Excited to be able to feature another Mental Health story – this time from Charlotte Underwood, a blogger who interacts with us a fair bit on our social channels. She works tirelessly to raise mental health awareness – and we think she is doing a great job! You can find more about her here: https://twitter.com/XCharlotteFoxX.

Mental Health Awareness is in our language.

Charlotte Underwood

Not long ago, I had a particularly bad driving lesson. I had made some mistakes and because the instructor kept telling me off, not in a cruel way, I made more and got flustered. The instructor was patient, he allowed me to pull over and talked it through with me, he did not shout but he did use language that made me break down in tears more than I already was.

“Don’t be silly”

“Stop looking down on yourself”

“Look at me”

He was trying to help and was nudging me on the shoulder, I appreciated that he cared but I wanted to jump out of the car and run. All I could think was how bad a driver I was, how I should quit and how I can never learn anything.

It made me think of a tweet the other day where I asked people what sayings triggered them, even if they were well meaning. “You’re fine” “You’ll be ok” and much more were mentioned.

It is so easy to say these things but maybe we just need to take a moment to listen, properly and then try to be as understanding, work with each other to pull a person out of a crisis. Personally, I feel that we can really make a difference by being more attentive and not opting for the usual ‘comfort words’, it could really encourage a person to get better, allow them to feel supported and listened to, rather than scaring a person away and making them feel like they are a problem.

A little empathy goes a long way.