Former national president of Male Survivor.org, Curtis St John, was interviewed on Oprah Winfrey’s Radio Station and a section of the interview was archived at their site. Since we don’t know just how long the clip will be archived, if you’re a male survivor of abuse, we strongly recommend that you listen to it as soon as possible.
You can hear the 10 minute clip here.
– CBG
Kate1975 is the host this month and has all the details on submitting a blog post to this month’s edition over on her blog. Since the topic is Self-Care, I’m looking forward to reading all about it, and I hope you’ll consider submitting something on the topic, or on the standard topics from your own…
The video testimony of a 21 year old in Texas who was raped aged 8, tied to a tree and set on fire, named his alleged attacker, a convicted paedophile following an attack on a second child. Following years of skin graft operations the victim subseqently died from cancer last year. Texan authorities substituted the original charge to felony murder in a…
What we see here is what we see for a lot of mental health solutions, it works for some, and doesn’t work for others. Mental health is complicated. As the article points out, if the school environment is hurting student mental health or they are living in an environment at home that does the same, mindfulness isn’t going to change that and isn’t likely to have much of an overall impact even if they engage.
It’s complicated. The solutions are going to be complicated as well. I’d like some simple mindfulness training to be “the answer” for everyone too, but it just isn’t.
On the other hand, if it helps you, keep doing it.
It’s an easy copout for the mental health community to suggest self-care items that will help with mental health without acknowledging the reality for many. Telling people to do things like create more space for sleep, or make healthier food choices while still not making a wage that would pay for those things is just mean. What we do as a society matters when it comes to the mental health of all of our members. We can’t hide from that fact.
There’s been a lot of talk about youth mental health during the pandemic, including a number of prominent voices raising the alarm about this crisis. There have been almost as many voices suggesting that ending things like lockdowns, mask and vaccine mandates, and just getting “back to normal” will fix this mental health crisis.
I am not one of those voices.
Now let me be clear, I’m not saying that the pandemic hasn’t played a number on mental health for all of us, it clearly has. But, the crisis in mental health for everyone, but especially young people, existed long before COVID-19.
