{"id":1827,"date":"2017-11-22T14:43:44","date_gmt":"2017-11-22T14:43:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thebipolarbuilder.com\/?p=1827"},"modified":"2017-11-22T14:47:32","modified_gmt":"2017-11-22T14:47:32","slug":"offering-to-talk-about-mental-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebipolarbuilder.com\/?p=1827","title":{"rendered":"Offering to talk about mental health"},"content":{"rendered":"

This morning I had an idea, a way to maybe help teenagers understand mental health. My idea was to offer to talk to a class or year at my daughters high school. It felt the right thing to do to try reaching a few. To help more understand mental health and how it can affect us. I ended up talking myself out of it through fear most of today. That is until I figured I should just do it and push myself out of my comfort zone. There\u2019s nothing wrong with fears especially if we try to face them. If we face them they often aren\u2019t anywhere as bad as we had told ourselves. \u00a0I\u2019ve never given a talk or spoken publicly. I\u2019ve had opportunities but, through fear, always said no and made my excuses. \u00a0Often the excuse being that if you give a talk then people think you\u2019re an expert or authority on the subject. Having watched lots of ted talks I realised it\u2019s not about being an expert but often about personal experience. \u00a0I know I need to push myself and my boundaries more, in the right way of course. <\/strong><\/p>\n

So it\u2019s got me thinking about my fears but also how much I would say if talking to 13-15 year olds. How could I explain psychosis? How could I explain going to a mental health hospital for a first appointment while seriously unwell? How could I make them aware of others mental health and especially their own? How could I help them understand it\u2019s ok to not be ok and that it\u2019s ok to seek help? It\u2019s given me lots to think about even if going in to school to talk never comes off and it\u2019s made me start to face my fears in life. This is what I wrote in the email:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Good afternoon<\/p>\n

My name is Darren \u00a0and my daughter ( name removed) is a year 7 student at ( name removed of school). I\u2019m writing for a couple of reasons.<\/p>\n

Firstly to ask about school policy regarding mental health and mental health awareness.<\/p>\n

Secondly with a possible suggestion. I have a diagnosis of bipolar disorder 1, I run my own business, I live a healthy lifestyle and I also blog about my own mental health and living with bipolar. My blog has over 4,000 subscribers and I have also made a couple of YouTube videos about bipolar and bipolar recovery. I have been level for a while now and it is a relief but it\u2019s also made me aware of others and what I could possibly do to help other than blog. My possible suggestion is regarding talking with students to help them understand mental health from the perspective of someone living with it daily. I\u2019ve never spoken in public to an audience before or a class but if you think it might be of benefit to some students maybe we could talk about doing something.
\nI am quite happy to share my blog with you so you can look through if it\u2019s of any help. www.thebipolarbuilder.com<\/p>\n

Kind regards<\/p>\n

Darren<\/p>\n

Sent from my iPhone<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This morning I had an idea, a way to maybe help teenagers understand mental health. My idea was to offer to talk to a class or year at my daughters high school. It felt the right thing to do to try reaching a few. To help more understand mental health and how it can affect … Continue reading Offering to talk about mental health<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebipolarbuilder.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1827"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebipolarbuilder.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebipolarbuilder.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebipolarbuilder.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebipolarbuilder.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1827"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thebipolarbuilder.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1830,"href":"https:\/\/thebipolarbuilder.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1827\/revisions\/1830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebipolarbuilder.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebipolarbuilder.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebipolarbuilder.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}