According to The World Health Organisation, there are over 300million people living with depression all over the world.
Blurt It Out is an amazing charity working towards raising awareness of depression and its many symptoms. They have links to helpful resources on their website, a regular blog that talks through symptoms etc and are very useful and informative for anyone struggling (or for anyone who knows someone struggling). They also do a subscription box full of stuff designed to boost confidence, make you feel less alone and to inspire you. I've been subscribed for months now and it is one of the best things I've ever done. Because of this, I'm joining in on their Big Blurtathon on the 21st September this year to try to raise money for people suffering with depression.
For me, social media is one of the worst things for mental health as it's full of comparisons and arguments and ways to make people feel bad about themselves. Adverts are designed to make you want to change yourself so that you buy their stuff, the majority of celebrities encourage people to have a certain body type that is often just unhealthy when tried to achieve and everything is a competition to see who can have the best life. But social media is a lie. People rarely post when they've gained weight and are now happier with their body and people don't post when they're going through a rough patch and are running low on money. You just don't see it. So, looking at all that can be super harmful to somebody potentially already struggling with their own mental health, but at the same time, it can be very difficult to stop.
I've decided to do a social media cleanse for 24 hours on the 20th September. I won't be using Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter etc and I also won't be using any harmful websites like online magazines. Hopefully, there are other people who see how damaging social media can be and those people will help me to raise money for the millions of people struggling right now.