The fight for improving mental health is a very real thing for the people who work for Bell in the Let’s Talk campaign. The CEO has talked about his mother’s struggles, and the people in the program.
I make a conscious choice to take part in Let’s Talk on That Day for a simple, cold and calculating reason: that company is going to hand out millions somewhere – so it might as well be to My People.
As much as the whole charity health care thing bothers me – we should be able to fund and provide and do this as a public service – it’s also necessary. Every single specialist clinic I go to has someone’s name on the wall.
I don’t like how Bell is running its media division right now : Bell has put more of my friends out of work in the last two years than any other company. Granted, I was in radio and TV, but still. And whoever is left standing is in a perpetual state of anxiety wondering when the next round of cuts will happen.
The people Bell employs- and the people it has let go – a lot of them are struggling. A lot of them are contract and not able to access extended benefits, or even employee supports.
And that Giant Layoff Machine, that if you cost too much or if you’re too close to retirement or you’re contract and scared if you don’t work like a rented mule that you’ll be out or… *whatever*… that they’re gonna come for you – the chill is palpable.
My other problem is with the campaign itself – lots of smiling depressives front and centre, not a lot else. Lots of cheering and “you can beat this” – it doesn’t mean a lot to me, frankly, I’ll never beat it. But my illness is more socially acceptable. I’ve never had a lot of stigma because I’m too ill to really do that good a job of hiding.
And then my friends who have bipolar disorders or hallucinate or hear voices or who have severe addiction issues… they’re never represented and they’ve got enormous obstacles in care, in employment.
The stigma for depression isn’t even close to the stigma of, say, paranoid schizophrenia. They’re not even in the same league.
But again, and I cannot emphasize this enough – they’re going to give that money away to SOMEONE and the sector needs it. Needs it really bad – and it does get us talking. Really talking. (to the point where maybe I should stop talking.)
That’s not going to stop me from providing some constructive criticism:
1) Enough with the depressed already. I think we’re good. Time to send the elevator for the other badly stigmatized mood disorders.
2) Charity starts at home. Make mental health services available to everyone who works for you. Maybe even start paid training and employment for outpatient psychiatric organizations. (You still have jobs to offer… granted they’re not in media, but a job is a job.)
3) Get strategic. The bleed out of media is actually going to make this project less effective in the long term. Not a lot of talking if there’s no one to broadcast it.
Anyhow. There’s my piece. Or my peace. However you want to look at it.
when your fundraiser is problematic. Let’s talk.
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Mooncustafer 