Total Politics magazine is in the last day of its mental health week, which has us talking 
in the office, and which also strikes a chord with a little something I have planned in the near future.
Before you hear about it here is some food for thought: perhaps we don’t need mental health week, perhaps we should be so informed that it is superfluous to requirements, such as common cold week, or bunion week (though, I say, let’s do it). But holding off on my misdirected idealism, mental health, or imbalance thereof, is something that is still stigmatised, something that still intimidates us, something people still don’t understand. Basically, we are still in the nascent stages of correctly recognising and understanding mental health and its sub-categories (depression, schizophrenia, neuroses and other scary words) and so need events such as mental health week to elevate its profile as a discussion topic. Central to the conversation is how fantastic the human mind is, but, essentially, how fantastic and vulnerable. It’s so easy to have confidence in your own mental stability, so easy to find others’ instability a thing to scoff at, but this is exactly what charities like Mind are out to change: mental imbalance is suffered by most people at least once in their lives, and its enemy is fear of othering oneself. I say: ‘be othered’ and galvanise people into talking about mental health, recognising it as something we can all be okay about. By supporting charities like Mind we can help this happen, which is why I am doing a new and interesting thing (disclaimer: neither new or interesting) and running a demi-marathon in October: someone once did this, but I’m the first since. Twitter has run amok with the excitement.
I ask you to please visit my JustGiving page here, and donate away if it so pleases you *insert punchy strapline that has you all reaching for your wallets intent on being competitively generous* Thank you!