‘When it comes to mental health, all countries are developing countries’
Supporting a Family Member with Serious Mental Illness Is Harder Than It Should Be
Books Under Review: Summer 2022 – “Reviews of five recent books reflecting various perspectives on the mental health system.”
Frankly, I’m sharing Megan’s article because I think there’s a good chance you, or someone you know, needs to hear exactly what she says here: “My husband is one hundred percent worth the struggles we face. Right now, he doesn’t feel like he is worth anything. He feels more like a burden than an asset…
The Most Common PTSD Myths and Symptoms, and How to Cope
Bravery — Margaret Hoelzer
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Mental Health Resources for Black Americans
Young people using technology to detect worsening mental health
QAnon hurts real trafficking victims: The conspiracy theory is dangerous because it obscures the real threat
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Male Sexual Abuse and Assault – Ken Clearwater’s Story
Podcast: Value of Personal Mental Illness Stories
The whole idea of a registry was to ease the minds of panicked parents so they would check the public registry, know that their lovely, upper-class neighborhood didn’t have any offenders in it, and go back to ignoring any talk of their kids being at risk for sexual abuse.
None of that has ever been true. As you read the story below, you’ll see that there are 25,000 offenders that law enforcement has completely lost track of, many of whom now live among poor communities where parents do not have the same resources that others do to keep their kids safe and have continued to offend.
What you also won’t see is that registries do nothing, absolutely nothing, to protect against offenders who haven’t been caught and convicted. That would be the vast majority of cases, by the way.
Breaking Down Sexual Abuse in Sports tags: CA Saudi Arabia to launch child abuse hotline tags: CA What is Healthy Self-Esteem? tags: CA How To Make Good Friends After Leaving Abuse tags: CA Brainwashing in Domestic Abuse – Learn How Its Done So You Can Undo It| Verbal Abuse | Emotional Abuse tags: CA What…
I will admit, in healthcare, these two types of narrative incoherence could cause a problem. How would a medical professional move forward with a diagnosis when our response to the first question is to dump an overwhelming amount of possibly relevant, possibly not, information, or to dismiss any symptoms? It really would be difficult to know. We know that the folks who get to the quickest, and best, healthcare are the ones who come in with details like what is wrong, how long it’s been going on, what happened previously to an illness or injury, etc. Trauma survivors typically struggle with exactly that.
This is only one way where not being able to tell a story in a coherent, effective, way hurts survivors. It blocks us from legal proceedings, as I said before, and it blocks us from being understood by those closest to us quite often. So, if you really want to connect with others, and maybe get better healthcare, learn to tell stories. That’s how the world communicates. But, if you’re confronted with someone who is struggling to tell a coherent story, consider what kind of trauma they may be dealing with, and have a little patience.
Maybe, most importantly, these parents seem to think they know better, that the mental health of their kids is something they can handle on their own. We know that isn’t true. We know the number of teens who have considered suicide is much higher than the number of parents who think their teen has. That doesn’t suggest that what we’ve been doing is working, it suggests that having mental health resources available at school is a net positive for everyone.
But that fact appears to be no match compared to stigma and conspiracy theories.
