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Will attitudes to mental health change?

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Grannyknot Fri 26-Jan-18 12:29:44

Hi anxiousgran yes you can change your username, all you have to do is ask GNHQ - drop them an email.

I see loads and loads of people from all walks of life "coming out" on Twitter and stigma-busting about mental health, so I am hopeful that it will have an impact because I am one of those people who believes that mental health is just like physical health, sometimes it goes wonky.

I was raised by a mother who had what was called "a nervous breakdown" in the 1950s and she had ECT when I was a child. When I examined that period in our lives later a doctor told me it was like "using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut". She was a bit bonkers smile but she raised her three children just fine, as a single mother, and because she looked after us, we looked after her when we grew up.

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anxiousgran Fri 26-Jan-18 10:55:47

Despite publicity from footballers, celebs and Prince Harry, it's going to take a long time.

People are still afraid of it, are wary of being close to those with mental health issues and regard it as a subject of humour.

I've lost friends due to mental illness, one good friend crossed the road to avoid speaking to DH.

In the last fortnight I've heard the words

'basket case', 'nutter', and 'funny farm';
someone recently called me a 'lune' and I have heard a doctor use the phrase 'head-banger'. These are all people I know and who would never use racist or sexist language.

I never have talked to people about my mental health issues and never have. I certainly won't in the future, not even to my GP.

By the way, I chose the user name anxiousgran as tongue in cheek at the time, but now I think it must colour the attitudes of gransnetters when I use it. Is it possible to change it?

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