World Mental Health Awareness Day

This is a slightly modified version of a status message that I put on Facebook earlier this evening:

I have mixed feelings during awareness days & months such as today's World Mental Health Awareness Day. An awareness day is good – I enjoy the decision – but you know what's better? Ongoing discussion, year-round. When I see companies using awareness hashtags it often feels disingenuous, like they're doing it for the sentiment metrics. Awareness days are good, as long as the discussion is ongoing beyond the campaign. Awareness days are a conversation starter. It's up to us to keep that discussion going.

According to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, in any given year, 1 in 5 Canadians experiences a mental health or addiction problem and by the time Canadians reach 40 years of age, 1 in 2 have – or have had – a mental illness.

Here's how my mental health affected me today: The noisy team that I sit next to were extra noisy, with phone meetings and chatter among themselves. I have sensory issues (related to ADHD). I stayed at work an extra hour and a half to get something done and emailed by “end of day”, because my brain wasn't working in top form because SENSORY OVERLOAD. I did spend an hour in a “focus pod” until my laptop battery died (I didn't think I'd need to bring the charger in with me for a couple of hours), but even in the absence of noise, the pods are small rooms with fluorescent lighting. I get anxious and claustrophobic. I get distracted when people walk past.

By the end of the day, I felt that I was losing my shit. I left work feeling exhausted. I was mentally and emotionally spent.

And now I want to hide in bed, but laundry must be done and I want to do some writing.
(P.S. This is the writing.)

via GIPHY

P.S.

I teach (or will teach – it's in beta testing) an ADHD management tool that I created called PRIME – the PRIME ADHD Management System. Each letter stands for an element of wellness. If one if out of balance it can derail you. The more in balance you are, the more letters in PRIME describe your lifestyle, the more managed your ADHD is.

The “E” stands for environment, as in physical environment.

My sensory issues, related to ADHD, make me sensitive to light and noise and sound. The sound of boisterous laughter, while joyful and making my heart happy, can irritate me a lot.

I don't know if it's a coincidence or not that World Mental Health Awareness Day happens during ADHD Awareness Month, but both are brain health issues.