“Make Mental Health & Well-Being for All a Global Priority”
Monday was world mental health day. I have always tried to be transparent about my own mental health struggles and how these impact my day to day personal and professional life. I’m not a social scientist, so I can’t speak from a place of academic expertise on this subject, but I can talk about lived experience of being an academic with mental health struggles and neurodiverse traits.
I think, interact with people, behave, and generally do lots of things in way that might seem different to others. It’s not that my ways of doing things are wrong… but when you are different, it becomes hard to fit in and that’s exhausting. Most things we do in life are organised around the average person’s brain, and there isn’t much room for compromise (understandably for a lot of things).
As I get older, I am less inclined to worry about fitting in and the impact on my career. Academia is a hub for creativity and generation of ideas and knowledge. If it doesn’t support diversity of thought, it will remain an echo chamber for the average brain, and hence the rest of the world with it. So, I guess the point of this post is to say … solidarity to those who feel they don’t fit; we need you more than ever 😊.
And if you get chance, read this blog post about autism and inclusivity in sport by Josh MacLaren. It’s amazing and important work 🙂 Josh MacLaren – Sports industry, accessibility and digital media blog (tees.ac.uk)
And of course, SOME KNITTING. I’m fatigued from a few big projects and have lots of WIPs at the moment. I am working on things, honest…. just not finishing anything. Here’s a few pics of my current projects:
I have FOUR big science projects underway at the moment. All of these are TOP SECRET until finished and are super exciting. And the picture above does not give away anything 😁.
I also have loads of winter knits on the go, here’s a few latest piccies:
More updates soon,
Helen x