Brought to you by Time to Change
If you were asked how you are feeling by friends or family what would you be likely to say? “I’m not feeling great”? “I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed”? Or simply “I’m fine”?
If the latter is your most likely choice, then you’re in the majority. A recent study by Time to Change has revealed that as many as 78 percent of us would tell those close to us that we are “fine” even when going through problems with our mental health.
This reluctance to speak openly about our mental health is one of the driving forces behind Time to Change’s Ask Twice campaign, which encourages people to be more supportive of those in their lives currently struggling with mental health issues, and above all, asking those they’re worried about if everything is okay.
As much as each of us all like to see ourselves as open and supportive people, it is easier said than done in practice. It is also something which becomes significantly more difficult to define when put into genuine, real-life terms.
So what does an open and supportive person do in the required situation? What do they say? How often do they need to say it?
For the month of October we're turning our logo pink as part of the #AskTwice mental health campaign, in partnership with @TimetoChange.
For more info on how you can be there for a mate, visit: https://t.co/GSpuoOPvDG
— JOE (@JOE_co_uk) October 1, 2018
It is a question which many of us have asked ourselves and something which JOE discussed when speaking to Time to Change champion Matthew Williams as part of the organisation’s latest campaign.
Matthew, who works in boxing, fell ill for the first time in 2006, less than a year after getting married. What he was experiencing took him by surprise, and he struggled to understand what he was going through.
“I had no idea what was happening. I hadn’t ever thought anything like that could happen to me. It was very, very bad. I was off work for five months, I was ill for longer than that but it took me a long time to get the help I needed,” said Williams, adding that before seeking help his reaction was to do what many men do when faced with a similar situation.
“You feel you have to deal with it, beat it yourself. And you’re scared to have it on your record that you’re off with depression. I had counselling, medication and eventually came through.”
In 2015, Williams began to write in-depth about his struggles. He found that this was not only cathartic but also something which opened up a variety of opportunities to help others.
It was in doing this – helping people who were experiencing what he had gone through – that Williams began to consider not only the importance of being open and supportive for people who are struggling, but also the need to help those who haven’t experienced mental health problems empathise with people that have.
“For people that haven’t been there I try to get them to understand that it’s not just a thought or feeling, to try and address some of the myths around it. We all think it can’t happen to us, that we’re in control of our minds. I always compare it to being drunk. Try and stop the room spinning when you’re drunk – you can’t.
“That’s how difficult it is. You’re not you anymore and you’re not in control. It’s not as simple as ‘think this’ and ‘do that’ to get better. You’re ill and it’s a process to get better.”
Williams openly admits that being around someone struggling with their mental health can at times be difficult and that he himself was not comfortable talking about it initially, but through witnessing his own friends’ reactions to his illness he would urge people to, above all else, be there for those close to you.
“I didn’t look to go and tell him, it just came out. I’m transparent. I’m not someone who can hide how they feel. It was obvious I wasn’t right. We’d go to the Leeds Festival every year and [on this occasion] I could barely speak. He knew there was something the matter with me. I told him I was struggling,” he says.
Williams stresses how important this was to him, in being able to finally open up about how he felt, but it was only through the work of Time to Change that he learned how difficult it was for his friend at the time.
“It was the first time I could read about it from his point of view,” he says of reading his friend’s interview with Time to Change regarding his depression. “He didn’t know if he was saying or doing the right thing. It’s like anything, anyone you care about you want to be able to help and do something. And I think it’s a man thing; you want to solve it and if you can’t, you feel redundant. But he was doing all that he could, just by checking in and taking me out for the night to get out of the house.
Recounting his own depression, Williams remembers how slowly time passed for him, “glacially” as he describes it, and how truly horrendous he felt during each moment. It was during these moments – the toughest – that Williams learned how important the contact from those closest to him truly was, even if he didn’t recognise it at the time.
“I’d get a text from my friend asking how I was doing. At the time I couldn’t answer. But the fact that he kept doing it, even if I couldn’t respond, it made a difference. You remember who was there in that way. We’ve all got busy lives, but it’s the being there, the caring, and showing that you do.”
