Recently, Michael Phelps shared that asking for help saved him from depression. And a young beauty queen, Ella Collins-Godden, the Royal International Miss UK Teen, sets up mental health support for teenagers.
Definitely, more people are raising awareness about mental health issues.
And there are more research to back up that the problem might be bigger than what we currently know. Just this month, a Duke study confirmed that increased use of technology leads to attention and self-regulation problems among youths and a PISA study showed that 540,000 students from 72 countries experienced a decline in mental well-being.
What I want to highlight is, raising awareness is not sufficient to overcome the stigma attached to mental illness. Awareness merely gives some predictability and means to manage one’s adversity.
Not addressing the negativity attached to adversity and the fear attached to mental health issues is what holds people back.
Think about this. We know from experience that just by raising the awareness of the benefits of exercise does not necessarily influence people to lead healthier lives. What holds us back is our fear. Am I going to fail again in keeping to the routine? Can I maintain my motivation to exercise?
Overcoming the fear is where the crux of the problem of mental health stigma is. So long as we stick to the idea that it is an individual’s responsibility to manage their own fear, we would never fully overcome the stigma of mental illness.
Because when left on our own, it’s always easy to focus on the negative emotions that adversity delivers — the immediate experience of hopelessness and loss. I know from personal experience.
This was my family during our Chinese New Year Reunion dinner. We were happy. But here’s the thing: from when I was 7, my Mum was schizophrenic. Then, it was the Asian Financial Crisis, and she was stressed out and had no one to turn to for support. I know for a fact my Mum is different from my friend’s mum, and I admit not knowing her condition is called schizophrenic can be scary, hurtful and to some extent affect my self-esteem. But I did not dwell too much on the situation, since I can’t do much about the situation. It did not stop me from completing my studies or venturing into a social tech platform to solve this access to care and mental health stigma problem.
Adversity need not always be a negative thing. It would feel negative at first, but we can always draw strength through adversity. In a naive sense, I have the conviction that by being given such a huge challenge in life so early, I have the confidence that I can handle something larger when I am older. I merely just have to grow up faster than the rest to keep to terms with life.
I cannot say throughout my life, I was fearless. But confronting my fear was how I came out stronger.
Soon enough, I joined non-profit organization that sought to provide support to individuals with personal or mental health issues. I believed in their cause, because I believe my mum would have been a beneficiary were these services to be available back then. I wanted to do something for society, to draw strength from giving happiness to others with my time. What I saw though in my 3 years of service, were that the service attracted many youths, writing about their relationship issues, depression or insecurities in life. It got me thinking, when we grow up and become parents ourselves one day, what kind of world do we want to give our children? For better or for worst?
The key to that will depend on how we interpret and use our adversity experiences. Fear can never remove itself. Fear as a feeling leaves a scar in the heart and tugs the soul. That is how I feel whenever I speak about my mum.
Fear can feel humiliating, and makes one feel vulnerable. It is easier to ignore and avoid the issue altogether. For these reasons, there can sometimes be a chasm, an unbridgeable gap between those who need help and those who can help. It’s not that we do not know to seek help. But sometimes fear stands in the way and a little challenge and inconvenience can create enough discomfort for us to give up in our endeavor to get better. Building the pathway and linkages to connect them is why my start-up exists — improving the access of care to troubled individuals who can no longer rely on friends or family and are skeptical to see a psychiatrist for their well-being issues.
Presumably, out of fear too. But of a different kind. First of all, how do I know the psychiatrist is right for me? That the service is worth the value and it can really help solve my issues? Some might even consider that the problem can be settled alone or wish there is a validation process that can confirm they have a mental illness that needs professional intervention.
To be fair, psychiatrists have their fear too. Are their clients serious about recovering or still not ready to confront their issues? Will the client take effort to work the journey with the therapist to get better? There’s just no way for the therapist to know or screen for the clients who are ready for therapy and those who may need more talking to before they are ready for intervention. They have to set and adjust their expectations on-the-job, and it takes a lot of energy and skill to deliver professional care. It’s a tough job.
Googling about one’s problem in Singapore does not really help to allay one’s fear too. If you search on Google SG for terms like depression or bullying, which by the way, has more than 10,000 searches per month, one is more likely to come across US or UK sites. Where are the local content or local help sites regarding these personal issues? Totally alienating.
See how adversity brings out the layers of fear within the individual? In this regard, I do not think it make sense for the burden of recovery, or the burden of overcoming the fear towards mental illness and recovery, to rest solely on the individual. And it can happen to anyone. One of fairest thing in life, other than birth and death, is probably the propensity to acquire emotion support problems or mental illness.
In the west, we have apps like Talkspace and Better help, where troubled users can connect straight to a therapist anonymously to engage in text therapy. But it doesn’t help if one has reservation towards therapist in Asia. What I try to do is to bring the troubled users to trained volunteers in peer support and we focus on getting the conversation started, engaging in the emotion issues. Of course, we need the support of NGOs that are already dedicated to training peer supporters to join the platform.
But the potential of unlocking the opportunity to have anonymous interaction is enormous.
At some point, two things can happen. A troubled user can recover and move on in life. Or they would have validated that speaking to a trained volunteer is not going to resolve a problem that is recurrent and requires a more professional intervention. This might be the right time for them to access the professional service.
And the vision is for troubled people to go from speaking to volunteers to eventually seeing a counselor to confront their issues in 30 days instead of 6 years.
What my company do is to invest in the technology platform and bring together the ecosystem of support services, both professional and non-professional, and relevant self-help content that is localized, in a single platform to improve the access to care to those who need care.
And it is fully anonymous. It allows people to create a second identity where they can reveal their inner selves and thoughts without losing their public reputation. And this will enable genuine conversations, meaningful impact and allow people with similar experiences to connect. This I believe is how we can enable an environment where we allow people to reshape their adversity experiences, as a useful resource to empathize with those who are struggling and empower individuals to accept care and reset their lives.
I call my company Acceset. It’s pronounced as “asset”. It combines the word “accept” and “reset”, and it envisions a platform that improves the access of care to troubled users, and empowers individuals to accept care and reset lives.
At the end of day, we want to create a better world. In our view, a better world is one that people who are suffering can get to the help they need quickly. And also develop resilient people and societies for the future.
We also want to create a community of volunteers for individuals that believes in the cause and wish to offer their experiences and idle time to support those who need the help and support to get better.
This social enterprise is still in its infancy. We will get there eventually. I am positive about that. But what we have to do now is to validate our idea and learn from potential customers, such as corporations and government organizations, whether they may pay to license the technology that the company intends to build. There are many possibilities for further development and also many issues to iron out. That can be unsettling sometimes, but also exciting too.
Would love to hear your views on the story and how we could combat the stigma in mental health issues.
