May is a special one on My Brain’s Not Broken – it’s Mental Health Awareness Month! Since 1949, May has been Mental Health Awareness Month in the United States. This is a month dedicated to sharing stories and resources to raise mental health awareness. Various mental health organizations have themes and focuses for Mental Health Awareness Month. To start this month off, I wanted to highlight a few campaigns to keep an eye on. Regardless of how you do it, I hope this is a great month for raising awareness and hope for many!
Continue readingmental health month
Why Mental Health Awareness Is Important
May means one thing on My Brain’s Not Broken – it’s time to talk about mental health awareness! May is Mental Health Awareness Month in the United States, which means it’s a time where there is added emphasis on how we talk about mental health in this country. And before I dive into that topic (which I’ll revisit later this month), I want to talk about the concept of mental health awareness. There’s a big misconception that the only people who have mental health are people who experience mental illness. And this month, I’m here to tell you that spreading mental health awareness is important because we ALL have mental health.
Continue readingWrapping Up Mental Health Awareness Month 2021
Hi everyone! Since Mental Health Awareness Month is coming to a close, I wanted to share some of the things I’ve read and seen this month that have inspired me on my own mental health journey. I also wanted to create a space where I could reflect on the writing I’ve done this month and how it could be helpful on your mental health journey as well! Let’s dive in:
Continue readingFocusing On Mental Health And What’s Next
This month on My Brain’s Not Broken, I decided to intentionally focus on the pandemic’s impact on mental health. We’re also closing out Mental Health Awareness Month, and I’ve been very pleased to see the content that people have created and the wonderful ways that people have embraced conversations about mental health. Today, I want to focus on what’s ahead – not necessarily on what our mental health should look like after the pandemic (if that’s even a thing), but what we can do now. We’ve been living this way for 15 months now, and that’s brought a renewed focus on how we can better take care of ourselves in many ways, including mental health.
Continue readingFour Ways to Spread Mental Health Awareness
I’ve said this plenty of times before on the blog, but I talk about mental health a lot. It’s a topic constantly on my mind, and the more I discuss it the more it comes up in every day life. I view mental health as a key part of people’s lives, which is what makes Mental Health Awareness Month so important as a mental health advocate. But how do you spread awareness about a topic as broad and far-ranging as mental health? Where does a person even start? Today, I’m sharing four of the biggest ways that I spread mental health awareness in my work, and how each of these ways works to shrink the stigma and start a discussion about mental health.
Continue readingMental Health Awareness Month 2021
It’s May, which means that it’s another big month for mental health! May is Mental Health Awareness Month in the United States, an annual event that raises national awareness for mental health. While mental health awareness happens year-round, this month is a time for specific conversations about shrinking the mental health stigma and advocating for the mental health policies and services that people need. Different organizations will have various themes, and this month is a good time for the mental health community to come together and advocate for what we ALL need to maintain mental wellness. Here are a few campaigns to keep an eye on this month!
Continue readingFirst Steps to Getting Help for Mental Health Issues
Getting help for anything can be hard. For mental health? In my experience, it can be one of the most difficult things to do. There are so many reasons for why people can’t get the help they need. A lack of information and resources can make people feel like it’s more work than it’s worth. Figuring out how to find affordable mental health care can be another mountain to climb (insurance, you suck). And of course, there is the stigma of it all. So let’s take it back to the beginning. If you – or someone you know – is struggling with mental health issues, how can you take the first step to get help? Here are some things to consider.
Continue readingWhat’s the Right Definition of Mental Health?
I’ll be honest – I had a totally different idea for today’s blog post. I was going to talk about how we define mental health and, using some definitions I found, introduce ways that we can recognize the practice of mental health in our lives. But after looking up those definitions, I couldn’t. Because after looking at two differing definitions for even a moment, it was clear why there’s confusion about what mental health actually is.
Mental Health Outside of Awareness Months
I’ve written a ton of posts on this blog during ‘Awareness Months’ over the years: Mental Health Month, Mental Illness Awareness Week, Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, World Mental Health Day…the list goes on. I appreciate those days because not only does it shine a spotlight on a specific issue, but it emboldens people to talk about their experience in a way they might not do any other day, week or month of the year.
And while I appreciate those days, I’m never really sure what to say in the days and weeks after it’s over. What should we do? Is there an action that needs to be taken? How do we take what we’ve learned over that time and apply it to the future?
I thought about this especially this year after the end of Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. I didn’t know to do when the month was over, because I wasn’t sure how to continue to educate others on suicide prevention and make people feel comfortable enough to share their stories and experiences.
It feels easier for some during an ‘Awareness’ month because others are speaking out, which I very much appreciate – in fact, I think that’s one of the biggest benefits of these ‘awareness’ movements. But it also makes me wonder why it’s so much harder to speak out the other days, weeks and months of the year when mental health isn’t necessarily a central focus on a national or global scale.
Sometimes it feels like there’s an all-or-nothing attitude toward attention given to mental health movements. This attitude isn’t from our community, of course; the bloggers, activists and organizations that I read from and follow are wonderful at continuing the conversation year-round. No, this is more of an attitude from the general public. It feels like if we’re not in the middle of an awareness month, then mental health is not on the radar.
Look, I know that there won’t be the same level of attention given to a cause outside of a time of awareness; that’s fine with me. I’m honestly just wondering why there can’t be a happy medium for this situation. Mental health doesn’t need to be at the forefront for everyone, but it’s also part of our daily lives. It comes up in the thoughts we have and the decisions we make. There’s space for it in the daily conversation. It might not always be happy and uplifting conversation, but that’s life.
Maybe the drop off that I’m talking about isn’t as extreme as I’m making it out to be, but that’s always how I’ve felt once these times of awareness are over. If I’m wrong, please let me know! I guess I just want mental health to be part of the daily conversation in some way, and not just when it’s Mental Health Day/Week/Month, etc. That’s not such a wild thought, right?
Some Thoughts to Close Out Mental Health Awareness Month
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking as we come to the end of Mental Health Awareness Month. It’s been an interesting month for me – since I am in the middle of the process of weaning off my medication, I have been a little removed from mental health advocacy. I’m focusing on making sure this process goes smoothly and answers my questions – mainly, do I need to be on medication right now? I might have to go back on it weeks, months or years from now, but making sure the process goes well is my main focus.
Anyway, this month has been encouraging. I think the best thing I’ve seen is that this month has distinguished the difference between mental health and mental illness. Mental illness might not affect everyone, but mental health does. Taking care of yourself is important in all aspects of life, and this includes mental health.
Bringing awareness is also a very underrated aspect of improving the mental health conversation. Because it’s such a nuanced topic, it’s not enough to just say ‘be aware’ about mental health and leave it at that. It needs to be a discussion, an ongoing conversation to make sure people are looking out for each other and themselves. We make choices every day that improve or worsen our mental health, and it’s important to recognize the impact of these choices.
I was encouraged by the #RealConvo Instagram campaign and learned a ton from Mental Health America about how we can use different things in our life to boost our mental health. I read posts from people who don’t normally talk about mental health – they were honest and open and I loved seeing it. I feel like the conversation surrounding mental health improves every year, and things like Mental Health Awareness Month are a good reminder of how far this conversation has come.
Even though the month might be over, we can’t stop talking about mental health. Maybe it doesn’t have to be in the most obvious or outspoken way. There are plenty of ways to discuss mental health, and you need to do what works for you. Maybe that means writing a social media about that the fact that sometimes, you’re not okay. Maybe it’s just checking in with a friend or loved one and asking, ‘how are you, really?’
The most important part of this is that the discussion doesn’t end. Mental health, as with many things in life, is ongoing. We don’t always have the luxury of picking it up and putting it down as we see fit. So, however, whenever and wherever you have this conversation – even if it’s just with yourself – I hope that you can continue to remind those around you that our mental health is important – whether or not it’s Mental Health Awareness Month.
My Brain's Not Broken 