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Time to Talk Day 2025 – Get comfortable and start talking about mental health.

“Get comfortable and start talking about mental health”; what’s your initial response to that?

 

For me, reading and reflecting on this as a doctor, I was struck by opposing feelings: the positive endorsement and value recognition as a professional, juxtaposed by the distinct discomfort and reticence personally.

Clinicians are highly trained and astute in the mastery of communication skills and navigating challenging conversations with patients and their loved ones, yet this rarely translates when talking about ourselves and accessing support. Many clinicians may not seek support due to fear about being stigmatised or discriminated against, feelings that others are more deserving of support/self-criticism or worries about confidentiality.

Central to these barriers could be the engrained culture of the health service; an amalgamation of a group of highly motivated, dedicated individuals where performance expectations are extremely high, failure is intolerable, and a long history of normalising toxic or unhealthy behaviours pervades. In this way, it’s easy to understand why the perception of struggling and to “not be okay” could feel/be interpreted as a sign of weakness or in some way a reflection on professional ability. I know I definitely experienced this throughout my mental health journey and has been a significant barrier to me accessing support; so, if this resonates with you, know that you are not alone. Nevertheless, it prompts me to question, for a collective of emotionally intelligent empaths, how can we show ourselves the same compassion that we would, our patients?

Firstly, consider those who may have shared their mental health struggles with you; my experience is that whilst, in some cases, I’ve been completely surprised and shocked to learn of that thread to someone’s life, I’m also reminded that mental health does not discriminate and therefore we shouldn’t. We are human and being medical does not make us immune from struggling, in fact studies show an increased background risk. Did I think differently of them afterwards? Yes, but only in the respect of what they may have been through and in the acknowledgement of trust that they placed in me for sharing.

 

Unfortunately, there is often no quick fix or “magic bullet” to solve mental health struggles and I think as professionals we can find this sometimes jarring and vexing.

 

Our very role and motivation are to help and take away people’s ailments and so we can be left feeling uncomfortable listening and absorbing people’s struggles with little to offer or not seeing the improvement we want. This can often make you as the listener feel disheartened or hopeless or maybe reluctant to have these conversations. However, I want to remind you that mental health recovery is often a long and not linear process. For me, it’s been nearly 4 years since I finally admitted that I was not okay on the 8th Feb 2021 and whilst there have been several detours on the journey, I know that for me to still be alive today is testament to the power of time and talking. As much as I was resistant initially, feeling that it was a waste of my busy time and would be unlikely to change anything, I came to realise sometimes the “therapy” is just that: the time to talk with someone to listen.

So, if you are struggling, I would urge you to make time to talk, either with someone you trust or organisations such as YOD where you can feel listened to and heard. One of the cruellest aspects of mental health can be the despairing loneliness and isolation it can cause but please know there is support and hope for you. And for everyone else, let’s look out for one another, make the space to sit, listen and talk.

I didn’t feel I could finish this piece without also reflecting on our responsibility to be cognisant of how we talk about mental health, the language used and the effects this may have, both on colleagues and wider culture. Working clinically through my mental health journey, I was often struck by the common themes of frustration, derogatory language/assumptions or just general exasperation lots of healthcare workers would express about mental health patients. Whilst I can appreciate and share elements of this, I also came to realise these references can act as a catalyst to reinforce and perpetuate our own self-discrimination and reticence about asking for support.

So, today and everyday, let us consider our language and the culture we want to pursue in breaking the mental health taboo. For those of us able to, to talk and advocate for mental health and normalise accessing support, making space for others to talk. Talking about mental health, whether your own or others, it may not be comfortable, but it could be lifesaving.

 

To find out more information about Time to Talk day and some helpful tips about approaching a conversation in a helpful way, have a look at the following:

 

https://timetotalkday.co.uk

https://www.mind.org.uk/get-involved/time-to-talk-day-2025/