Mental Health: If someone were to ask you to rate your physical Health out of ten, you’d probably be spontaneous with your answer. Perhaps you’d give yourself a seven or eight. Maybe, if everything was running smoothly in your life, you would most likely rate your physical health a perfect ten on ten.

Let’s change things up slightly here.

What if, instead of ‘Physical Health’, someone asked you how you were feeling mentally?

You’d probably blink twice, share a perplexed look or do your best to dodge/ brush off the question entirely by faking a relatively positive score.

Well, believe it or not, the reality is, you aren’t alone.

Today, across the globe millions of people are battling with issues of the mind.

The reason why so many people are dealing with this harsh reality is because we, as a society and a community have either stigmatized, ignored, shunned off or devalued the very topic that’s crucial to helping our brothers and sisters heal.

Give it a thought, how many times have you heard people saying they are perfect when deep down you know something is up?

Has there ever been a moment when you, a friend, colleague or classmate felt you had to push on and fake a smile or hide a tear just because someone out there didn’t fancy the so-called ‘weak people?’

Would you still complete that task/project or get up that morning, despite the endless anxiety, stress and fear you were going through, if your marks didn’t decide your promotion or your job wasn’t at stake ?

Do you ever wonder, what it would be like, if you had the opportunity to speak up about how you were really feeling?

That’s true. The issue is far greater than what we could have imagined.

It’s sad in a world of eight billion people, ‘twelve letters’ seem to startle many of us, ‘twelve letters’ either foster or break a friendship, ‘twelve letters’ determine our relationship with our family, friends and work colleagues, ‘twelve letters’ become the reason someone gets labeled as crazy, mad or far right — weak and sensitive.

It’s time we started changing the narrative and showing people that mental health isn’t a topic that needs to be detested.

Mental health shouldn’t be something taboo or scandalous, it shouldn’t be the reason for division and it most certainly shouldn’t be associated with laziness.

We shouldn’t be afraid of speaking up and showing the world that the reality can be far different, if we choose to be considerate and acknowledge the truth.

Look out for one another, create awareness, share your story and listen to others.

Don’t be afraid, because the truth is, the things you are destined to accomplish will far exceed the world’s version of success.

You are here to make a positive difference and no one can make you feel small for uttering the words —- ‘ I am struggling with my mental health!’

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