TheMaze – Talking Mental Health<\/strong> is part of FLAD’s commitment to increase information, rejecting stigma and awareness that Mental Health is not only important, but essential.<\/p>\n The first interview was with Marisa Matias and is now available in article<\/a> and video<\/a>.<\/p>\n From the first signs that she wasn’t feeling well at the European Elections in May 2019 until a diagnosis of burnout<\/em> in early 2020, about 8 months have passed. Marisa Matias associated symptoms such as increased anxiety, shortness of breath, chest pain, loss of control of arms and legs and insomnia to a neurological disease, not suspecting that the body was showing signs of exhaustion.<\/p>\n “I’ve always paid a lot of attention to mental health, but of other people. It’s always been an issue that I understood as a priority in my work, so one of the things I had the most difficulty dealing with was how I worked so much these issues… and in the first few months It never went through my mind that It might not be physical.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n With the diagnosis came a certainty: the need to stop. For three months, which coincided with the strict confinement of Brussels due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the MEP did not deal with work-related issues. And the return was made gradually and guided by discipline and the imposition of rules on itself.<\/p>\n “The doctor immediately told me that I would have to stop altogether, that there was no alternative. I never even conceived, doing what I do, this possibility of stopping, but I realized I was wrong. I didn’t [a doen\u00e7a] identify it, but when I was diagnosed, I didn’t create any kind of barrier for myself. I have to deal with this, we’re going to deal with it.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In a 40-minute conversation, Marisa Matias talks openly about the illness she had to face and what she had to do to overcome it. Not to be missed.<\/p>\n See the interview in full, now available on video:<\/strong><\/p>\n