Every October, conversations about mental health resurface. This year’s World Mental Health Day theme, “Lived Experiences Heard: Real Voices, Real Change,” asks us to look beyond the act of listening.
The question is simple: when someone shares their experience, does anything change afterwards?
This matters across mental-health systems, and it matters deeply in the maritime industry.
For seafarers, mental wellbeing is shaped by long contracts, demanding schedules, fatigue, isolation, changing crew dynamics, limited privacy, and time away from family.
As humans, we are drawn to stories. They make us pause and feel. But what happens when they move us emotionally, yet fail to move anything else?
Imagine a seafarer wants to talk about the mental pressure they are experiencing, but unsure who to approach, whether it will remain confidential, or whether support will continue.
When genuinely heard, this experience can shape practical change.
A story was heard, but was it used?
This is the question at the heart of this year’s theme. It asks us to look beyond collecting stories from people with lived experience (PWLE) and to use those experiences to shape real change.
Research can tell us about patterns. Clinical training can help us understand symptoms, risk factors and possible interventions. But lived experience tells us what it is actually like to move through those experiences.
It can reveal things that may otherwise remain invisible:
The same applies to the maritime industry. A seafarer’s experience can tell us what wellbeing looks like, what support feels accessible, and what makes it easier to reach out.
Listening cannot be our end game
Listening matters. But it becomes more meaningful when it influences what happens next.
When someone tells you where the change is needed, what happens next? Does knowing their concerns have an influence on the change we propose? If a policy does not work as intended, are the people affected by it invited to help review and reshape it?
WHO’s own data give us something to think about. Among the countries that responded to the WHO Mental Health Atlas 2024 survey, 80% reported that their mental-health policy or plan had been developed in consultation with PWLE, but only 45% reported ongoing collaboration with them. It reminds us that being consulted is not necessarily the same as having influence.
From real stories to real change
Doing more than listening does not necessarily mean having all the answers. It begins with recognising lived experience as a form of knowledge. Lived experience brings an understanding of what those systems feel like from the inside.
Perhaps that is what this year’s theme invites us to reconsider.
Not simply whether people have been given a space to speak, but whether we have been willing to let what they say inform how we understand, respond and move forward.
Because listening is not just about making someone feel heard in the moment. It is also about allowing their experience to change what happens next.
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