@Thriver mentioned this on Twitter today, and I thought I would pass it along. It’s the premeire issue of an e-zine called Light and Shadow.
Light and Shadow is a quarterly e-zine which focuses on moving beyond
psych labels, psych diagnosis and mental health stigma.
There is a whole lot of stuff packed into the first issue, which focuses on Creativity and Mental Health. Might be worth taking a look around and possibly even contributing at some point in the future!
Last week a student advisor sent me a message about a project her students are working on to use social media to share helpful resources for teens, especially troubled teens who might be in need of help. They call themselves the Happy Hearts Club and their mission is ” raise awareness of issues that teens…
It took me a long time to be comfortable with what happened. Most of that was internal, the embarrassment of being the guy who had public mental health issues and spent a long time in therapy, and trying to build a new life. Part of it was also watching people be uncomfortable in my presence. I didn’t have a choice about who knew about it, and I learned to embrace it as part of my story. That didn’t happen immediately.
Mental Health Awareness Activated In New iHeart Campaign What Is Trauma Bonding? Podcast: What’s it Like to Work in a Psych Hospital? The Academic and SEL Benefits of Studying Psychology in High School Busting the myth that depression doesn’t affect people in poor countries Linked: Government Tossing Child Porn Cases Rather Than Discuss Its Torrent-Tracking…
She goes on to document the appallingly low percentage of people who manage to get therapy, as well as the difference between white patients and minorities. She then goes on to talk about this in the context of the quote above, which I had not considered previously. If finding a therapist is truly like dating, and it is in my experience as well, how do we not only make sure that therapy is available, but that there is more than one to choose from?
It’s the insistence that everyone around you also is positive all the time, demanding “Good Vibes Only” as the article points out, that worries me. Because people in real pain, social issues that cause real harm, etc. are not good vibes. When a team was winning gold medals, no one wanted to do more than focus on that success, and repeated stories of abuse went ignored. Is our constant need for positivity forcing us to ignore racism, homelessness, abuse, and many other social issues that we need to do more than give passing support to on social media?
Maybe most importantly, are there people in our lives right now hurting, who desperately need our support, who we are ignoring because they bring us down?
