This blog post is part of an interview series for mental health awareness week. In this series, different people give their perspective on living with a mental health condition.
In certain cases as with the interview below, people have had the courage to reveal their identity. This is brave, as it can be difficult and daunting. Congratulations to them!
Continue reading “Real life mental health stories: burnout was the catalyst”
This blog post is part of an interview series for mental health awareness week. In this series, different people give their perspective on living with a mental health condition.
In certain cases as with the interview below, people have had the courage to share but were not comfortable revealing their identity. For this reason, the interview is anonymous.
Continue reading “Real-life mental health stories: suffering from OCD”Two years ago I published a blog post called “Living with anxiety“. It was my first step towards sharing my story about mental health, after which I slowly started to feel more comfortable talking about it.
For mental health awareness week 2019 I am publishing a series of interviews in which other people share their personal stories of living with mental health. The idea is to raise awareness and share different perspectives so others can identify, feel less alone, and perhaps even have hope.
Continue reading “My mental health story: part 1”
As I have been going on this journey with mental health, I have met many people along the way who all have their own stories to tell.
In fact, one of the things that inspired me to start sharing my story was hearing from others. Every time I heard from a friend or an acquaintance of some sort of hellish situation they were experiencing at work, I knew I was not alone.
Continue reading “A mini interview series on mental health”
I was recently listening to the Go2Thrive podcast (episode 1), and as they were talking about the work-life balance, one of the guests brought up the interesting topic of “rest and recovery”.
This sparked something in me. Having previously written that the “work-life balance” can seem pretty binary, and that balance will look different for everyone, it occurred to me that rest and recovery is quite the same.
Continue reading “What does recovery mean to you?”
Cue: this ridiculous stock image is certainly not the right answer.
One of the reasons we’re still struggling to address mental health issues, is because of the stigma that comes with them.
In the past (and probably still today), telling someone you were seeing a psychologist was often met with raised eyebrows as if to say “oh no! They must be crazy” or “they must have serious issues”. Same with the word depression, people have a concerned look and are worried your’e suicidal, don’t know how to respond, take pity on you or are worried you’re going to become a burden.
Continue reading “How to react if a colleague tells you they have a mental health problem”
It goes without saying that a crucial part of your workplace environment is your team, and more widely, your colleagues.
When it comes to mental health, they too have an important role to play. How can they impact how you feel for better or worse?
Continue reading “Team dynamics – mental health in the workplace”
Continuing on the series related to mental health, another topic suggested was “techniques for self help”. It’s a difficult one because there are so many different ways this could be looked at, but for today I will pick my top 5. Read on!
Continue reading “Mental Health – Self Help Techniques”
Still on the topic of mental health and wellbeing, one of the topics suggested was “How to stay motivated”? I almost put this off to a time when I was more motivated, how ironic! But then it occurred to me I have experiences I can draw on to try to answer this question.
When you’re feeling anxious, down, depressed or stressed, it can become really hard to stay motivated. You may have the adrenaline pumping through your veins (if stressed or anxious) ensuring you keep delivering, but as for the rest… forget it! You don’t want to go out anymore, things you used to enjoy you ignore and you eat junk food.
Continue reading “How to stay motivated at work?”
When it comes to mental health and the workplace, another great topic suggested to me was “how to relax”. I particularly like this one because even though it may seem mundane, I think it’s quite interesting to address.
The internet is rife with articles on how to relax. Type it into google (I just tried) and you’ll find any number of suggestions from mindfulness, to yoga, meditation, sleep… Don’t get me wrong all of those are perfectly adequate solutions, but I actually believe there’s more to it than that.
Continue reading “Stressed by work? How to relax”
With the recent publication of the « Thriving at work » study, it felt like an appropriate time to write the sequel to my first post, which I’d been planning for a while.
In case you’ve not heard of the report, it was commissioned by Theresa May and highlighted the fact that around 300’000 people with a long term mental health problem lose their jobs each year. Not only that, but apparently the number of people forced to stop work as a result of mental health problems was 50% higher than those with physical health conditions.
Continue reading “Living with Anxiety – Part 2”Finding the work life balance is a tough one. Where does work end and play start, particularly if work is your life for example? Starting a new job after nearly a year and a half of unemployment, suddenly made it hard for me to find a healthy balance between the two. I was catapulted from 100% “manage your own time ” into a very demanding job.
When I was unemployed, I wrote several posts on how this could be a positive experience if approached in the right way, and I still believe that. Having your own time to do what you want is a luxury that we are very quick to forget, and we complain too soon that we have too much time on our hands and are bored. But trust me, once you are back in the game you long for those days.
Continue reading “5 tips for finding the work-life balance”
I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while, as it’s a subject that touches me personally. For the past 2-3 years I’ve seen an increasing number of articles on the topic, and whilst it’s been reassuring to see it become more commonly talked about, it’s also been a bit irritating as most articles only scratch the surface. And they focus predominantly on social anxiety.
I’m still glad that mental health is being discussed a lot more openly than it used to. It’s encouraging to see people coming forward with their stories, making it more acceptable to admit that you may be suffering, and asking for help. In light of this recent “trend”, I decided that I too wanted to share my story about living with anxiety.
Continue reading “Living with anxiety – Part 1”