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 MHAW theme this year? I tagged you. Did it give you any ideas?
M: Ah yes. Thank you. I saved it, but haven’t thought about it yet. How about you?
A: For Shake My Hand I’m going to do a piece on building a community amongst people with similar experiences.
M: That’s a great idea. I’ve rarely if ever felt that kind of sense of community. That could be something to explore in itself, I guess. I’ve written about it in the past, but I could probably find a new angle.
A: Is that a sad thing? It feels sad.
M: I’m not sure. Maybe, yeah. A bit.
It’s true that I’ve never truly felt part of any larger community or tribe. I’ve explored this previously in a number of blog posts, including Belonging (Longing to Be), Finding My Tribe, Tribe and Untribe (A Trip to the Pub), and Being a Man: Exploring My Gender Identity for International Men’s Day.
At different times in my life I’ve found myself at the edge of groups or communities in which I’d have loved to fully belong. The BE-in folk at university. The various friendship and social groupings when I lived and worked in London. The informal community of writers and poets who frequented the Literary Salon in Newcastle. The wider team of Mental Health First Aiders at work. In each case, I was qualified to be a member by virtue of connection with other members, interests, skills, or training. I almost never felt I was a fully signed up, card-carrying member, however. That’s no fault of the other members. My lack of belonging is on me, not them.
I’ve never been able to do the social thing. I’ve never known the criteria for membership or had access to the rules of engagement. On more than one occasion I’ve watched in awe as people do the social thing. I can’t do that. I sit quietly in the corner at parties, happy to have been invited but utterly unable to engage. I fare much better one-on-one, or in very small groups.
Aimee asked me if it was a sad thing. Sometimes, yes. I recall once, many years ago, sitting in a coffee shop on a Saturday morning. I felt utterly unconnected and alone. The network of friends I’d relied on to be there seemed to have fractured or disappeared. That was at least partly my fault. I hadn’t been good at keeping in touch. It took the death of a friend for me to recognise how much had changed, and how much needed to change if I wasn’t to remain unconnected.
I had no idea how to approach that. How to build new connections, meet people, make friends. It wasn’t easy. It required me to examine everything I thought I knew about other people, friendships, and connections. For too long I’d maintained an inner circle of close friends — and nothing and no one else. Unpacking that took a long time and considerable effort. I shared something of that journey in one of my early blog posts, Dissolving the Circle. I find it useful to reread now and again. It helps keep me on track.
Over the years, I’ve learned people differ in the kind of communities and networks that work for them. I discussed some of these differences in Spokesfriends and Insular Groups: What Kind of Support Network Do You Have? Big groups of mutual friends don’t work for me. I feel much more supported by a network of one-to-one friendships. My friends know one another but my connection with each is distinct and free to develop independently. Aimee captured this perfectly in the conversation that inspired this post.
A: I’m a community for you! We make our own little one.
M: Bless you! Yes we do!
A: A two-blogger-community! It totally works! I’d far rather have one amazing friend than a town of random people.
M: I couldn’t agree with you more!
As I sit writing this in a coffee shop on a Saturday morning, it’s hard to express how different my situation is compared to that other Saturday morning years ago. I feel connected, supported, cared for, and loved. Four years ago, I captured something of this in Team Marty (Because No One Can Be Everything for Everyone). As I wrote there, “These are my people. My tribe. Team Marty. I couldn’t be who I am, do what I do, without them.”
It’s not an exclusive club. Membership varies from time to time. Existing friendships evolve and change. I make new friends these days without worrying if we’re perfectly compatible or will be in each other’s lives forever. One friend is able to forgive the fact I care nothing about sport and have never been to a soccer match. I can accept (just) that some of them don’t like cheese.
Someone I’d only recently got to know checked in with me after reading something I’d put on social media. Her “Just seen your Facebook post, hope you’re okay” meant the world to me. This is my kind of community. Occasionally there are disconnects. Friendships take a pause or end. Sometimes they begin again. Situations and needs change. Caring endures. As a dear friend reminded me after a lengthy period of disconnect that neither of us fully understands, “There’s no reason for us not to be able to support each other as friends.”
Over to You
What does the word community mean to you? What communities do you identify with? In what ways do you feel supported, cared for, and validated? What kind of support network works for you? We’d love to hear your thoughts, either in the comments below or via our contact page.
Photo by Rathish Gandhi at Unsplash.
