Check out this poem focusing on mental health and talking about it, performed by Ben Miller, Fred MacAulay and others,

We were lucky enough to be hosting a comedy night last Monday with some brilliant, talented comedians including Ben Miller and Fred MacAulay.

Prior to the set, we recorded this poem with them. It’s called ‘Please hear what I’m not saying’ which was written by Charles C. Finn in the 60s, and it had been brought to our attention by one of our community during the course of the campaign.

It offers an interesting perspective on the gap there can be between the way someone appears to be, and how they’re really feeling inside, and it is also being referred to by the NHS in Derbyshire as part of their staff training scheme. It expresses the view that we’re all actors to some extent, projecting a picture of ourselves to those around us, and that people may feel much more isolated than their external appearance reveals them to be.

Anxiety and depression and other common mental health problems affect one in eight men. Whilst this poem by no means encapsulates the whole complexity of this situation, this felt like the perfect opportunity to provoke some thought around the scale of this issue and how it can often be overlooked. We’d be interested to hear if you think it rings true.

Please note – this is only a cutdown of the whole poem, which can be found here and the full poem expresses the view that the same perspective applies equally to men and women.