This is a talking point published in the Hereford Times on October 24.

Lauren Fosterjohn, Nmite

EARLIER this month I picked up my phone, tapped on LinkedIn and scrolled my way through the montage of mental health awareness posts that dominated my feed.

The usual sentiments were all there, “Speak up”, “Remember to check in on your friends”, “There is life after lows”. I tapped the create button and started to write my own post.

Midway through typing I suddenly thought, “No one wants to hear this, and it’s making me sound far too vulnerable.”

And there and then, I deleted it. Since then, I’ve reflected. Why did I delete it?

I was diagnosed with generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) many years ago, and I have experienced depression. I don’t need to go into much more detail than that.

However, I don’t want my character to be defined solely by the state of my mental health or by my ability to ‘take a hit’.

I’ve worked hard to create an identity for myself beyond this disorder. I’m a parent of two beautiful children, I’m creative and passionate, and I would say I have excelled in my career to date despite various challenges.

And yet there have been, and there still are times when my mental health is used by others to define me.

Where my character has been held ransom to a previous perception or pre-conceived idea of what I’m capable of. Utterings of ‘resilience’ and ‘readiness’, and ‘how will you do it all?’

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But none of that bothers me, I tell myself. And yet here I am, deleting posts because I’m concerned about how they’ll be perceived. How ‘I’ will be perceived.

I’m disappointed if I’m being honest, that deep down I’m still correlating the term ‘mental health’ with weakness.

So here I am, righting that wrong. It’s not vulnerable to speak out about our mental health. It’s certainly not vulnerable to call out those who place limitations on us. Next time, I’ll post the post.