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Whether it’s a friend, a family member or a colleague – feeling worried about someone else’s mental health can be difficult if you’re not sure what to do. In this article, you’ll find plenty of tips and advice on how to talk to someone else about their mental health, ways you can help them, and how to still make sure you’re taking care of yourself too.

Let's talk about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). OCD can show up in lots of different ways, so it’s important to know that it looks different for everyone.

When we’re struggling with our mental health, we might feel like we should just ‘carry on’ or tell people that we’re ‘fine’ – even when we’re not. If we broke a leg, we wouldn’t let it heal on its own. If we lost our voice, we wouldn’t just carry on without speaking. We all have a right not to feel miserable. We wouldn’t neglect our physical health, so why should we neglect our mental health?

Suicide is often a topic people choose to avoid talking about for many reasons. Sometimes we might not talk about it because it can be upsetting, sometimes we might avoid talking about it because there’s still a lot of stigma. Whatever the reason, it’s really important that we do talk about suicide in a way that raises awareness and educates. The more we talk about it, the more we can prevent it.

Feeling stressed is a common experience, especially in modern-day life! Sometimes, it might be caused by one big thing, other times it can be a mixture of smaller pressures that just keep building up over time. It might even be that there is no obvious cause, and that’s okay.

Schizophrenia is a complicated mental health condition, and can affect many aspects of your thoughts and emotions. It can look and feel different for everyone. Sadly, schizophrenia is still a very misunderstood and stigmatised mental health condition.

We all feel a bit sad, down, and deflated at times. It’s perfectly normal for our emotions to have ebbs and flows. But when these low feelings stay for longer periods of time, and are starting to impact on your daily life, this could be a sign that you might be depressed.

It's so important to us at Everyturn that our colleagues and the people we support feel safe and supported bringing their whole selves into the conversation.

One of our colleagues is kindly sharing her/their own personal experience in the form of a guest blog. We're sure that this will resonate with many people, and we hope that by sharing lived-experiences like this we can help encourage supportive conversations around LGBTQIA+ communities.