We’ve just passed the halfway mark in Mental Health Awareness month, and the dialogue is growing.
Encouraging users to share their own stories and struggles with mental health in order to help them find others who can lend support, at the beginning of May Instagram launched the hashtag ‘#hereforyou’.
Faces both famous and unfamiliar have since appeared as part of the project, detailing their own struggles and letting fellow mental health sufferers know that they are indeed there for them.
Social media can often be seen as damaging or unhelpful to mental health; constantly being bombarded by images of other people’s supposed success can have a hugely negative impact on self-esteem, leading social media users to compare their lives to the facades they see on screen.
However, this hashtag campaign could be the remedy to that. Where words are often insufficient to describe mental toil, images provide a different opportunity to communicate troubles visually. The fact that the hashtag is visible to strangers also might mean that some users find it easier to talk to someone they do not know in person.
Get involved with the conversation by sharing your own experience followed by #heretohelp now. And remember, if you're feeling really troubled you can always call the Samaritans helpline on 116 123.
