Hi, it's been a while since the last post was written. How are you guys feeling? I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy during the pandemic.
I'm going to talk about a passion that I have been championing which is mental health. Now, the first question is: Who inspired me to be passionate about mental health? They are Britain's TRH The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge - Prince William and Kate Middleton, they and the Duke of Sussex - Prince Harry set up a mental health campaign called Heads Together. The Duchess of Cambridge is the brainchild of the campaign.
My curiosity on mental health was during my freshmen year in college when I heard a couple of suicidal attempts. It was a "culture shock" for me. I didn't bother about that much on mental health. A year later, I was browsing through the online HELLO! magazine, a headline caught my attention on The Duke and Duchess Cambridge and Prince Harry started the Heads Together campaign, I clicked on to the article to read about the new project, that made me learn about more about mental health.
In 2017, my passion for mental health started to grow. I realised that raising awareness is to pick the right place to speak about and who we are talking to. My university course mates thought I was having a mental health issue that I ended up at the Head of Department's office for questioning. I still remembered it was a week before the final examination of the very first semester in university. I was thinking "Oh gosh, what did I do wrong?" In the end, I decided to put that behind me and continue to champion the cause of mental health on my own.
2018 was an important year for me because it was the year I turned 21 - the road to adulthood. I promised myself to champion mental health before that big milestone in November. If I want to voice out, where should I go? Model United Nations (MUN) came into mind and off I went! I was happy that I have a voice out my passion for mental health. Thanks to that, I could speak openly without anyone's judgements.
Looking back now, I'm still going to champion mental health, especially in children because it is important to start them young on the importance on mental health, how could we identify the symptoms of any mental health problems. It's okay to say! If I can normalise mental health, you can too! Let's break the stigma of mental health once and for all!
It's nice to hear that you are championing mental health Katelyn. Basically it's been a stigma for years although many seem to have undergone many kinds of version of it. It's long been a taboo for people who are different and they live on the fringe of society, not being understood, thought of as a burden and whatnot. So it's good that you are voicing out.
ReplyDeleteHi Yi Xin, thank you! Yes, yes it is! Not many are willing to speak out on mental health problems, and decided to hide them until it is too late. We have to start somewhere and somehow to get the message out.
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