• Educate yourself. Read about mental health, common adverse events impacting people’s mental health, and the different realities faced by different populations when it comes to mental health.
• Listen without judgement. Validate the person’s experience. Do not jump to giving advice. Offer them a space to share.
• Be mindful of your language. Avoid vocabulary such as “crazy” or “insane” which may dehumanise the person you are trying to help.

This metaphor means seeing your mental health as a wallet: money comes in, money comes out. How much money is in there is how many adverse events you can go through while sustaining your mental health.

We usually only worry about our mental health during distressing events, and do...