Losing a member of your family or close friend to suicide must be heart breaking.
The pain, unimaginable.
Many family members or work colleagues campaign, fundraising, to help others struggling.
However, what if there is a problem with fundraising for mental health charities such as MIND.
What problem?
These charities are doing good right?
Looking at their annual statement you would think it crazy to suggest otherwise.
Good will stories. Volunteering. Positive outcomes.
Donations for MIND in 2018/2019 reached 8.5 million.
Many people would question why there is a problem fundraising for them.
Looking closer …….. the hidden problem:
One of the testimonials used in the company statement.
An individual:
• Suicidal and hopeless
• Labelled with a mental health condition
• Received barbaric electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)
• Introduced to someone at MIND who made them feel valuable
• Now volunteering at MIND and a voice for MIND, promoting service to others struggling
Her story presented in the Companies’ Financial Statements.
An online sales pitch. A business. A business who relies on 20% of their income from donations.
Impact on families
If you are a family member left without a loved one to suicide, you may read a testimonial like this and wish, your family member could have had access to MIND’s services.
The desire to make sure no-one else suffers the way you have is strong. It is natural to want to channel that pain into something positive.
The reality ……
A person who has anxiety and depression and is not able to rest, will deteriorate. This is what happens to someone like Darrell Hammond, which can be seen in the recent documentary, Cracked Up, where he shares his story.
Dr Dorothy Rowe, famous Psychologist and Author, states “the profession of psychiatry is based on the belief that there are such things as mental illnesses, and that these illnesses have a physical cause and a physical cure – drugs and electroconvulsive therapy. The only way to maintain the belief that mental disorder has a physical cause is steadfastly to refuse to be aware of what is going on and what has gone on in the individual lives of individual people”.
If you read any of the literature or stories on MIND’s website … they are based on this fear based story/paradigm.
Consider the following:
• What about giving someone the opportunity to rebuild their life without the reliance of a mental health charity like MIND. That’s independence!
• Educating that panic attacks are not a mental health condition
• The inability to cope with life changes and stresses are not mental health conditions
• Not placing your value and worth in an organisation that requires you to believe you are ill to survive
• Not being a sales person for that organisation in order to build a life for yourself.
This would be real empowerment. A campaign worth getting behind.
This is the problem with fundraising for mental health charities such as MIND.
