This year's #WorldMentalHealthDay in UK included more voices than ever before fed-up with the bunting and awareness-raising pointing out that change has not come quickly enough. This is a thread has always been present but has really gathered steam over the last couple of years
A few things have contributed to this. There's more people each year for whom things haven't 'got better'. More people finding their connections with each other organically, not through membership of organisations and initiatives. And there's the effect of policy on communities
I think also connection via social media has moved #mentalhealth into being a political rather than personal issue. More people are asking concrete questions and making concrete demands that are not about changing attitudes in everyday life but changing policy and public spending
I think this anger comes from increasing numbers of people seeing #mentalhealth as a political issue in itself. Who is well; who is not; who gets help and who does not; who is listened to and who is not: all of these things gain heat when people stop accepting a devalued status
In part, the fight against stigma has always been a fight against personal shame as much as it has been to change others attitudes. People who do not accept shame are asking 'why should we be at the back of the queue?' This isn't new, but the increased number of voices it has is
Campaigners; activists and academics; along with charities and NGOs; in UK have been arguing for change in #mentalheath for many years. In England, a decade of austerity and social media have made more people than ever receptive to these ideas and increased avenues to voice them
More than ever, there are people across the UK for whom #mentalhealth is an issue like bin collections or local planning applications: not a special professional interest but a bread-and-butter issue that effects them every day and about which they have strong opinions
People read things every day about #mentalheath policy, mental heath practice and the effects of help provided or not on their lives and the lives of their community. Not the beneficiaries of others kindness or professional concern: mental ill-health is their political experience
This growing political voice in #mentalhealth is what campaigners, academics and charities always dreamed of, but they are not always happy to see it arrive. It comes from a different place. People say: #mentalhealth isn't my job, it's my experience. I don't get to clock off
I think what's needed is to see people as a community that has gone through terrible times, not as a group of people interested in an issue. It's not even one community. As people are exposed to each other more around #mentalheath, they see different people need different things
I think for at least some people fed up at things like #WorldMentalHealthDay or anti-stigma campaigns, the feeling is that they're being asked to put their concerns aside for someone else's campaign, being told to 'keep calm and carry on' and that 'we're all in this together'
Many will feel a terrible conflict in this, not wishing to belittle other people who live with mental illness or take away something that makes them feel better. I think there's a trajectory of disaffection from anti-stigma to self determinination to 'then what? Nowt's changed'
The problem is there often isn't a platform for these feelings, so only time for them to be aired is in response to things like #WorldMentalHealthDay where people come together. People don't want engagement opportunities, I think, they want a political voice, whatever that means
I suppose more are beginning to wonder 'what power lies in our hands as people marginalised by distress and illness but also in other ways?' It's less 'who do I complain to?' and more 'how can we get anyone to listen?' That's where it collides with days like #WorldMentalHealthDay
Obviously, there are other analyses available and I might just be a dick. But there's certainly been a shift in the last decade in England which is novel in response to novel circumstances. None of us have lived through these times before. What do you reckon?
If I had to sum up I'd say 'out there things are grim for people and they don't see that truth reflected in awareness campaigns and things like #WorldMentalHealthDay'
