Car­o­line Rav­el­lo

We are al­most mid­way through the Unit­ed King­dom’s Na­tion­al Men­tal Health Aware­ness Week, which start­ed on Mon­day, May 11, and runs un­til Sun­day, May 17. This year’s theme is “Take Ac­tion.” Or­gan­is­ers be­lieve that every ac­tion counts and say that if we all act, we can en­sure men­tal health be­comes a na­tion­al pri­or­i­ty.

While this is a UK cam­paign, the premise ap­plies to every ju­ris­dic­tion seek­ing to make men­tal health a na­tion­al im­per­a­tive.

“When we all take ac­tion to sup­port men­tal health at home, in school, and at work, we help re­move the bar­ri­ers that hold peo­ple back,” says Men­tal Health UK.

The UK’s Men­tal Health Foun­da­tion, which has host­ed the week since 1990, fo­cus­es on en­cour­ag­ing ac­tion to sup­port men­tal well-be­ing. The an­nu­al ob­ser­vance rais­es aware­ness and pro­vides op­por­tu­ni­ties for peo­ple to pro­tect both their own well-be­ing and that of oth­ers.

Tak­ing ac­tion, Men­tal Health UK says, “sup­ports our own well­be­ing and im­proves at­ti­tudes across so­ci­ety so that every­one can ac­cess the sup­port they de­serve.”

I was drawn to the down­load­able re­sources, es­pe­cial­ly the con­ver­sa­tion starters avail­able at Men­tal Health UK’s web­site. They cov­er top­ics such as talk­ing to friends, young peo­ple and oth­ers about men­tal health, sui­cide, anx­i­ety and mon­ey, while al­so of­fer­ing prac­ti­cal tools like a stress buck­et and a well-be­ing ac­tion plan.

I ze­roed in on the top­ic “Talk­ing about men­tal health and mon­ey.”

If you have fol­lowed my sto­ry, you would know that af­ter decades of try­ing to man­age my well-be­ing—and the mon­ey spent on pro­fes­sion­al in­ter­ven­tions—I even­tu­al­ly dis­cov­ered that mis­man­age­ment of mon­ey was one of the most per­ilous as­pects of try­ing to man­age men­tal health dis­or­ders on my own. No one ever made that con­nec­tion for me, and I con­tin­ue to pay the price of that lack of aware­ness.

I bought books about debt man­age­ment to deal with the shame I felt dur­ing the more sober mo­ments fol­low­ing pe­ri­ods of reck­less spend­ing. But things on­ly tru­ly changed when I read An Un­qui­et Mind by Kay Red­field Jami­son.

Jami­son’s work was in­tro­duced to me about 15 years ago by my cousin, a med­ical pro­fes­sion­al liv­ing in the UK. An au­thor and clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist liv­ing with bipo­lar dis­or­der, Jami­son wrote open­ly about mis­man­ag­ing mon­ey and the psy­cho­log­i­cal bat­tle sur­round­ing it. Her hon­esty gave me a peace of mind I had nev­er ex­pe­ri­enced be­fore re­gard­ing debt, over­spend­ing and shame. It al­so co­in­cid­ed with my de­ci­sion to re­tire ear­ly, large­ly be­cause of work­place stress.

Men­tal health prob­lems are of­ten con­nect­ed to mon­ey. That is a fact. The Men­tal Health UK re­source chal­lenges the myth that “men­tal health prob­lems aren’t caused by mon­ey.”

“Wor­ry­ing about mon­ey can af­fect your men­tal health,” the brochure states. More poignant­ly, in my view, it adds: “Liv­ing with a men­tal health con­di­tion can make man­ag­ing mon­ey more dif­fi­cult. This can lead to be­ing in a ‘vi­cious cy­cle’.”

That phrase alone could serve as the ti­tle of my life sto­ry.

The in­sid­i­ous­ness of that cy­cle—and its pow­er to de­rail a per­son’s life—makes it im­per­a­tive that we speak open­ly about men­tal ill­ness, men­tal health, men­tal well-be­ing and mon­ey.

In my work as a coun­sel­lor, coach, ad­vo­cate and speak­er, mon­ey re­mains one of the most dif­fi­cult top­ics for peo­ple to dis­cuss.

“It can be daunt­ing to be open about mon­ey and men­tal health prob­lems,” says Men­tal Health UK.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion al­so of­fers ex­ten­sive re­sources for peo­ple sup­port­ing oth­ers who are man­ag­ing men­tal health con­di­tions.

Among the warn­ing signs to watch for in one­self or oth­ers are:

• Be­ing un­able to af­ford ne­ces­si­ties such as hous­ing, food, heat­ing or treat­ment

• Avoid­ing bills, let­ters, peo­ple, places or ac­tiv­i­ties

• Prob­lems with sleep

• Poor con­cen­tra­tion

• Feel­ings of guilt sur­round­ing spend­ing

• Spend­ing mon­ey to feel bet­ter

• Ad­dic­tions or de­pen­den­cies that lead to ex­ces­sive spend­ing

Speak­ing open­ly about an is­sue so deeply wrapped in guilt and shame is my con­tri­bu­tion to this cam­paign.

Even now, when I share my ex­pe­ri­ences, I still feel pro­found in­se­cu­ri­ty. Some­times I look in­to the faces of peo­ple—in­clud­ing close friends—and sense dis­be­lief, as though I am mere­ly mak­ing ex­cus­es for fi­nan­cial mis­man­age­ment.

One friend who wit­nessed both my man­ic highs and de­pres­sive lows over decades would of­ten re­mark, “The kind of mon­ey that pass through your hand.”

Usu­al­ly, I of­fered no de­fence.

Some­times peo­ple make them­selves feel bet­ter by mag­ni­fy­ing what they see as an­oth­er per­son’s fail­ures. And truth­ful­ly, many peo­ple around me al­so ben­e­fit­ed from my over­spend­ing.

The brochure con­cludes with an im­por­tant re­minder: “If some­one has cho­sen to speak to you, be em­pa­thet­ic. If you are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing men­tal health and mon­ey prob­lems, show the same kind­ness to your­self.”

This is my ac­tion.

I now speak from a far health­i­er place and con­tin­ue con­fronting the shame as­so­ci­at­ed with mon­ey—whether through mis­man­age­ment or lack­—while man­ag­ing men­tal health con­di­tions, in sup­port of UK Na­tion­al Men­tal Health Aware­ness Week 2026.

I hope it helps some­one.