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Summer of ’69
I wasn’t planning on posting again just yet, as I have another on mental health in the production stage, but the ever reliable Timehop reminded me of this one, from three years ago today. Reading it again I’ve realised that I was describing a seminal week in my life, though at that young age I had no idea how life-changing it would be. I suppose the ‘wisdom’ that comes with age and experience helps us put things into context. I received a telephone call this week which is going to bring about a big change in my life nowadays, and I’m thinking about further interrupting my planned series of mental health posts to share that story too. But, for now, here’s a look back at how I was in my teenage years and how, as I’ve often said, music – and the feelings and memories it evokes – is a very important part of my life.
Many of you will instantly recognise the title for this piece as being a song by Bryan Adams, from his album Reckless (1984). Adams has been a little vague about the meaning of the song, having at different times suggested that it was about sexual exploration (but the use of the apostrophe would seem to disprove that!) or, more probably, that it is a song about nostalgia in general, and not the actual year 1969. I, however, am taking it literally, as that summer was a momentous time for me and I can never hear the song without thinking back.
I was 15 through that summer, and had my 16th birthday in September 1969. I was at the age of teenage awakenings – realising that there was more to life than school, my mates and football, cricket, tennis etc: I was madly in love with a beautiful girl who lived…
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Time To Change: My Pledge
I was looking back through my previous posts, trying to find something I wrote in the early days. As you do, I stumbled across something I didn’t recall writing – old age can be such a pain sometimes! This post is from November 2014 and, rather than being specifically written for #TimeToTalkDay, as I did last week, this is an explanatory piece about the organisation behind that day: Time To Change. It struck me that this would be a good follow up to last week’s post, so here it is. Unusually for a post dating so far back, all of the links still work.
I hope you can find a few moments to read this previous post and to follow the links and find out more. This is why I started blogging and, despite occasional appearances to the contrary, is why I am still doing this. We can never underestimate how important it is to look after our mental health, and to support and promote those who are sharing this message.
Take care.
You may not have heard of the Time To Change initiative, which is led by Mind and Rethink Mental Illness, two of the leading mental health organisations in the UK, and is funded by the Department of Health, Comic Relief and the National Lottery.
Time to Change began seven years ago and is England’s biggest programme to challenge mental health stigma and discrimination. It aims to start a conversation – or thousands of conversations – about aspects of mental health, to help people become more comfortable talking about it. They have a range of activities in progress, which you can read about here on their website. There is also plenty of useful information there, so it is well worth a visit. You can follow them on Facebook and Twitter, and if you use the hashtag for their campaign – #TimeToTalk – you should see what people are saying and doing.
Estimates usually suggest that around…
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#TimeToTalk Day 2019
Tomorrow, 7 February, is #TimeToTalk Day. The day is run by the Time To Change organisation, and is all about opening a conversation: this may be with someone who may need support; it could be to help raise general awareness of mental health issues; or it may be to help people be more sensitive and caring towards each other. I hope you join in – no special skills or resources are required, just be yourself and talk to someone. You may be pleasantly surprised at what happens.
Time To Change is led by Mind and Rethink Mental Illness. If you’d like to find out more their website is here, and there are loads of resources available for you. I was particularly taken with this one:
So much, in fact, that I have made it my header for my personal Facebook page, so that my friends can see my support for this day. Many of them know my story, but probably not in any detail. Last year I wrote a piece for Time To Change, but they didn’t use it – probably because I didn’t submit it in the way they prefer! But it gives a potted version of my story, and why I believe this to be so important, and is worth sharing again, I think. This is what I wrote:
I was diagnosed with depression in late 2011. After months of treatment, both with medication and counselling, I finally returned to work more than nine months later. Perhaps ironically, I worked for a large NHS Trust which provided mental health services – though I didn’t live in the Trust’s catchment area – and whilst I had had a fair amount of involvement with service users in my twenty years there, most of the people I worked with hadn’t.
When I first returned, initial reactions were mostly of the ‘I haven’t seen you for a while’ variety. It was clear to me that only a few people knew why I had been off work, and I decided early on that the best way to tackle this was to be open and honest with anyone who asked about it. Not that I shouted it from the rooftops, but I wanted people to know and understand why I had been away, what it meant for me, and what it might mean for them. Some seemed apprehensive – I think they feared I might ‘have a turn’ or do something strange! The difficulty with any mental health problem is that other people can’t see it, in the same way they can see a broken leg, for example. This adds some kind of aura, a mystique, and can instil in some a fear of the unknown and unseen. I didn’t want to start some kind of crusade, but I believed it important to share my experience with anyone who asked. After all, to all intents I was the same person they had known for years, so why should they now treat me differently? Some might have had an expectation that I had changed in some way, and I wanted to reassure them that whilst the illness was a part of me I was still that same ‘me.’ People who have suffered a mental illness deserve to be respected as themselves: the illness isn’t a badge they must wear or, worse, a stigma to be borne as some sign of weakness.
I retired a little over a year later, and having already started my own blog I was aware how important it is for fellow sufferers to know that they are not alone, that others have shared something similar. But that isn’t the same for those who have been lucky enough not to suffer. I probably had around fifty conversations with co-workers in that last year at work, and made a point of telling them a few key things:
1. There is no shame in having been diagnosed with any kind of mental illness.
2. It can happen to anyone, at any time.
3. It is far more prevalent than people imagine, and it was quite likely that other people we worked with had similar problems.
4. Whilst some may not, many will welcome an initial approach of the ‘is everything ok?’ type. It does help to talk, and an informal chat can often be all that is needed to help someone.
5. Don’t be judgemental – people need to be heard, not given well-meaning ‘diagnoses’ by friends who aren’t qualified to judge.
6. Having been diagnosed doesn’t change who you are, and shouldn’t change how others see you.
I’d like to think that, in my own little way, I did something to help understanding and awareness. The important part of this was that it was on a one to one basis: I’m a great believer in the need for efforts to be made to widen the general population’s knowledge on mental health, and this low key approach is a good way to do that. Just imagine how many could be enlightened if we all had just one chat!
So, will you talk to someone tomorrow? Please? Pass it on!
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