The View From Here – Let’s Talk About Mental Health

Today is Bell Let’s Talk Day.  A day to focus on the importance of talking about our mental health.

So let’s talk.

How are you doing right now?  I mean, REALLY doing?   Because it helps to share.  It helps to TALK about it.

If I am being honest with you, I would say that there have been a lot of days, where I’m not doing so good.  There are days I don’t want to be here.  I don’t want to smile and pretend it’s all good when it feels like the world is falling apart.

I love my job and I love that I have an employer that cares about me and takes the time to ask if I’m okay.   I appreciate that we are checked up on and encouraged to take time for ourselves if we need it.  I’m so grateful.  I realize it’s not that way in every workplace.

The world is tough enough on a regular day, but throw a pandemic in the mix, and life gets so much harder to navigate.  These last two years have been incredibly hard.  So much uncertainty.  Change.  Fear.  Anxiety.  Loneliness.  Isolation.  Anger.

I’ve always considered myself a positive person. Strong.  But this pandemic has challenged me.  It has impacted my mental health more than I ever expected it would.  Such a roller coaster ride.  I think the hardest thing to deal with has been the negativity, and seeing how cruel some people can be to others they don’t even know.  It can make  you feel more alone.

That’s why this day is so important. So we know it’s okay to talk about it.

We tend to push through the hard, bury those feelings of hurt.  We try to forget what caused the pain.  We tell ourselves, and anyone who asks,  we’re “fine”, when really, we aren’t.  We want to think we are and we’ve moved on, but when you don’t talk about the thing that hurt you, that broke you, that nearly destroyed you – you carry it.  And even the most positive people reach a point when they realize that load is too heavy.

So if I’m being real and honest, I will share this with you.  For the first time in my life, in the last six months, I reached out for help.  I felt the weight of EVERYTHING in my life that I had been carrying for many years, and I knew I couldn’t keep carrying it, and I spilled it all with a trusted source and for the first time I felt HEARD and UNDERSTOOD and so relieved.  Didn’t make the situation go away or get easier to handle at times.  But SHARING the load helped.

You matter.

Your thoughts, your feelings, your opinions, your beliefs – they all matter.  YOU matter.

Don’t ever feel it’s too late to reach out for help, or feel like your problems don’t matter, or it’s been too many years to be fixed.

Reach out for help and talk to someone who will listen and help you feel HEARD.  Because it does matter and it’s so important to talk about all of it.

I am in a much better place today because of those conversations where I was given the freedom to open up without judgement, but with compassion and understanding and it has helped me heal so much.

Find what works for you.  We have so much available in our area to help. Don’t keep it to yourself.  Ignoring it doesn’t make it go away.

And on a day when we’re encouraged to TALK about mental health, let me share one of the things that has helped me the last six months. These podcasts offered by Life’s Seasons Speaks are so incredibly valuable.  Take a listen.  They have brought me to tears many times and have been the healing that I’ve needed.

Check in on those around you today.

Encourage someone today.  Reach out to someone and just offer your support.  Offer a friendly word of encouragement.  Sit and listen.  Reach out and ask someone how they are doing.  You have NO idea how much someone might need it.

I had the BEST phone call yesterday afternoon from a wonderful listener who was so kind to me.  Who thanked me for helping them through the last two years.

You have NO IDEA how much that means.

We love what we do here.  We love showing up for you and sharing life with you – whether it’s me in the afternoon, or George and Sarah in the morning, or Eve getting you through from 10 – 2.  But there are days when we are feeling it all too.  The hurt, the anger, the frustration and sadness.  We feel it too.   It’s been hard on ALL of us.  You are not alone in the struggle.

But don’t keep the struggle to yourself.  Reach out.  Talk about it.

We are a strong community.   We have been through a lot these past few years and we will get through this.  But we have to keep talking about how we’re doing and we have to keep being there for each other, and lifting each other up, and looking out for each other.

Thank you for being a support to me through it all.  Thank you for your words of encouragement.  I appreciate every single message I get.  They lift me up and remind me what I love about this community and this job, so it’s a bit easier to turn the mic on and smile and laugh and share life with you every afternoon.

Take care and let’s keep the conversation going.  Because it matters.  Today and every day.

x

Carrie

Reach out anytime – cbuchanan@blackburnmedia.ca

Resources for help –

Canadian Mental Health Association Lambton Kent

Bluewater Health has a list of mental health resources available.  Click HERE to access.

Categorised in: Afternoons

This post was written by Carrie Buchanan