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Tomorrow Is World Mental Health Day, and If You Don’t want to Participate, That’s Cool
So let’s get this out there. Tomorrow is a day to raise awareness about the importance of mental health. It’s an opportunity for anyone who is dealing with mental health issues to see that there are many people who get it, and do support them, even if only virtually. It’s also a day to be reminded, sometimes literally, that there is still far too much stigma, and far too little investment, in mental health. That’s not fun. That’s not uplifting.
Taking care of yourself is an incredibly important part of looking out for your own mental health. Tomorrow is also Saturday. If your mental health will be better off by you not being online tomorrow, go do exactly that. Go enjoy your weekend, and know that I see you, and I feel what you’re saying. Your frustration is my frustration too. Being tired of the stigma, and how hard it is for people to get help is normal. I’m exhausted. I’m tired of talking about it, tired of reading about it, and tired of seeing stories of people who can’t get help when they need it, all around the world. I’m also tired of all the people on social media who make talking about it even harder than it already is, who want to troll, or just create drama because it’s never enough for them.
Again, I’m exhausted. I also know how incredibly lucky I was the get help, and I want that same thing available for everyone. So, I’ll find away to continue talking about it here, while also taking care of my own mental health. I hope you will too, even if we don’t all take part in the same events.
Link – Connecting with Others, Friendship Enhance Mental Health
Human connection is so important and effective because it breaks through the isolation and loneliness common among people living with mental illness. Connecting with someone else allows people to share their humanity, to exchange stories, to celebrate life’s joys and to empathize through life’s sorrows. Friendship also motivates, inspires, and encourages. While it might be…
Link – Depression risk in older adults decreases with frequent in-person contact
“The study, published this month in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, included data on more than 11,000 people age 50 and older. Those who met with family and friends once every few months or less were nearly twice as likely to be depressed two years later than those who met up very often,…
Sharing – Mental Health Professionals Really Can Assume Some Police Duties
It’s been trialed in several areas, sending out a mental health team instead of the police to respond to certain kinds of calls. Typically calls that involve a mental health crisis, addiction, etc. What we didn’t have yet were real studies to show whether this was having the desired effect. It’s early, but this is promising:
Reviews Elsewhere – Out of the Madhouse
Spotted this review and thought this sounds like a pretty interesting look into depression and recovery. Michael Maitland suffered from clinical depression, anxiety, and anorexia so severe that it landed him in the emergency room with a collapsed lung. In his new book, Out Of The Madhouse: An Insider’s Guide To Managing Depression and Anxiety,…
Sharing – Our mental health crashed in 2020. Recovery could take years
The article below gets into a lot more of the details of how different groups have been affected in a variety of ways, but the thing that I found myself nodding along to was this idea. This is not going to go away this Summer. People you know who have struggled, and have anxiety about things opening back up again, or are dealing with grief and depression, or the aftermath of all of the trauma that we’ve borne witness to over the last couple of years, are not going to just be “back to normal” and ready to hit happy hour like nothing happened.
We’re not there. We’re not going to be there for awhile. Give those people, and yourself if that describes you, some grace and patience.
Most of all, don’t stigmatize anyone for not being OK for a bit. We’ve all been dealing with different levels of trauma and anxiety, and you likely don’t even know half of how much people around you have been dealing with.
So, just be kind, OK?
