Lived experience

Mental health problems are common.

An estimated 1 in 6 people experienced a common mental health problem in the past week.

1 in 6.8 people are experiencing mental health problems in the workplace. That's about 7,500 health and care staff in southeast London.

We want to make sure that every staff have the right support and tools to help manage the challenges that come with mental ill health.

It's important that we recognise lived experience of mental health challenges as an asset, and challenge any stigma and discrimination. Mental health difficulties are our body's normal reaction to abnormal and difficult circumstances. Having experienced mental health challenges, one may be better equipped in understanding service user experiences and needs.

Video: One in four

One in four adults experience mental illness and many more of us know and care for people who do.

We don't want you to suffer in silence.

Help is available.

Further information

Dr. Rachel Perkins together with IPS Grow have designed toolkits to help you survive and thrive at work.

Click here to download the toolkit to help you everyday, even days when things are getting to you at work, when you feel "off", and when everything is getting too much for you.

Have you been off sick for a long period? Use this guide to help ease your transition back into work.

It might be helpful to speak to your manager about your experiences, even if at first you share something vague like "I have been feeling low for a while." This is likely to help protect you at work. Perhaps you could work out any work arrangements that will help you manage your challenges better.

The Wellness Action Plan (WAP) can help guide you and your manager figure out a plan to support your wellbeing. You can download the documents below:

Thinking of sharing your lived experience?

Whether it is to colleagues, families, and people accessing your services, it is important to think about how you can share your experience in a way that is safe, effective, and ultimately helpful to you.

Watch the video below on starting a conversation on mental health:

(psst if it feels like too long a video, watch from 3:30 to 5:30 to begin with)

It's time we shake off outdated thoughts on mental illness. Look out for ones you still have by clicking on 'check your myths'!

Myth 1: The person with a mental illness is the one to blame for having a mental illness.

Fact: Both our biology and environment interact to cause us to develop mental ill-health. To conceptualise this, let's use Dr Jehannine Austin's Mental Illness Jars.

Genetic Counsellor Dr Jehannine Austin and her team from the Translational Psychiatric Genetics Group created the Mental Illness Jars diagram to help educate the public on the genetics versus environment misconception (Austin, 2018).

“We all have a mental illness jar,” explained Austin. “In order to be actively experiencing an episode of illness, the jar has to be filled up to the top. You can fill it up with these two different types of vulnerability factors: genetic and environmental.”

Watch this short clip to understand why some people suffer from mental illness, using the mental illness jars analogy.

So there you have it. No one is "to blame" and certainly not the individual experiencing mental health difficulties. Mental illness is a normal part of human life; it's our body's normal reaction to adverse and stressful situations, which we all experience.

But that doesn't mean we are hopeless. We can still add protective rings to our mental illness jars. Find tips here:

Keeping well

If you feel your mental illness jar is filling up, remember that Keeping Well Practitioners are available through chat or by phone 9am-5pm Monday to Friday to help you think through the support that is available to you.

If you would like free psychological support, click the button below for more information.

Free psychological services

"Once you have a mental illness, you're damaged. You can't have a normal life."

Lots of people have this misconception. Perhaps the media still portray mental illhealth something from a horror movie.

Perhaps this video will help:

People who are mentally ill are all around you. With the help of therapy, support systems and learning new techniques to cope, they're living normal lives, have jobs, relationships and hobbies, just like everyone else.

Click below to watch stories of how different people have used therapy to overcome mental health challenges and return to work.

Stories

"I can't have a mental illness. I'm a health / care worker. No one is going to trust my care if I'm struggling myself, and my career will be over."

It is said that mental health does not discriminate. Being a (mental) health / care professional doesn't exempt you from experiencing the difficulties that come with being human.

Watch the short clip below of real people from different jobs at different stages of their career disclosing their mental ill-health.