Similar Posts
Have You Used a Mental Health App Successfully?
So, dear readers. rather than assuming mental health apps don’t work because I haven’t done a good job of using them and letting them help me, let’s have a conversation about what mental health apps have, or haven’t, worked for you, and why. I’m curious to know what the crowd has to say, and what advice you would give others.
Sharing – But first, we need to talk about it
We have gotten better at discussing mental health over the last couple of years, and one thing that has become clear is how broken that system is. How underfunded and under-resourced mental health services are and how many people are forced to go without them.
We wouldn’t know all this if we didn’t start talking about it. Hopefully, this increased attention brings about real change, not a return to not talking about it. The subject of child abuse is still considered a “downer” that people don’t want to discuss. So we don’t, and we don’t spend much time and energy as a society finding solid solutions. The problem just gets worse in silence, and the people living with that kind of trauma live in silence without the things they need.
Sharing – Current mental health support systems often fail to meet men’s needs.
In the mental health field, I would agree with the experts quoted in the article. We treat mental health and trauma recovery based on the symptoms shown most often by women, because it is most often women who are seeking help. We define the symptoms based on what we see in those women, which are not the symptoms that every woman would have, let alone others. Someone who is abusing a substance, dealing with anger, taking risks, etc., isn’t typically what we consider “depressed,” but that might be the reality.
Sharing – People Aren’t ‘Addicted’ to Wearing Masks, They’re Traumatized
‘ve been describing it to friends and coworkers as “the inability to just turn off the fear of other people and their germs”. Because, in some ways, that’s exactly what it was. I’ve spent a year plus barely leaving my house. Sure, I worked from home even before the pandemic, but it’s an extreme sport now, going into the back yard is an adventure into a strange and exotic place, let alone being around other people.
Yesterday, however, I did manage to get out and meet up with a friend and former coworker. I won’t say it wasn’t awkward. But, it wasn’t as awkward as my anxiety had built it up in my head, mostly because I think we both knew it was awkward, and went out of our way to figure out what we were comfortable with. We met in the office building where she works, wearing masks. She asked if I wanted to keep being masked walking to lunch, and we agreed to not, and to sit outside to be safer. And she asked before giving me a hug after lunch.
It was an important lesson to me, that we need to navigate this together with the people we care about, and meet them at the level where they are comfortable. It’s not about racing to be the most “normal” group, it’s about making sure everyone comes along, and is comfortable, because we’ve all dealt with various levels of trauma over the last 14-15 months, trauma that will show up in a variety of ways. There’s nothing wrong with people who are slower to feel comfortable, they are just doing what they can. I’d rather meet them where they are, and where I am, than not see them at all anymore, or shame them about their own hesitation. It’s not a race.
