Pick of the Week: The Mentality Project

05/10/2015
Jess Connett

Find out what’s on the Rife Guide this week, including a project to tackle the stigma surrounding mental health.

Have you thought about your physical health recently? Maybe you’ve seen the Doctor about a niggling ache, or bought some over-the-counter medication for that cold everyone has gone down with, now that it’s getting chilly in the evenings. Physical ailments are socially acceptable – you can point to your broken arm in a cast, and the whole world understands how it’s harder for you to do your homework when you can’t write with your dominant hand.

But it’s different when there’s something happening to you which is invisible and difficult to understand for everyone else around you. And that makes it especially hard to talk about mental health.

Mentality is a project run by Off The Record, an amazing charity who do brilliant work to make mental health easier to talk about. The Mentality Project is guided by a group of young people aged 13-21, many of whom have first-hand experience of poor mental health, and the negativity which can arise from opening up to friends and family about a diagnosis.

The overall aim of this project is to spread a message of positivity about mental health. The young people involved in the project believe that no-one should be treated differently just because of their mental health status, and they also want to educate more young people about mental health and counselling.

The group meets every Thursday in the St Philips area of Bristol (BS2). It’s free to attend the sessions, but you need to get in touch with Off The Record first to let them know that you’d like to come along. Contact details can be found here, on the Rife Guide.

Have you got any ideas about how to make talking about mental health easier? Perhaps you’re already involved in Mentality and want to tell us more about the project? Show us what you’re up to this week on Twitter, Facebook or on Instagram.

More events this week:

Start your own business and be your own boss with Prince’s Trust

Go to the launch of a new Off the Record project – Zazi

Catch a special movie screening at Watershed