Mental Health Mondays!

Let me just introduce the idea here. There are 4 Mondays in a month. There are 4 bloggers in this Co-Op. We're gonna take one of the Mondays each. And then we're gonna post about something related to Mental Health that takes our fancy. It could be a personal experience, or it could be an opinion.

Participating in this Co-Op are Myself the odd time, Kayliegh, Siobhan, Natasha and Hannah.

We don't know each other at all except for being bloggers from Ireland, (with exception to Kayliegh who I know pretty damn well :D ) with an interest in removing the stigma from mental health issues, because to be totally honest, Ireland is an awful place to have any kind of MH problem. Waiting lists, waiting rooms and not enough focus on the person with the issue. Enough is enough. If we want to get people talking, we must lead by example, and just talk.

Hopefully the running order will look something like this, with the idea being that every girl has her week, and that will allow her 3 weeks to think of a topic, write it and then post it.

Last Monday of June

1. Amy 

July

1. Hannah, (topic)
2. Kayliegh, (topic)
3. Natasha (topic)
4. Siobhan, (topic)

August

1. Hannah, (topic)
2. Kayliegh, (topic)
3. Natasha (topic)
4. Siobhan, (topic)

I will personally be retweeting everyone links and adding them to a master list (which will go like the examples above, but with the topic beside it too) so we can keep a data-base going of our works! :D There will also be a twitter hash-tags #MentalHealthMonday and #MHM so if you tweet your links, we will be able to be found. Twitter's a jungle most of the time! I'm gonna start this on the last Monday of June, just so you get the idea of what we're doing here. And girls, if you're heading off or need to swap, don't hesitate. I'll fill the gaps myself, and the rest of the time, I'll just comment (probably really long comments cause I find myself rambling off more often than not!) and publicize you guys as much as I can!

I really just want MHM to be an outlet by which we can speak up about the social stigma attached to conditions like Depression, BiPolar, PTSD, etc, and to struggles like Self Harm and Eating Disorders. Maybe we can be the group that makes people realize there is no shame in asking for help, there is no shame in being weak or broken, and the is help out there for everyone.

Some useful links for you if you do need to reach out:
Pieta House
Headstrong
Grow
Aware
Mental Health Ireland

I hope you guys are ready to make a difference!
See y'all the first Monday of July!!

All of the love,
Amy
xoxoxo