As Mental Health Awareness Month passes us by, the question must be asked: has any progress actually been made?

It is a curious paradox: those within the mental health community are the ones who most want and need awareness to be raised, yet find themselves least able to. Mental illness places an unavoidable gag on those who most need to speak, stigmatisation silencing even the most vocal. Meanwhile, those who are not sufferers find themselves unwilling or unable to be a spokesman, given the delicacy of such issues.

Here’s the deal: Cambridge in particular has a phenomenally high degree of mental health issues. A percentage bandied about when I first heard about this was that over half of undergraduates will or do suffer from depression, although I cannot vouch for the accuracy of this statement. Degrading on the grounds of mental health is a surprisingly common phenomenon. Mental illness is everywhere. Everywhere, but predominantly in the forms of the Great Triad: depression, eating disorders, and anxiety.

But what does one do when suffering with a more highly stigmatised disorder, such as bipolar, or schizophrenia? Or even of the barely-known disorders, such as dissociative or personality disorders? Let alone if you’re suffering from comorbity (more than one at once) or a subtype (say, cyclothymia or dissociative fugue). There, in Cambridge, one is met with echoing silence. The unspeakable rears its head, and retreats hastily upon realisation that there is an unspoken point of being Just A Little Too Mad for general consumption.

Mental Health Awareness needs to be about asking the questions of the ones who cannot always speak for themselves. This is not to, in any way, detract from those with depression/anxiety/eating disorders – but more to acknowledge that there are complexities which desperately need addressing.

I should not be afraid to talk about this. I am, all the same. I am afraid of judgement. I am afraid of a lack of understanding. I am afraid, and Mental Health Awareness Month should be about making people less afraid, on both sides.

It is terrifying to ever lose control of one’s own mind. It is terrifying, in equal measure, to watch somebody lose that control. To quote the overused: “knowledge is power”. As far as mental illness goes, there is no such thing as too much knowledge, or too much understanding. No two people are the same; everybody’s minds are constructed in gorgeously different ways – which means their illnesses will be wrought in different ways depending on who they are, where they are, how they think.

This month has been wasted, as far as awareness goes, and it is incalculably frustrating. As far as my defence runs – I will be remaining anonymous, because I am afraid. I am not brave enough, and so I sit and watch as another month dribbles past, and I relapse into an illness that most people will barely recognise the name of, let alone understand the realities.

Never has it been more amply illustrated that mental health awareness is needed, and nor has it been so evident that nobody is prepared to speak. Maybe next time, I’ll have the confidence to speak with my own voice. Maybe next time, somebody will speak first, tell me – and others like me – to be unafraid. Ask the questions. Tell the stories. Talk about the infinite aspects of mental illness that fall by the wayside, unnoticed, untouched, gathering stigma simply by virtue of that human phenomenon: fear of the unknown.

 Maybe.