Shared Links (weekly) Dec. 1, 2024
For more like this, subscribe to the newsletter and get everything I’ve been sharing in your email.
Similar Posts
Sharing – People Aren’t One Dimensional
This article was written with a business perspective, but I think it’s also an important reminder to both the survivor and mental health communities. “When you ask most people about themselves, one of the first things they say is what they do for a living. You aren’t surprised when you hear people say, “I’m a…
There’s No Magic Pill
Mental health is complicated. The solution to one individual case is complicated. The solution to the lack of resources is complicated. Telling people to get more exercise, let alone selling them the diet and workout that will solve all their mental health issues, is a fraud, isn’t it? Saying that we simply need to give everyone free therapy without addressing the serious shortage of therapists is as well.
Anyone who suggests there is a simple solution to the mental health problem facing us as a country and the world is not to be taken seriously.
Sharing – How Stories Help Children Build Emotional Intelligence
It’s not just a lack of children’s stories that could help them develop these skills; it’s a lack of adults who can provide the example of those skills in action. It’s almost as if we don’t see the issues with emotional intelligence and mental health among young people as something older generations contributed to, by not being able to pass on our own stories as examples, because we didn’t have the skills either. We just grew up in a time when talking about it was considered taboo, and look how well that has turned out for us.
Shared Links (weekly) Dec 13, 2020
Incarcerated Women Are Punished for Their Trauma With Solitary Confinement
There’s Nothing Positive About Toxic Positivity
How to deliver meaningful, safe messages about mental health
Grief in the Covid era will weigh on the American psyche for years to come
My Depression and I
Building Emotional Safety Nets for Men
Sharing – ‘Investing’ in mental health is doomed to fail because humans aren’t stocks
Again, I get that this sounds ridiculous to talk about an individual’s mental health in terms of what they offer in terms of productivity, and not in terms of them just being a human being and having value.
It sounds ridiculous because it is ridiculous. But, it is also the language of business. Look, your employer only started offering things like flu shots and health screenings because sick employees don’t get much work done, and cost more in insurance premiums, not because the company suddenly started caring about having healthy employees. That’s the reality.
It would be nice if employers did these things, and wanted to also invest in mental health resources, just because it’s the best thing for all of us as individuals and as a society, and likely some employers do. Others won’t get involved until it benefits them.
So, we speak to them in the language they understand. Because we need the money, the “investment”, now. We can’t wait for the whole world to agree that they need to do it because it’s the right thing to do.
Too many people will go without while we wait for the perfect solution. We have to take the imperfect for now.
