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I know what they’re trying to do with “RUOK Day” but I find it so close to superficial nothingness that it brings me no joy. Five years ago this month I had a massive mental health crisis, I have bipolar. We had RUOK Day then like now, and it didn’t make a difference. #RUOK
Taking mental health seriously will make our institutions uncomfortable, our workplaces change and our relationships transform. I’m all for a day that starts doing that! But a day that politely asks us to have a slightly serious and caring conversation - isn’t enough.
One major step would be to have people like me with lived experience speaking about mental health. But on the radio today it’s all clinicians and doctors. They are nice and all, but they aren’t the people who are the subject of this day - that should be people like me.
We have a long way to go before we have a mentally healthy society. That will be a long hard road. Let’s not kid ourselves we can get there with #RUOK gimmicks. Let’s take the harder, but more interesting road instead.
