Words by Smiley Team
When someone is suffering with their mental health, the obvious question to ask is: who is supporting them? However, one woman has added a new question to the journey: where is the support for people supporting others?
A new online platform, called 'This Might Help', has been set up to support carers through their journey, acknowledging that often, there is minimal help available for the people trying to help others. When someone opens up to us about something they’re struggling with, our human instinct is to want to find a solution – but sometimes it's okay to not always have the answers.
Often all we can do is hold space, actively listen and show we're present for that person when they need us.
This Might Help believes there is a big support gap that can be closed, if we collectively share our learnings, insights and tips on navigating these difficult times.
(Read more about the caring collective: a powerful space for young carers)
Founder Stefanie Sword-Williams, tells Smiley News that throughout her life, she's been an everyday carer for people and often felt so overwhelmed and lost on where to search for advice.
"Over the last five years, I’ve been supporting people in my life through depression, sexual assault, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts," she says.
“Having never experienced any of these things myself, I’ve struggled with knowing what to do when people opened up to me. Truthfully I didn’t know what to say, how to help or how to stop thinking about what they’d shared with me. I wasn’t qualified to give professional advice and I didn’t feel like I could share what I knew with others, so that left me feeling scared, worried and isolated."
When Stefanie asked around, no one could recommend a place that she could find support as a carer, which led her to identify a ‘support gap’ in the market. "Knowing that peer-to-peer sharing and community support can be so powerful during these difficult times, I decided I wanted to create a platform that could help a variety of carers all in one place," she says.
“When I searched online for guidance I struggled to find relatable content that comforted or supported carers through the journey. I found the process of sifting through the internet looking for help emotionally draining and overwhelming, often without any clear direction on where I could find help for myself.”
(Read more about this network of 24/7 mental health crisis centres)
The website Stefanie has created has a resource hub, with different content about anxiety, depression, sexual assault and trauma, and it’s founded on the three values of reassurance, discretion and information.
This Might Help aims to help people feel reassured that they’re not alone, and that what they’re navigating is extremely common.
Not everyone wants to share what they are going through with the people around them, so they aim to make all of their content discrete and accessible in different mediums.
You can find out more about This Might Help at thismighthelpus.com.
