 Hi it's Puki again, welcome back. I am today going to talk about something that I get asked about all the time which is how should I start the conversation with someone if I'm worried about their mental health. So I'm going to do I think 10 tips but we'll see how we go. So number one be yourself. So we get really scared about talking about mental health issues and it feels like a really big deal and we feel like we need to do some kind of I don't know major preparation or be majorly qualified to talk about it. We don't we should just you know hopefully it becomes more and more of part of normal conversation so be yourself if this is someone in your life that you care about a friend a loved one someone that you work with just talk to them like you normally would don't treat them like a weirdo or a strange person don't become a weirdo or a strange person yourself just be you so that's number one. Number two is it can help to do your research so go and have a look online about what you think might be the issue if you have a suspicion for example that your friend family loved one whatever might be suffering with depression for example then you might go on the signs and symptoms are and see whether that really echoes what you're seeing so that you can you know raise your concerns in a valid way and also so that you've got a bit of an idea about what you might suggest as next steps so it's quite good to have a little bit of an action plan although you might not get to that in the first kind of conversation. Next one is that kind of doing an activity together can make it a little bit easier for the conversation to flow so it can feel a bit awkward so things like walking together or while you're on a drive or whilst you're doing a hobby that you enjoy together that can be a great way to kind of great time rather to bring up these these issues because it can feel a little bit awkward if you just sort of sit down face to face in a kind of interview type situation of a coffee and you're like so yeah about your mental health it can feel weird. On that though number four is yeah it might feel awkward that's fine persevere if you're talking about something that you haven't talked about before it's going to feel odd it might feel awkward might feel strange you might stumble through it but it's a really really really get the idea very important conversation so even though it might feel awkward and strange persevere with it awkward and strange is fine not having the conversation not fine number five you might get all sorts of different responses and there might be some big emotions in there so they might be angry they might be ashamed they might be upset and cry they might completely kind of withdraw from you at first there's loads of different ways in which they respond and just be prepared for that huge gamut of emotions that you might come across this is likely to be a kind of conversation that's going to need to be had in stages over several kind of different time periods and you might not get an open warm and oh my goodness thank you for noticing response immediately you might but yeah you might evoke all sorts of different things the other thing is that your friend might have been kind of storing this up and not talking about it for a really really long time and they might not have the words to talk about it and they might be overwhelmed that you kind of noticed and brought it up so yeah be prepared for that make sure you have tissues on you his top tip um number six is not to make it about you so you shouldn't be jumping in and comparing your friend's experience with your own so if they start to open up with you and I don't know maybe they've suffered a bereavement this isn't the moment to go I know how you feel because when my granddad died I mean you might think you know how you feel and your granddad might have died and that's all relevant but right now we're talking about them which takes us to number seven which is let them tell their story so you need to listen basically just listen let them talk give them prompts to enable the conversation to flow but basically just listen just listen I really always feel really self-conscious when I'm telling people to listen and it's me just talking to the camera just talking and talking and talking and talking at you and I'm saying listen but yeah don't do what I do do do the other thing and listen just stop and don't be scared of silence allow the silence to happen embrace the silence usually you'll find that your friend will feel the silence before you do if you work hard not to not fill it um number eight is to take it in let it wash over you let the story be their story try not to judge um yeah just do good listening and try not to change how you feel about your friend as a result of the conversation just allow what needs to come out to come out um number nine is to make sure that you have a little bit of a plan about what you're going to do next so it might be that you need to revisit the conversation it might be that together you decide oh we need to go and talk to someone else it might be that you book a gp appointment together it doesn't really matter but try and make sure there's a kind of practical outcome from the conversation so that your friend doesn't wonder what's going to happen next and they're not left wondering how you're feeling about them and stuff and that takes us to kind of number ten which um oh gosh I'm showing you my horrible climbers callous hands um number ten uh which is to say thank you and to just wrap up the conversation by acknowledging that it means a lot to you um and also to take a little moment just to reassure them that the conversation that you've had um doesn't affect at all how you feel about them so reassure them that you know there's no judgment here that you're there to support them um and that whilst you might not know the answers that you're hoping to to help them and that's why you started the conversation and that you'll find a way kind of forwards together um I hope that helps if you have other suggestions please leave them in the comments below and if I've said anything that you thought didn't really sound quite right then again constructive criticism really really welcomed um it would mean a lot to me if you would take a moment to subscribe um if you like the video please hit the thumbs up below um if you have any ideas to share or video content you'd like to see in future or you just want to say whatever then leave a comment below um I'm very new to the youtube thing so really really keen for feedback but also really keen to um get my video surfacing and you liking commenting subscribing sharing watching uh helps that to happen so yeah please subscribe and share and like and comment and stuff and I will see you again soon thank you