richboden:

There has much much activity today on Twitter regarding mental health using the #whatsigma hashtag. I won’t go in to the whys and wherefores of the tag but basically the point of it is that you write your own mental health experiences and hashtag them for all to see. Of course, I joined in as I am always open about my past experiences:

I have bipolar II and had a nervous breakdown just over 4 years ago. #whatstigma

I thought it might be useful to write a little more about it as I firmly believe that the only way to get rid of the stigma surrounding mental ill-health is for more people to be open about their experiences and to stop being ashamed of it and then hopefully one day people will be less embarrassed by it and might seek help earlier? Rob Delaney has written a great article on his experiences and it has prompted me to do the same. I am very fortunate at the moment that I am mentally fairly healthy, though physically I am far from it. I am going to write about my past mental ill health and my current mental health but not my physical ill health as this is not the time or the place. This is quite a tome, so I’ve put in a page break thingy to break it up a bit.

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