Today is Time to Talk Day – a day to encourage people to talk about mental health. This is an important day in our year, as it can help to counter our natural urge to keep quiet, to bottle-up how we feel and how we might be struggling. Despite the evidence that one in four of us has a mental health problem or psychological problem, we still feel shame about sharing how we might struggle at times – occasionally, often, or pretty much always. This causes us to hide that we are struggling. This rarely works, as things often don’t naturally get better, without us reaching out to others, to connect more (becoming less isolated), to find support, to find some help. Perhaps today we can be brave and speak to someone who cares about us about how we might be struggling, how we are doing and feeling.
For those of us who are not struggling at the moment, we can help by being more open to discuss our coping and struggles, being open to enquire about and listen to how our friends are doing. You might really help someone, showing that you care, that you are interested and help them to feel better about themselves. You don’t need to have a perfect question as an opener, something simple will do like:
How are you doing?
How’s that stressful job of yours going?
I don’t know how you cope with [some area], it must be really tough at times?
Do you ever have days when you think, is this all there really is?
So, go ahead, check-in with someone you know. It might be the best think that you do for some time - there's no better time than today!