Car­o­line Rav­el­lo

When you have lived many years man­ag­ing men­tal health is­sues, every day is a men­tal health day. It is ei­ther a day of good men­tal health or bad men­tal well-be­ing, or a day of men­tal ill health that needs in­ter­ven­tion. What I have learned to dif­fer­en­ti­ate from life and learn­ing is that every day is a men­tal health day.

Usu­al­ly, I start my ad­vo­ca­cy train­ing say­ing, “If you have a mind, you have men­tal health.”

Con­fu­sion reg­is­ters on most of the faces of trainees, guests, or the au­di­ence be­cause so many peo­ple hear “men­tal ill­ness” or “mad­ness” or some deroga­to­ry term when you say, “men­tal health.”

Men­tal health is not men­tal ill­ness. Every­one has men­tal health, but not every­one has men­tal ill­ness. They are re­lat­ed con­cepts and are not mu­tu­al­ly ex­clu­sive con­cepts be­cause peo­ple can move from men­tal health to men­tal ill­ness and back to men­tal health. We teach that health is on a spec­trum, both phys­i­cal health and men­tal health, be­cause peo­ple get ill all the time and re­cov­er.

When I saw the Unit­ed States’ 2026 Men­tal Health Month theme, my spir­it lift­ed. May is the US’s high­est ad­vo­ca­cy pe­ri­od and has been so for 75 years this year. Glob­al­ly, though, since 1992, the world has ob­served World Men­tal Health Day on Oc­to­ber 10.

This year, the US’s theme is “More Good Days, To­geth­er.” I was im­me­di­ate­ly at­tract­ed to this, think­ing how pre­cious it would be to see a prop­er de­f­i­n­i­tion of what rep­re­sents a “good day” in the man­age­ment of men­tal health and well-be­ing and/or men­tal ill­ness­es, dis­or­ders or con­di­tions.

In an­nounc­ing the theme last Jan­u­ary on their In­sta­gram ac­count, Men­tal Health Amer­i­ca (MHA) wrote, “Every­one has good days and hard days with their men­tal health.”

They wrote that “this year’s theme en­cour­ages us all to re­flect on what a ‘good’ day looks like, both for our­selves and for our com­mu­ni­ties.”

I am here for this!

Whether or not you are man­ag­ing men­tal ill­ness, a “good day” is an in­di­vid­ual ex­pe­ri­ence. A long time ago, I learned that the en­e­my of my good men­tal health and well-be­ing is a life de­fined by peo­ple who were not me, did not live my his­to­ry, and have nev­er had an iden­ti­cal ex­pe­ri­ence as I have had.

We may have been in the same sit­u­a­tions – fam­i­ly, home, work­place, church, school, wher­ev­er, but no one has ex­pe­ri­enced the event in the same man­ner as I would have. Nor have I ex­pe­ri­enced any­thing in the ex­act man­ner as oth­ers have.

MHA’s write­up sug­gests that we each de­fine our good days and from shar­ing what that means for each of us, “we can use that in­sight to con­nect peo­ple to the right sup­port at the right time, and shape ad­vo­ca­cy, ed­u­ca­tion, and com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment to make more good days pos­si­ble for all.”

The mis­sion they say is, “Help­ing peo­ple have more good days by meet­ing them where they are, sup­port­ing them as whole peo­ple, and un­der­stand­ing that “good” is de­fined by their unique ex­pe­ri­ence and goals.”

In my ex­pe­ri­ence, there are many good days of dif­fer­ent va­ri­eties. If it is a well-reg­u­lat­ed pe­ri­od, a good day may be one where I am out with peo­ple, be­ing gre­gar­i­ous, en­joy­ing mu­sic and love­ly vibes. In oth­er sea­sons, a good day may be one where the dish­es are not pil­ing up (piled dish­es are a com­mon sig­ni­fi­er for peo­ple man­ag­ing men­tal health con­di­tions).

Once, a young la­dy called me and was pleased with her­self for hav­ing a good day – she had show­ered, washed her hair, eat­en a hot meal and made her bed. We were elat­ed. I could not stop com­pli­ment­ing her progress.

There are peo­ple who need peo­ple in their en­vi­ron­ment to have a good day, and there are those who find so­lace in not hav­ing to put up with tri­fling hu­mans. For some, a meal de­liv­ered (more up­lift­ing if not so­licit­ed), din­ing out, din­ner and a movie—I have not met any­one who does not like to eat—could de­fine a good day.

More­over, if you know some­one man­ag­ing men­tal health chal­lenges, do not wait un­til they ask. Most­ly, we al­ready feel as though we are a both­er to oth­ers, and so ask­ing adds an­oth­er lay­er of anx­i­ety. Ask peo­ple what they need. Ask what would make a good day and take the op­por­tu­ni­ty to have that good day to­geth­er. Con­nect them to avail­able re­sources—a walk­ing club, a com­mu­ni­ty pool, a place to vol­un­teer—what­ev­er would make for a good day.

MHA wrote, the theme “en­cour­ages us all to re­flect on what a ‘good’ day looks like, both for our­selves and for our com­mu­ni­ties. To­geth­er, we can use that in­sight to con­nect peo­ple to the right sup­port at the right time, and shape ad­vo­ca­cy, ed­u­ca­tion, and com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment to make more good days pos­si­ble for all.”

“The path may look dif­fer­ent for every­one, but we all de­serve more good days, to­geth­er.”