I speak out for mental health because - I never want another mother to experience what I did.
Blame, shame, discrimination and stigma are the result of NOT speaking out!
When I give a talk or blog or write articles, my message reaches many people who I can help, as I gained a lot of eperience while living with my mentally ill son.
I learned a lot by watching how my son’s illness affected the rest of my family.
I am quite prepared to pass on any knowledge I have gained.
Talking about stuff in your brain is no different from talking about what is going on in the rest of your body. Why should a discussion on improving our physical health be different from improving our mental health. It isn’t brave to talk about mental illness. It should be natural as the things that are happening in our brains so it’s not really special to talk about it. IF we see someone sweating in the gym or puffing and panting in a pool, it would not occur to us to tell those people that they are brave because they talked about their activities, right?
I think that if somebody tells me that I am brave because I talk so openly about my son’s illness and subsequent suicide, I think that they are only reacting to their fears . The only way to to make talking about mental illness normal, is to treat it as somethiong normal.
