I was going to write another post about depression for Blue Day, but in the end I seemed to be rehashing my post from last month, and I have no intention of turning this into a “depression” blog.
However, October is Anxiety and Depression Awareness Month, and today, October 10th is World Mental Health Day.
Blue Day 2008 is a site put together by a number of people in the Australian social media and tech communities in support of World Mental Health day. Some of us have experienced it, and most have known someone who has. According to Beyond Blue, one in five people will experience depression at some stage of their lives.
A group of Twitterers (including myself) have turned our twitter icons blue in support, and have tagged our related posts with #blueday2008.
The reality is depression will touch you or someone in your life. Most of us who experience it don’t want to stay there, living in it – no matter how it seems from the outside.
Sometimes we just need someone to listen and point us in the right direction, sometimes we need more help. Like any other illness, healing takes time, and some of us will never be “100%”. Some will require medication permanently, just like a diabetic. For others, it will be like a broken leg, and the medication and counselling are the cast and crutch to get back on our feet.
There is still a stigma around mental illness, but with knowledge and understanding, together we can make that a thing of the past.
If you want to get involved in Blue Day 2008, I suggest the following:
- If you don’t have a blog or a podcast, register on this site and submit a post that will appear on the Submitted Posts page.
- Change your avatars on your favourite social networking site Twitter/Facebook/FriendFeed/etc to something blue, download one of our pre-built ones
- Follow us on Twitter
- Modify your blog theme to be mainly blue
- Run a Second Life event, or attend the jokaydia event
- Wear blue for the day
- Organising a meet ups on the day, currently organised:
- Melbourne – Oct 10 from 5.30pm at Fad Gallery (more details – http://tinyurl.com/blueday)
- Sydney – Oct 10 from around 5pm, will be a STUB event and part of Official Friday Drinks at Grace77Bar on the Mezzanine level, cnr King and York
- Adelaide – details TBD
- Brisbane – details TBD
- Perth – Oct 10 from 7pm at Queens Hotel – 520 Beaufort Street, Highgate
- Canberra – details TBD
- Tag your photos/posts/tweets with BlueDay2008
- Become a fan on FaceBook