Tribute to Mental Health Workers

It has been a very challenging month at the Coal Face of Mental Health. Thus in this post I wish to express respect and gratitude to the mental health workers I have the honour and pleasure of working in day in, day out. Clearly these emotions are also generalised to Mental Health workers across the globe.

I am convinced you save lives filled with potential regularly; you all continue to contribute positively to the lives of so many, and yet you mostly do not receive thanks or gratitude.

So the following is my THANK YOU to all of you, for what its worth. You're there with your clients, helping them negotiate the turbulent internal oceans of their thoughts, impulses, imaginations, memories and emotions.

You're there with them, aiding their interactions with their often contracting and threatening social and external worlds.

You're there with them, even when they have fallen into the Abyss- and do your best to help them climb the steep precipices back out.

You're there, supporting families as they attempt valiantly to do the same.

You're there, advocating for our vulnerable fellow humans in expressing their rights to universal health care, education, food, shelter.

You're there, setting hard limits when necessary in order to regulate their oft aggressive and harmful impulses borne of relational trauma and unfortunate genetics.

You're there, maintaining a sense of hope and morale when often most have given up.

You're there for each other, being aware of the Spectre of burnout, warning each other of his attempts to creep up on you.

You're there, supporting each other through the often thankless nature of this profession. And you're also there to celebrate the moments when we do receive gratitude from those we aid, and the small, incremental wins when we share in our clients progress.

You're there, a role model to society in demonstrating values of compassion, skilled means and commitment. Its absolutely shite out there sometimes there is no doubt. But I still continue to believe in what we do, and for what its worth, I continue to believe in all of you.