Stigma

An email pinged into the inbox, asking if I could write a short blog for a new website – Mindshare – an online mental health community.

The email went to the ‘think about later’ folder. And I sort of did think about it later, but my mind kept skittering over the surface of it, like a beetle on a shiny floor. Touching it but leaving it untouched.

When that happens it’s because there’s something I’m a little bit afraid of. When I got a follow up email, I sighed and had a proper think about it. And what I thought was that I’m afraid of the language of mental health: I don’t want to write an opinion piece on it because the language is cold, and fills me with dismay. The language I know goes something like this:  Mental health in crisis. Psychotic abandoned by failing system. Children with mental illness left years without treatment. Suicide cluster. Depression epidemic. Neglect. Danger.

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