped that twice weekly release of endorphins. Since running isn't an option, I'm going to start swimming again, and prove the Mental Health Foundation right.
I support Mental Health Awareness Week. And I hope some of you do too now.
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