Mental Health Awareness Week 2022 | Emma-Jane on her experiences with Mental Health

To celebrate Mental Health Awareness Week 2022, Speak Out Challenge Finalist winner Emma-Jane White has written a blog post raising awareness of mental health and her experiences. This year’s theme is loneliness, and we believe that – as the voices of the future – young people have incredibly inspiring messages to share to uplift and remind others that talking about mental health is okay.

Mental health, its definition is a person’s mental wellbeing. Their emotional and psychological feelings, thoughts and emotions. But what does mental health mean to you? Personally, my mental health has been an obstacle in my life. I believe mental health needs to be taken just as seriously as physical health. Did you know many mental health problems can lead to physical problems? Such as sickness or even things like seizures. I struggle with both of these due to anxiety. At first, I was extremely insecure about this, and it has taken me many conversations to realise that this does not change me as a person, but it is a part of me. Now that I have accepted this, I have started to understand why my seizures are caused by anxiety – but we need to understand our mental health more and go to the next steps of improving it.

Emma-Jane participated in the Speak Out Challenge, North Essex Regional Final April 2022

Every individual’s mental health is different from others, but we share the idea of reaching for help. Help can come in various ways, but the most important by far is talking. Discussing how we feel is at first nerve-racking, but after you start to discuss the most important things (ourselves and our mental health), we can feel a sense of relief. Regularly in a conversation, we will ask: how has your day been? How are you? Are you feeling well? And I am telling you to take this as an opportunity to reach out and talk about our mental health, not only for you but for people around you. By creating an open space, we can all begin to understand how we feel, open up a window of discussion and reach out to seek help.

Mental illness is not spoken about enough. Why should someone be ashamed of something so normal and real? Nobody has the right to make fun of a genuine struggle or a chemical imbalance. 1 in 4 people (in the UK) struggle with their mental health and 1 in 6 struggle longer-term.

So from today, start to be more accepting of your true feelings. Speak up, you are not alone.

After all,

Help is a conversation away.

Thank you Emma-Jane for your thoughtful and wise words and sharing your experience – just know you’re not alone!

#MentalHealthAwarenessWeek2022