Sharing experiences of loneliness for Mental Health Foundation
Although I may be feeling tired right now and very much ready for the weekend to roll around, the past week has been a real highlight of my time at Filigree so far. We have been lucky enough to work with the Mental Health Foundation for the past couple of years but this year we became much more embedded in their team as we helped them prepare for Mental Health Awareness Week, which the Foundation created twenty two years ago.
The choice for this year’s theme was loneliness, something that almost all of us will feel at some point in our lives but something, for some reason, people are embarrassed to admit to feeling. Although loneliness itself is not a mental health problem, the longer we experience it the more likely we are to develop these problems. We wanted to help break the stigma around loneliness by sharing real-life stories of people who have experienced it in the hope that it will empower others to share their experiences and seek help.
We reached out using the Foundation’s open network to see if there would be anyone willing to share their story, a little nervous about what sort of response we would get. We needn’t have worried. So many people from across the country completed the survey to say they would be willing to share their experiences of loneliness and that’s when the hard work really began…
Chenai and I set about interviewing people in March; learning about their lives, their experiences of loneliness, how it affected their mental health and what they tried to do about it. We were privileged to be trusted with some deeply personal stories and experiences, from bereavement to parenthood and even fleeing war and becoming an asylum seeker. Every single one had an impact on us. These audio recordings were then passed onto Sarah, who transformed them into a set of first person stories which now proudly sit on the Mental Health Foundation’s website (please do give them all a read if you have the time).
The next stage was making sure these stories were shared as widely as possible. Alongside our five press releases, we shared these stories with our media contacts and have managed to secure some fantantis coverage. Larysa appeared on ITV Wales, Rhyana spoke beautifully on BBC podcast If You Don’t Know, Ashleigh was interviewed in Pink News, Libby was quoted in the Yorkshire Post, Iona was featured in the Alliance. I'm writing this on Friday afternoon awaiting the publication of two more articles in the Metro and the interview requests are still rolling in….
A real personal highlight for me was meeting Dean. Dean was the second person I spoke to for this project and we immediately got on. He is a natural communicator and spoke so openly about his experience of loneliness. Dean was furloughed during the pandemic and despite living with his wife and son, experienced severe loneliness and felt very low. Through exercise Dean has come out the other side of his loneliness and we knew his story would resonate with a lot of people. We wanted to share his story with the people who really make a difference. Cue an invite from the policy team…
Every year the Mental Health Foundation hosts a Parliamentary reception to share their research and put their policy asks to MPs and other sector leaders. This year the team really felt it was important for attendees to hear a lived experiences of loneliness and how it can affect people and so we immediately thought of Dean.
Despite his nerves, which he readily admitted to, Dean travelled down from home in a small village near Nottingham to Westminster and I was lucky enough to accompany him to Parliament (a real bucket list moment for me). After hearing from Tracey Crouch MP, the Shadow Cabinet Minister for Mental Health Dr Rosena Allin-Khan and mental Health Foundation CEO Mark Rowland, Dean he delivered a powerful speech to ministers, MPs and other charity leaders.
When I first met Dean via that Zoom screen a few weeks ago, I never could have imagined that one day I would be beaming with pride as he stepped out of his comfort zone and spoke from the heart (he didn’t even take notes!) about his most private feelings. It is moments like these that all the hard work is immediately all made worthwhile. I know every single person in that room will have connected with the words Dean spoke, and for us that’s what it’s all about. I know I speak for everyone at Filigree when I say working with the Mental Health Foundation on this project and knowing the stories we have shared could help just one person with their mental health, has been such a rewarding experience. Find out more about the campaign here.
