Earlier this year, I wrote a post on my other blog about a fantastic panel discussion on Mental Health Literacy at InspireFest, one of my favourite events of the year. One point made by Dr. Lee Motherway, consultant psychiatrist at St. Vincent’s Hospital, that really struck me was how she never sees get well cards as she makes her rounds. I thought this terribly sad and vowed on Twitter that day to correct it:
My Get Wellness card is the result of that conference and that tweet or is it?
Perhaps it was the nudge I needed having never sent get well cards to loved ones staying in the psych wards of hospitals. I'm not proud to admit this but was it that I didn't feel their illness real or worthy of my best wishes? We talk about needing to remove the stigma of mental illness so surely acknowledging mental illness as a form of illness would be a valuable first step. Nobody chooses to feel that way, to get so overcome with small tasks (to me and you) that they can't hold down a job, to isolate themselves to sometimes a point of no return. It's no more a choice than getting breast cancer. This is a card I never sent to a friend who needed it but unfortunately will never receive it. We cannot turn back the clock but we can learn to be kinder to others and even ourselves, whatever form that kindness takes.