January 25th was Bell’s annual “Bell Let’s Talk” day. The company promises to donate $0.05 for every text, tweet with the hashtag, Snapchat filter used, view of their promotional video, and minute of call on their network, and this year, over $6 million was raised for mental health initiatives in Canada.
This is one of my favorite days. I love reading and hearing people’s stories about their struggles with mental health and seeing the outpouring of support online. I love that a major company is using their platform to promote and support mental health initiatives and raise awareness of mental health.
But I hate seeing people who, 364 days of the year could not care less if you struggle with mental illness, suddenly become huge advocates of mental health awareness. I hate seeing people who think that by tweeting a few times or changing their Facebook profile photo filter have achieved their karma for the year. I hate that the rest of the year, mental health is something that is disregarded and ignored. And I hate reading stories like this one, where a Bell media employee was fired for being open and upfront about her mental illness.
I think that our conversations about mental health should go beyond January 25th. I hope that they do. How sad must it be to suffer from a mental illness and feel like you have no one to turn to, and then one day a year, see all this conversation and all these people all of a sudden come out of the woodwork and say “oh, by the way, I’m always here for you, but only today!”
I encourage everyone to be open, to talk to one another, and to open their hearts to those who are struggling, no matter what day of the year it is. We can do better and we can do more to help those who are having a rough time.
I think that Bell’s campaign is a definite step in the right direction—by no means am I saying that the Bell Let’s Talk campaign isn’t worthwhile or useful or amazing. I just want to see the conversation continue beyond and outside of the campaign. I want to see people be encouraging and kind toward one another without the encouragement of a monetary campaign. People should be encouraging and kind toward one another because they can, and because it makes things a little bit easier and a little bit better for everyone.