You may or may not be aware that its world Mental Health Day on the 10th  of October.  It is amazing to see how far mental health awareness has come and that now we have a whole day dedicated to it world wide. It's  comforting to know that so many people are taking mental health seriously and are trying to raise awareness to reduce stigma, in particular the World Health Organisation.  

When I think back to my personal experience growing up in rural Australia through the mid 70s, 80s and 90s I had never even heard of the term mental health or wellbeing. I didn’t know what counselling was until the late 80s when it was mentioned to us at the start of a class one morning by a teacher. We were advised that we now had a lady at our school that we could go and speak to if we were feeling angry or sad. I don’t think many of us ever went to see her voluntarily simply because we didn’t know what we were going to speak about, it was a very unknown space. It wasn’t conversations that many of us had ever had with many people in our lives at any time. The main times most of us saw this new school counsellor was when we had done something viewed as a challenging behaviour and got sent to see her. Then going to see the counsellor became attached to a negative behaviour so we all stayed away as much as possible. For those that were sent you would go and sit outside the counsellors room in the corridor with all of your mates passing you by and looking at you like you were in big trouble now.

Of course it wasn’t like that when you were speaking to the counsellor.  However we all knew that confidentiality wasn’t part of that process back then, much of what you said was then disclosed to the teachers and sometimes parents without your knowledge. We often found out by concerned teachers trying to discuss issues with you in class with even less privacy or when you got in the car after school and your parents told you they were contacted by the school counsellor due to the following reasons. I remember back then it all felt extremely uncomfortable and often confronting even for me as a female let alone if you were a male and expressing your emotions was often viewed as a weakness .  

Many people have told me in sessions over the years that they have had negative experiences previously when seeking assistance for mental health issues and that this put them off seeking assistance again for some time. This can be due to many reasons like just not connecting well to the counsellor.  There can also be the additional challenge in rural and regional towns around privacy and service access due to people at times seeing you walking into the office of a counsellor or mental health service, this can also put people off reaching out.  Now we have so many more options that are available online are free and confidential, you don’t have to speak to someone locally if you choose not to. For some support options taken from the Health Direct website click on this link: https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/mental-health-helplines

Many people try and manage mental health within families and provide care to people who have been struggling with mental health challenges for many months or even years. This can become exhausting and have a huge impact on families, work and relationships in general. There is support available you can reach out to at the Carer Gateway on 1800 422 737 or MIND on 1300554660

The stigma around mental and emotional health is changing and we are all responsible for that change. We need this to change for a variety of reasons some of them are as mentioned on the SANE website. Stigma promotes discrimination and discourages people from seeking out help due to feeling shame and fear around other people’s reactions. It causes an increase in social isolation due to people withdrawing from communities and people around them through fear of negative attitudes and community misunderstandings. We now have many people in Australia in positions of social influence advocating to assist in reducing that stigma associated with mental health challenges such as advocates like Wayne Schwass, Johanna Griggs, Troy Luff and Kumi Taguchi to name a few. 

We all need to be a part of this change to make it long lasting. It’s up to all of us to help reduce the stigma in the way we treat other people who are facing challenges.

If you are feeling like you would like some additional support to get things off your chest or assistance to link in with other types of mental and emotional health supports you can contact me on these details: Ella Smith Workplace Wellness Consultant Phone: 0458878994 Email: ella.smith@each.com.au