Mental Health Focus Week

Imagine 35 people sitting on chairs and on the floor, leaning on each other.
The room is quiet.
Not in an uncomfortable, make-it-stop kind of way.
But in a heavy way, full of thought and support.

This was the atmosphere last Thursday in the great hall.
It was the end of the Mental Health Focus week and I was leading a discussion reflecting on the past week.

It was a week full of discussion: some organised, most spontaneous.
We had a speaker come from a suicide intervention group, we had the school councillor and various students and staff gives small talks on the facts and myths of different mental illness, we has a session on how to be mentally healthy, we showed films (ex. What's Eating Gilbert Grape?) and we wrote post secrets.

What is post secret you ask?
It is a phenomenon that was started as an art project in the states and has expanded into a sweeping movement that has changed lives. The general idea is that people decorate postcards and write a secret on them. Then they anonymously send the postcard to a man named Frank Warren who posts 30 every Sunday on a blog. It may seem like a pointless thing to do, but it isn't.
It gives people the opportunity to express themselves without being judged.
It allows people to ask for help in what may seem like the only way possible.
It makes people admit things to themselves that they may not have been able to before.
So, we did it at our school. We put boxes and paper in every house and then we took the secrets out of the boxes and stuck them on a wall in the castle for everyone to read.

It was one of the most powerful experiences of my life.
Some of the secrets were cute and fun, but most were not. These were secrets that people did a very good job of hiding. These secrets opened our eyes to what people deal with under the surface and behind the scenes. These secrets told of eating disorders, pain and insecurities. These secrets told the real story.

And last Thursday people began to explain what it was like to write and read them.
Everyone said they were surprised by many of the secrets that had been written, but everyone said that they had been moved by what they had read.
People described how they wanted to know who had written certain ones so that they could tell the author that they were not alone - that others felt the exact same way.
Some people said they didn't think they had any secrets at first but once they started thinking, they found they had many.
Others explained that reading them had made them realise how much they really needed to talk to someone and how they needed to be open for others to talk to.
And a few people were brave enough to share their secrets. People began to break down their carefully constructed walls and allowed themselves to be vulnerable.
The response was overwhelming. The room was full of love and support.
It restored my hope.

Eventually it was time to go and everyone went their separate ways: back to their houses, their dorms and their home. Life went on.
But I don't think anyone who was at the discussion will forget it.
The whole week has lead to more communication.
Hopefully these talks and this bond will last.
Hopefully, it will make a real change.

And now I ask you:
What is your secret?