Mental health awareness week – the rise of ‘oh, that’s sad’
5-minute read
#mentalhealthawarenessweek trended at #1 on social media platforms every during mental health week. This year’s theme was loneliness–a topic central to the mission at Habitus Collective. A lack of connection affects health negatively in many ways. In fact, being lonely is physically worse health-wise than obesity or smoking 15 cigarettes a day[i]. Increased loneliness raises demand on, and develops into, more complex cases for health services to manage[ii].
Despite this recognition, many people, especially those feeling the effects, are left with the feeling of ‘Oh, that’s sad. It seems everyone is lonely’. The problem being that this is as far as the thought process can go, given much of the information that was advertised during the week.
Re-focusing attention on the appropriate information
If awareness is increasing, why are more people[iii] feeling a sense of loneliness? Clearly, we are doing something wrong.
Recounting research statistics such as 1 in 7 Londoners feel lonely shows the scale of the issue, but what does that really mean? Do 1.4 million Londoners all need mental health support? Does a person feeling lonely really relate to that data?
Being aware of the issue of loneliness and the challenge to mental health it creates, does not inevitably lead to a willingness or ability to do anything about it. We are already aware that by smoking, having an unhealthy diet, or taking a flight to go on holiday, causes side effects that are harmful to ourselves, others around us and/or the environment. We continue to do these activities because changes in behaviour are difficult.
For a person feeling lonely, solutions proposed by many wellbeing campaigns risk alienating the people who need the most help. It can be incredibly frustrating to hear solutions that pose as many or more problems than they can solve. For example, meeting in a group of people for the first session, if a person has social anxiety, or say, spending time outdoors if a person finds being outside for lengthy periods of time causes practical and logistical challenges.
Instead, we need to provide people with hope and a sense of control over the past two years. We need to share the detail and stories behind loneliness. Surely, it makes more sense to share the story as to why someone needs the support and what they will get from it – the ability to start feeling happier or to be part of the local community.
Move from concepts and theory to real life examples
What happens when someone is lonely, or is experiencing loneliness in your community? Knowing the answer to that question will help services to build programmes and interventions that make a difference.
It is hard for the person feeling lonely to take the first step. They experience a negative feedback loop. The door is open, yes, but being alone for any length of time makes it harder to ‘walk through’ and connect. ‘What happens if I get judged, am given a weird look or I’m rejected when I show up’. For the person at their first session, there is often a feeling of ‘why is all the focus and attention on me?’
‘The Curve Catwalk’ provides a wonderful story of inclusion, welcoming anyone and everyone. y creating an emphasis on accepting how people are even before someone attends their first class, helps to eliminate a barrier, even though it is a perceived one. Importantly they invite everyone to join the community and remain part of it.
How can we help more services to be more like them?
Examples of programmes and interventions
The Men’s Shed is another great example of spaces designed to reduce loneliness. It is catered for men aged 50+ to share skills, socialise and connect with their wider community. It’s an important setting for challenging men’s stereotypical beliefs about masculinity and healthcare. Yet, it is cleverly set up in a way that makes connecting easy. It’s an important setting for challenging men’s stereotypical beliefs about masculinity and healthcare (physical or mental).
The Natural Voice Network is about creating an accepting community to make singing together a natural experience that is open and accessible to all.
The common theme to all of these programmes is that they are not only designed to welcome people in, they all speak of diverse inclusivity, and are fun!
So many programmes and services create criteria upon criteria of eligibility. Even if someone is one of the fortunate few to get into a programme, they are then faced with rapid progress through it. By being moved along so quickly, they don’t have the time to form deeper connections to actually make a difference and to reduce loneliness. Instead the focus on getting people through a programme quickly exacerbates and perpetuates a vicious cycle. - often leading to services supporting people to ‘cope’ with loneliness, rather than overcome it.
Survive to Thrive
#mentalhealthawarenessweek is so much about supporting people to cope. But, as community organisations trying to make a difference, our job is to help people and communities thrive by working to remove the cultural, social and structure barriers that create and exacerbate loneliness.
We need to be part of the discussion to reveal to the widest possible audience that the unfortunate reality is that mental health is a hugely complex subject. It cannot be reduced to easy soundbites and labels of someone being either ‘healthy’ / ‘not healthy’. Part of the way to deal with mental health issues is to help people realise that their experience probably will be messy and that is okay.
As service providers in our communities, we are in a good place to help people understand that a mental health issue does not necessarily mean one-to-one sessions with a clinical psychiatrist, or a call to an urgent mental health helpline. While those are appropriate options in certain circumstances, in others community programmes can cover a wider range of support that people may find helpful. This is particularly obvious once we realise the full range of different services and programmes that already exist to cater for different groups and their specific needs.
During a campaign week, there is an appetite for more stories, hot takes and content that stops people from reading about mental health and thinking ‘oh, that’s sad’. Instead, we would do better by creating content and programmes that promote the thinking of ‘here’s how we can make you feel part of our group and help you with your loneliness’.
That’s how to make a difference.
Want to explore if your organisation is involved in reducing loneliness? Had the same feeling about #mentalhealthawareness week?
Collaborate with Habitus Collective. Let’s make a difference and reduce loneliness together.
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