Blue Monday? Lets Talk

Hi Guys,

And thank you once again for returning to my blog site.

As many of you are aware today is "Blue Monday". Now from what I am led to believe Blue Monday was a clever Marketing idea for a brand of holiday companies trying to entice people to buy a holiday. However for most of us reading this article Blue Monday doesn't come round just once a year and in fact What day it is is irrelevant, we can have Blue Tuesday, Friday or just all week.

Whilst I really don't agree with companies using terms like this to sell their products I was sat watching the TV this morning whilst drinking my morning cup of coffee and thought actually what a great opportunity to use it as a platform to talk about mental health.

Statistics show that one in four people across the UK will experience mental health in any given year but I think that number would be slightly higher given the fact a lot of people don't like to talk about it or go to their GP with mental health issues, but if we take that number and given there are reportedly 66,573,504 in the UK, that's an estimated 16,643,376 (if I have done my math correctly) currently experiencing a mental health related illness.

Me personally have had mental health related issues for nearly more than 13 years and maybe more but that's when it was highlighted as a major problem.

I am starting to feel like I am finally reaching the winning post with it all now I have been Medication free for a while now and starting to feel better within myself but looking back through my journey I feel my biggest problem through all this was opening up about it. Now I am not saying everyone you meet you have to tell them your life story or go in to every detail, but for a long time I bottled everything up from everyone around me including family and close friends.

I will always remember the words of one doctor I saw many years ago regarding mental health, If you picture your mind as a body builder standing there with the weights bar above his head and people are standing either side of him putting more and more weights on either side. No matter how strong that body builder is eventually his arms are going to start shaking, his legs starting to buckle and ultimately he will be on the floor surrounded by the weights.

However if that body builder starts to talk, bit by bit the weights start to become more manageable. Some weights will fall off and not be a problem to him any more whilst others will become easier to deal with and can work around.

To some of you that ideology my seem a little silly but for me it really stuck in my head and was actually the start of me recovering and the opening up to people around me.

I have lost friends on my journey some people who just didn't understand, but that's OK, in the main the people around me have been very supportive and understanding and it actually made me question why I didn't say anything before.

Anyway guys the whole point in today's blog is lets turn this clever marketing ploy into something really spectacular and lets get talking about mental health, I promise you its not easy but it is so worth it when you finally find the courage.

As always guys all lines of communication are open for any of you that want to talk if you feel like you have no one.

Email: myjourneyfeedback@gmail.com or use the contact form on the home page of this site.

Twitter: @myjourneybrez

Or you can find links to the Samaritans and the Mind charity on my home page.

Brez