Seven Steps to Stability - Step 7: Raising Awareness

MHAW 2014

The final Step to Stability that I think is very important to include is how I have sought solace and compassion in talking to other people about anxiety and other mental health problems.  Previous to the last couple of years, I'd never spoken to anyone about such issues apart from close friends (see MHAW blog 4) and therapists, not least because I'd never have had the ability; just the thought of talking to a stranger, even if it isn't face to face, would have been too much to bear.  I suppose this is for two reasons: 1) the fear of what they would think of me and me caring too much about this, and 2) talking about it would probably trigger off unwanted thoughts that in turn would lead me to have a panic attack.

But since the therapy I've received, I have wanted to do my little bit to spread the word about mental health, both for myself to try and improve my confidence around talking to other people about the issue and secondly to help or provide comfort to a fellow sufferer, who may be in the depths of anxiety.

The ways I have done this have mostly been via the means of various forms of media and communication.  I have rarely spoken to someone face to face about anxiety other than the aforementioned friends and therapists, but in this day and age where everyone can know everyone else's business, it's not difficult to raise awareness via other means.  People who are experiencing severe anxiety may also prefer to talk via the web than face to face at first anyway, simply because it is easier.  The very step of talking to someone verbally can be anxiety inducing in itself.

The main channels that I have used to try to awareness are as follows:

1) Anxiety UK's pen pals booklet.  This is a little booklet included every six months (I believe) In Anxiety UK's magazine, that simply provides brief details about where a person lives, a little bit about them and their anxiety condition.  By signing up, you are basically obliged to respond to anyone who contacts you.  I have been emailed by a couple of people via these means and written to by someone too.  It's really interesting to hear their stories and each one I have admired, because I could tell that they were going through difficult spells at the time they wrote their email/letter.  If I have helped just a tiny little bit or given them any ounce of comfort then I deem this a success.

2) Research and blogging for Mind.  I wrote a blog for Mind quite a while ago now and regrettably time appears to have condemned it into the web's ether, but I had a fair few positive comments on the website and a couple of emails about this. I also posted it to my Facebook account, following which I got some unexpected comments from a couple of people who had no idea I had anxiety and who showed some real support whilst sharing their experiences.  This was really nice and to be honest not the reason I originally blogged for Mind!  I have also done a telephone interview with Mind about the effect that mental health had on me as a young person and the help (or lack of it) that was available to me at the time.

3) This website.  This is obviously my main tool through which I use to raise awareness or ask questions about myself and mental health.  I have been blogging for nearly two years now and even though writing a blog can sometimes (but not often) be a chore rather than something to enjoy, I'm glad that I've managed to keep it relatively regularly updated.  I admit that this week, given the amount of work I've had and tiredness etc, it's been a mini challenge writing a blog each day but I feel it's been worth it.  Doing this for Mental Health Awareness Week won't raise any money or change anyone's life, but I hope at least that it will do what the Week says on the tin - raise awareness of mental health. 

I'm also on Twitter now too, something which I should have done a while ago but have only got round to in the last couple of months, but love it or hate it, this is a very good way of raising awareness and already I have connected with some very insightful and interesting people regarding the mental health agenda.  If you're stumbling across this blog not via Twitter, I'm @AnxietyTracker incidentally.

Obviously, one of the main things I've got from doing this awareness raising is a positive feeling of helping other people.  My therapist talked a lot about compassion and how the feelings associated with this are, in themselves, very good at alleviating anxiety and panic.

Another reason for doing this blog and the rest of my contribution is to help others, not in a therapy way (I'll leave that to the professionals, contrary to MHAW blog 2's topic!) but in a 'you're not alone' type way.  I thought I was well and truly alone with anxiety when I first started doing all this, and it's only in the last year or so have I really learnt how many people have had experience of anxiety and other mental health problems, both people that I know and that I don't.  If I can provide some wisdom and experience to someone's chaos then I count that as an achievement.

And the third thing I've already touched on - people have also helped me, and this is the primary reason why I have included this as a key step in the seven towards my stability.  The comments, tweets and emails that I've seen, either in response to something I've written or just generally, have been fascinating and it's great that so many other people are out there doing their bit to raise awareness as well.  I've learnt so much from so many 'real life' people!  It's almost like there's a community of us who just want to do our little bit and even though few of us know one another, there is an increasing togetherness in the overall drive to make society more aware and accepting of mental health issues.

Of course, none of the stuff I do would have been possible without the help of the therapy, which of course I received by going via Anxiety UK, the charity that kicked off all this in the first place.  So in terms of my Seven Steps to Stability, we've kind of gone full circle.  From finding the charity, to helping them myself either directly or indirectly.  In just over three years, that's not bad going.  That said, we all think that the contribution we make is bigger than it probably is and I know that I don't do much else beyond the virtual world, such as skydiving or running a marathon to raise money for mental health charities.  Just the thought of either of them would give me a nosebleed.  But within my bounds of comfort, I hope that this blog and other work that I will endeavour to continue to do will at least make a little difference, both to me and to others. 

Finally, kudos to the Mental Health Foundation for running MHAW in the first place.

Mental Health Awareness Week may be concluding, but our mental health problems will keep going.  In writing these daily blogs, it has brought some anxious feelings to the surface for me, which perhaps has been the main negative in doing this for MHAW.  Perhaps if I was more comfortable from the beginning about talking about anxiety, writing about it quite intensely like this wouldn't have this affect.  Which leads me onto my final message: The fight continues - the fight to get better ourselves and the fight to challenge the stigma that still exists in some parts of society. 

Thank you to everyone who has read my MHAW blogs and please do keep coming back for (semi) regular updates.

Best wishes
Al