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Link – Slipknot’s Corey Taylor has a duty to speak about child sex abuse
“‘A lot of people don’t want to talk about it or look down at it or tend to make fun of other people for having it or engaging in it. I’m trying to break that down by showing people that, yes, I go to therapy as well and I’m still trying to work out my…
Link – Childhood Trauma Exposure Is All Too Common
This is important. This is also something I’ve been spending a lot of time talking to people about, and thinking about. “A long-term study of 1,420 people finds that childhood trauma is more commonplace than is often assumed, and that its effects upon the transition to adulthood and adult functioning are not only confined to…
Sharing – Are you okay? The power of storytelling in mental health
As I mentioned, in the workplace this is true. Very few people are going to feel safe talking about their own struggles if the leaders in the company never open up about their own at some level. But, it’s also true in our relationships as well.
How many of us wish the people in our lives, spouses, kids, siblings, friends and loved ones, would feel comfortable talking to us about their struggles, yet we never share our own? How would they know that you are a safe person to talk to if you appear to never have any struggles?
Let me give you a prime example from my own life. As many of you know, I worked from home before the pandemic started, and continued to do so all the way through 2020. It had very little impact beyond some lack of socializing, on my life, and so when I compared that to what many others were going through in 2020, I didn’t really want to complain about the things I was struggling with. Most people I did talk to, didn’t really talk about their own struggles either. Finally, however, when I wrote a post about not being OK right now, and shared it across my social media profiles, including LinkedIn, I got notes and messages from a ton of people, some who I haven’t even been in touch with in awhile, telling me about their struggles as well.
I attribute that to two things. One, I know a lot of amazing people who see someone struggling and immediately set out to make sure I knew I wasn’t alone, and two, by sharing my own difficulties, I also provided them a safe place to share their own struggles.
Isn’t that what it’s really all about?
So, what are you struggling with that you have been hiding? What good is hiding doing for you?
Link – Some Parentified Kids Grow Up to Be Compulsive Caretakers
This is an under-reported, and clearly understudied form of abuse, growing up in a house and having to be the parent, but it is something that we need to be aware of, because it obviously plays an important role later on in life. “Kiesel’s story is one of what psychologists refer to as destructive parentification—a…
Sharing – ‘We Know How to Solve the Mental Health Crisis. Will We Actually Do It?’
The reality is that we know what kinds of societal change will positively impact mental health. We know that poverty, pollution, discrimination, violence, etc., are environmental factors that harm mental health. We know that medication, exercise, touching grass, etc. won’t make the slightest difference for those factors. (They may help some of the things that factor into mental health issues, but when you’re unhoused or being discriminated against, a walk in the park won’t change that.)
We also know what it will take to correct some of those environmental factors, lift people out of poverty, invest in local resources to support each other, eradicate discrimination by creating inclusive programs aimed at the needs of different groups, etc.
The only question is whether we care enough to do those things, and the overwhelming answer we’ve gotten in recent months is no.
Link – Self-Efficacy: The Missing Link To Overcoming Depression
I’ve been saying this for awhile now, that nothing helps us grow beyond our struggles like coming through the other side of something difficult. “As depression and fatigue are both highly susceptible to changes in a person’s sense of his or her own ability to achieve a certain goal, which is known as self-efficacy, McAuley…
