#justgoforawalk

Hi guys,

Thank you again for visiting my blog.

A few of you may know from my first few blog posts on this blog that I have suffered from mental health issues before. Mental health is a subject that I feel very passionate about mainly because of what I have been through in the past and it has made me have an understanding of what it can be like living with a mental health issue as the struggles that can come with it.

I often post tweets on Twitter relating to mental health and take part in mental health chats to try and see if I can offer support and compassion to those who need it. One of the chats that I have been involved in on the last couple of weeks is #TalkMH . The chat was going relatively well until one person commented that "just go for a walk". For a person who has mental health issues a comment like that can be incredibly insulting because mental health is real and it exists and it doesn't get cured by just going for a walk.

The fact of the matter is that going for a walk can help in the short term as it may help clear your head but in the long term it doesn't because the mental health issues are still there when you get back. I guess however before I had my issues regarding mental health I could have thought exactly the same thing but that would have been due to my own ignorance and lack of understanding. Since I have experienced mental health myself I have understood it a lot better. It just goes to show that stigma still exists but I was very proud of the way the mental health community reacted and the support they showed. It was incredible to see the response and the way everyone came together to let this person know that mental health doesn't get cured by just going for a walk. Not only that the way mental health community supported each other was fantastic. I'm very proud to be part of the mental health community on Twitter.

One thing I feel that it does emphasise though is the need for education. I feel the mental health community need to educate others what it is like to live with a mental health condition. Not only that I think other people who don't have mental health conditions can educate themselves and I have listed below a few tips of how they can do this:

1. Read established books about mental health
2. Read blogs about mental health
3. Ask relevant and informative questions and engage in discussion anyone you know who suffers from a mental health condition so that you can gain understanding. Some people with mental health issues are so friendly so please don't be afraid to ask!
4. Take part in the #TalkMH or #Mhchat chat on Twitter just as long as you are sensitive and go in there with an open mind and do be hurtful or insulting. #Mhchat takes place on Wednesdays at 8pm and #Talkmh takes place on Thursdays 8:30pm

If any of you want to know anything more about mental health you guys are more then welcome to leave comments here or contact me on Twitter @falidude

Finally I just want to leave you with this link to an awesome Youtube video that Rich put on in response to #justgoforawalk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsjQfnGM34Y. If any of you guys would like to follow Rich you can do on Twitter @RichBiscuit21. The link also takes you to his Google + page.

Thanks for reading guys and I hope you found this post useful and have a good weekend.

Faisal