Gum on My Shoe

Since 2001 the Mental Health Foundation has been leading Mental Health Awareness Week (MHAW) to focus on good mental health. Each May, people from every part of society take part. This year, MHAW will take place from 12 to 18 May 2025. The theme for 2025 is “Community.” Being part of a safe, positive community is vital for our mental health and wellbeing. We thrive when we have strong connections with other people and supportive communities that remind us, we are not alone. Communities can provide a sense of belonging, safety, support in hard times, and give us a sense purpose. That’s all well and good, but what if you don’t feel part of a community? What if you never have? What if you don’t want to? This came out in conversation with my friend and fellow mental health blogger Aimee Wilson. Aimee blogs at I’m NOT Disordered and writes for Shake My Hand , the campaign she founded to empower survivors and reform professional responses to rape and abuse. A: Did you see the ...

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the almost fourteen years we’ve been friends, it’s that living with bipolar disorder isn’t a one day at the end of March thing. It’s an every day of every month thing. Dear Fran. It’s World Bipolar Day in a few days, and I wanted to do something to mark the occasion. This letter is my gift to you. For World Bipolar Day, yes. But really for each and every day. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the almost fourteen years we’ve been friends, it’s that living with bipolar disorder isn’t a one day at the end of March thing. It’s an every day of every month thing. That’s something not everyone realises. There are reasons for that. You have better days and worse days, and are more likely to engage with other people on your better days. You choose not to share everything with everyone all the time. It’s also true that the impacts of illness on your life are not equally obvious to others. As well as bipolar you live with chronic fatigue ...

Welcome to Gum on My Shoe, a platform dedicated to fostering understanding, support, and advocacy for mental health, particularly in relation to bipolar disorder. Today, we have the privilege of delving into the story behind this impactful blog and its companion book, High Tide, Low Tide: The Caring Friend’s Guide to Bipolar Disorder . Join us as we chat with Martin Baker, one of the blog’s co-founders, about the power of friendship, resilience, and breaking down barriers in mental health advocacy. 1. Can you share the inspiration behind starting Gum on My Shoe and writing High Tide, Low Tide ? The idea for our book High Tide, Low Tide came when I mentioned to Fran that I felt inspired to do something creative. I wasn’t thinking about mental health as such, more like maybe some short stories, or focusing on my photography. Fran had other ideas! “I know what you could do,” she said. “You could write a book about being friends with someone who lives with mental illness!” I reali...

I’m a gypsy, Marty. No matter how hard the traveling is I still go, again and again. You are a comfort creature traveling vicariously. — Fran Houston One of my father’s favourite aphorisms was “If a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing properly.” In this, he (perhaps unknowingly) echoed Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, who in 1774 wrote to his son “Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well.” These words of paternal wisdom came to mind as I began gathering my thoughts for a blog post about vicarious living. I’ve arguably lived more through other people’s lives than my own. “If a life’s worth living,” I pondered, “it’s worth living vicariously.” I’m going to focus on my experience of relationships, health, and travel. I’ll explore a few of the pitfalls, and what, if anything, I live for myself. Relationships The Cambridge Dictionary defines vicariously as “experienced through the activities of other people, rather than by doing something yourself.” This ...

Learning to drink a coffee and learning to code is the same thing. — Waren Gonzaga This post was inspired by a conversation with a friend who works at my local coffee shop. It was a busy Saturday morning and she was on her own after a colleague had phoned in sick. In between customers we got talking about team working, staff turnover, and the challenges of bringing new team members up to speed. Despite never having worked in hospitality, I could relate to what she was saying. It got me thinking about my experience of training and being trained, the things I learn relatively easily, and those I struggle to master. Working in a busy coffee shop would definitely fall into the latter category! KT in the Workplace My friend was amused that I couldn’t immediately recall my job title, but Intermediate Information Technology Service Manager reveals little about what I actually do. I explained that I’m part of a team responsible for ensuring the computer systems we support are up whe...

Sometimes I don’t want to talk about it. Not to anyone. No one. No one at all. I just want to think about it on my own. Because it is mine. And no one else’s. — Michael Rose Falling this year on February 2, Time to Talk Day is one of several awareness days and events dedicated to countering the stigma surrounding mental health. We’re encouraged to open up to family, friends and colleagues about how we’re feeling, and to be there for others wanting to tell us how they’re doing. These are laudable aims, and fully in keeping with the message Fran and I share in our book and in other writing here and elsewhere. We believe that keeping the channels of communication open is the single greatest contribution we can make to improving the acceptance of mental health issues, and keeping ourselves and those we love as well and as safe as possible. But what if you don’t want to talk about what’s going on for you? What if our friends and loved ones don’t want to talk to us? I consider mys...

I can’t promise I won’t get scared sometimes, but I am not afraid. The first key message I want to share is that there’s nothing to be afraid of in being friends with someone who lives with mental illness. That might seem an obvious thing to say, but it’s important given the degree of stigma and social isolation many people experience if they live with debilitating illness of any kind. We all like to believe we’re above such prejudices, but if we’re honest most of us can admit to having felt uneasy at times in the company of people who, on the surface at least, appear different from us or whose needs leave us feeling uncomfortable or helpless. Even if we don’t feel that way ourselves, we might have had difficulty dealing with other people’s negative reactions to our friend or loved one. If anyone had told me years ago that I’d meet somebody online who would become a close friend, I’d have been happy to believe them. If they’d gone on to say that this person would live on the other...

Trigger warning: some of the linked articles contain references to suicide and suicidal thinking. In the second in our series of themed posts I’ve selected articles that mark various mental health awareness days and events. Scroll through or click the link to jump to the relevant section. Time to Talk Day (February) World Bipolar Day (March 30) Mental Health Awareness Week (May) Mental Health Awareness Month (May) World Suicide Prevention Day (September 10) World Mental Health Day (October 10) International Men’s Day (November 19) Other Dates and Events I’ve provided a short excerpt from each post, with a link to the original article. I will update the list as relevant posts are published in the future. For a list of other awareness days and events check out the calendar at Mental Health UK . Time to Talk Day Time to Talk Day is an awareness event observed each year in early February. It was launched in 2014 by Time to Change, a campaign run in England to ...