Hello gorgeous friends, it’s nice to be here with you again. As it’s Mental Health Awareness Week, I thought it would be useful for me to write a few things on the subject.Things I’d like to have picked up the quick way—from someone else’s experience—rather than arduously figuring it out for myself. But now I have them, they’re mine to pass on to whoever might benefit.
🥩 Now Would Be a Good Time to Start Eating Less Meat: What if we took this unusual time as an opportunity to reevaluate our relationship with eating meat? The list of reasons to cut back on meat consumption is varied and long and, once you look at it, difficult to ignore. If cutting meat completely out of your diet sounds daunting, perhaps it’s time to treat it less as a staple and more as a treat.
🥃 How Do I Stay Sober Now? Giving up is one thing; keeping it up is another.
🤷🏻 Seinfeld Adventure is a game aching to be made, if only these fans of the show can get permission from its makers.
🔓 How to Lock Down an Open Society: The governments of open societies now find themselves in the precarious position of having to decide what their citizens can and cannot do. And of course it’s not easy for citizens either—we are not used to governments curtailing our personal freedom. With the negative social and economic effects mounting, maintaining the social distancing marathon in open societies is going to be a challenge.
🎙 Dolly Parton on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson effortlessly performs Travelin’ Man and it’s a real treat.
📚 Always judge a book by its cover is a collection of baffling books that demand your attention right off the shelf.
🕕 Groundhog Almighty: Since its debut a decade ago, the film has become a curious favourite of religious leaders of many faiths, who all see in Groundhog Day a reflection of their own spiritual messages. Curators of a museum’s retrospective, having polled critics to suggest films with religious interpretations, found that Groundhog Day came up so many times that there was a squabble over who would write about it in the catalogue.
🏚 Salisbury Plain’s lost village: Since 1943, nobody has lived in the village of Imber. Visiting is only possible on a few days a year; the rest of the time, it is part of the Army’s training grounds.
🧠 Mental health patients in crisis because of coronavirus cutbacks: A survey by Mind finds one in four cannot get help as appointments stopped and NHS staff diverted.
Find your mind
2020 has been a strange year for me in terms of mental health, as I’m sure it has been for a great many people. In my case it wasn’t the pandemic, but continuing to live with epilepsy and bipolar disorder. Unusually it took me away from work for an extended period: normally the routine of working typically forms part of my coping mechanism.
But rather than rambling on about me, I have some more general advice for anyone with concerns about their own mental health. I offer this on the understanding that I am not, nor should never be, a doctor. As always this isn’t for everyone, but hopefully it’s for someone.
Involve people. They say a problem shared is a problem halved, but that’s not what I mean. Most people outside the mental healthcare profession will not offer good advice. But they can help you get stuff done. Stuff that’s quite easy for people in a typical frame of mind, but cripplingly hard if you’re unwell. Stuff like dealing with your employer, or smashing through the bureaucracy of a healthcare system.
Think broader than family and friends if need be—it might not be the person you expect. Pick someone who’s polite but sharp-elbowed, and appoint them your Guardian Angel. Make your wellness a team sport.
Afford yourself time. Had you sprained your ankle, you’d adjust your future plans. You’d forcibly make time to rest up. It sounds obvious when you say it, but resting up is as important for mental ailments as it is for physical ones.
So take three months. Cancel and postpone as much as you can. Better still, put your Guardian Angel on the case, since cancelling other people’s commitments is easier than your own. This seems to work faster and harder than any medication.
Symptoms beat diagnoses. Don’t over-pathologise. It’s easy to get caught up in the pursuit of a diagnosis, but they’re precious little more than a useful shorthand between medical professionals. Feeling things doesn’t make you unwell.
You didn’t need a named physical ailment before wanting to be physically healthy; the same applies. If you feel less than great, invest in that.