Connection Matters – An Example
Elizabeth Beasley shares her experience of being hospitalized for a mental health condition and, most notably, what helped her get through it:
How did I get through the embarrassment, humiliation, and pure pain of being hospitalized for a mental health crisis?
Community.
She goes on to discuss how her mother called her every morning, and various other family members and friends kept in touch while she was there, and also how she connected with the other patients, and they created a community.
As I read this, I couldn’t help but compare it to the hundreds of stories where the opposite was true. People are so afraid of saying the wrong thing or so uncomfortable with the idea of mental health issues that they run the other way. They disconnect from someone who so desperately needs connection. Someone they love is feeling all that embarrassment and pain and no longer has anyone to connect to and remind them of their value, their humanness.
As the title of Elizabeth’s post says, we need each other.
