During last year’s Mental Health Awareness Week, I delayed writing about my own experiences, mostly because I thought I didn’t have the right: I am not a medical professional, and I have no diagnosed mental health conditions. However, writing about a time when I experienced stress at work made me realise that mental health is a topic for everybody. It seems obvious to say that we all have a level of mental health, just as we all have a level of physical health, but we often don’t talk about it in that way: we only think about mental health when something is going wrong, rather than as a state of being.

This year feels easier, because the theme of this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week is movement: a topic with an effect on mental health which I have felt directly in recent years.

I was not a sporty child. I would rather read a book than play football (that hasn’t changed: I would still rather read a book than play football - I don’t like football). Moreover, I dreaded PE lessons, would risk the consequences of ‘forgetting’ my kit before climbing a rope, and was the proverbially last picked person in team sports. I found a few physical activities which I enjoyed, including canoeing and kayaking, but never really committed to them. As a consequence, exercise did not become a habit in my adult life.

It was Mental Health Week a couple of weeks ago, but I was too busy to write this article. Actually, that’s not true. I was too nervous to write this article. But those are both good reasons to write it, even belatedly.

I want to write about how anyone can experience challenges with their mental health at work, how it can be difficult to know when this is happening, and how welcome it is that times have changed. I also want to illustrate this with an example of a personal experience.

Two declarations before I share that experience. First, I am not a health professional and have no training in the field. Second, this is a tale of everyday stress and its consequences. I have come to realise that, part of the reason that it is important to talk about mental health is that many people experience challenges which are not long term, and which don’t require a diagnosis, but that nevertheless need help. And they (including me) don’t always feel comfortable asking for help.

How long has 2020 been for you? How long was the last week? Or the last month? Or the last hour?

If your experience has been anything like mine, none of our experience of time has felt anything like normal this year. Hours have dragged until days felt like weeks - while weeks and months have flown by like minutes and seconds. It simultaneously feels impossible that it is already December, and impossible that March 2020 was only nine months ago.

A recently published research paper based on the UK showed that 80% of survey respondents reporting experiencing distorted time during lockdown, and found that experience of distortion correlated with factors such as stress, insecurity and continuity and complexity of work. I am sure that further research into this phenomenon will follow, and that one of the small silver linings of this tragic year will be an improved understanding of this dimension of human experience and perception.