Blog: "I think a lot about what it means to have a conversation about mental health and about the benefits and harms of this."

I think a lot about what it means to have a conversation about mental health and about the benefits and harms of this.

That there are so many other ways of expressing our own selves on our own terms, and that sometimes words don’t cut it.  

What constitutes our mental health? Who gets to decide this and how does someone decide if that’s what's being spoken about or even expressed in another way? 

Sometimes talking is not even helpful. In fact, it has often been conversations which I have found deeply harmful. 

I talk to friends and colleagues about lots of related things - daily joys and worries, the impacts of discrimination, the state of the world and how I feel about it, and how lucky I am. I find therapeutic benefits in photography, dancing to music I love with my wee one, friends and in other creative outlets. Does this count as relevant? 

I choose carefully who I speak to about different aspects of my life, such as the homophobia I experience, particularly in parenthood, because sometimes I know a raised eyebrow will be enough to spark a feeling of dread and an anxious spiral. So, is this relevant to my mental health? 

I rarely talk about medication, past traumas, diagnoses.

But this seems to be what the ‘system’ wants to hear and dismisses anything else I believe to be important in a conversation about my own mental health. 

The ‘mainstream’ expects to hear specific words that are supposedly ‘universally understood’ and counts progress in terms of indicators to show reduced stigma in ways which are sometimes meaningless to me. 

I have heard too many times that it’s too complex to think about ‘other’ issues alongside mental health stigma, and that it dilutes the focus. But if we all have different experiences in the world and think about what our mental health is differently, what can that possibly mean? Who gets to count? 

After years of not particularly helpful interventions myself, what made the difference was finding an affordable therapist I knew was unequivocally anti-homophobic, who believed in social justice and who valued creativity. I was in less default doubt of their position on certain ideological factors that I knew influenced my recovery.  

Someone who didn't conflate sexuality with ‘confusion’ and whose methods explicitly meant I was never asked to talk about deeply painful experiences I did not want to re-live. Of course, I know this is helpful to many, but it wasn’t right for me. Instead, I was offered a whole range of creative possibilities to overcome trauma on my own terms. Critically, the therapist created the conditions for me to trust him. 

Why was it so important to explicitly know this information about him? Because knowing this information made me more able to trust that the intervention could help me and not further cause harm as other interventions had.  

I am deeply passionate about the importance of demonstrating an anti-homophobic, anti-racist, anti-oppressive approach in healthcare, mental healthcare and everywhere else. Otherwise, evidence and experience tell some of us it's not safe to talk, to trust, to be. 

Creativity has always been my outlet, protective tool and a way I have connected with some of the people I am closest to. I express myself to and with them in different ways, sometimes through talking, but sometimes it's more helpful to just be in the same room listening to tunes and being in no doubt that those around you cherish you.  

This blog post was contributed by See Me programme manager Monique Campbell.