Today is the yearly Bell Let’s Talk Day. Even though it’s totally a corporate marketing campaign and the company itself has it’s own internal issues, I think it’s still a very valuable day that needs to keep happening.
Since the very first Bell Let’s Talk I participated in, I started to talk more openly about my experiences and diagnoses with anxiety. It’s kind of stupid but having a day, or a hashtag felt like a wall I could hide behind and it felt safe and I soon realized that many of my friends face similar challenges and that I’m not alone.
Though I tweeted a few posts today, I stepped back from the amount I would normally talk today. Instead, I read everybody else’s posts. I saw some people open up with things I would’ve not known otherwise. I reflected on how I will be more patient and understanding to certain people. I reached out to people to let them know I’d do what I could to help them when they needed it.
Days like this, corporate or not, will not stop being important until we all make efforts to make this an important discussion every day, ask our leaders to increase funding for programs and allow people in our lives to feel safe asking for help.
Tiana Feng 