Mental Health Awareness Week is a campaign I support each year and each year, the Jedi email has information, stories and resources for you. It’s been important to me for some time and over the years of writing this email I’ve been able to reflect and share why.

Googling ‘why mental health matters’ will get you lists of sites with great information. They’ll tell you that there is no health without mental health. You’ll read about how mental health is underfunded and under-researched, despite the impact it has on the global disease burden.

Mental health is universal, we all have it and just like physical health it exists on a spectrum. In New Zealand, about 1 in 5 adults meet the diagnostic criteria for a common mental illness each year. Despite that, only a third of people with a common mental health disorder receive professional help. Compounding that is the evidence that COVID-19 disrupted the mental health services in most countries.

There is still a stigma and reluctance to talk about mental health, it is slowly changing. That is why engaging in mental health awareness week can make a big difference. As a leader you’re signalling you care and that mental health matters. It’s also a way to connect and engage with your team.

One year, my team and I made a tracker of the 5 ways and took note of what we got up to during the week. It was eye-opening to see our week in this way. It became an opportunity to talk about what we could all do to support our well-being and what help we needed from each other.

The most compelling reason for why this matters came to me when sharing a story about a nurse I was supporting. I was her boss and they had a mental health disorder. While they were getting help and support we created a plan for how I could support them at work. This had a great outcome and when I see them today I’m delighted and proud of the effort we both put in.

This experience led me to share my ideas and thinking when the Open Minds project started. This is another mental health foundation resource that helps managers and leaders have conversations about mental health at work. Below is one of the videos from the series.

I’ve shared the experience of being interviewed for this series and how much out of my comfort zone I was. During the interview, a question came up that really got to the heart of why this matters to me. Why I was prepared to be interviewed when I felt really uncomfortable about it? Why I made a significant effort to work out how to support the nurse in my team. Why I make engaging my whole team with mental well-being activities a priority. And why, Mental Health Awareness Week always gets a big plug in this email.

When I was 17 I was on a ship that sank.

Our ship was hit by another ship and rapidly took on water, turned first to its side and then sank. Getting off the ship was one challenge. Then I spent some time in the dark water and was eventually pulled onto a fishing boat. I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. Which back then, no one had heard of or talked about. I was a mess for a while but I got through and in time got it together and carried on. I know that time was a struggle for me and those around me.

That experience and the recovery have shaped me in so many ways. I’ve had one significant panic attack since and that was only a few years ago. I was watching a movie at a cinema. It was such a surprise, as since a teenager I’d not experienced any panic or anxiety related to the ship sinking. I knew it was connected and I knew what was happening.

Noticing what was happening was the first step. I then was able to create a moment of pause. Not get pulled into a panic and managed to calm my breathing. I was still shaken by the experience

Those skills have been built up over the years and came from an acknowledgement that we all have mental health. We all have moments of mental distress and we all need the tools and tactics to support ourselves and those we care about.