Shared Links (weekly) Dec. 1, 2024
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For many, there is no possibility of the regular trip to the therapist office that we often imagine mental health care to be. We need more of these kinds of resources if we are going to make a dent in the large percentage of people who never get any treatment, and the more we can move to these types of tools, hopefully the more availability there is for more elaborate resources for those who need that as well.
Put simply, this is a call for every workplace to have trained mental health first-aiders just like they have physical first-aiders. A number of employers are taking action. WHSmith has committed to match the number of staff that are physical first-aiders with mental health first-aiders over the next 12 months. This is an interesting idea….
One of the things I learned in 2019, and saw repeated over and over again in 2020-21, was that there are a lot of people who are so uncomfortable with the idea of death, that they become almost unbearable to be around when you are grieving yourself. They are so uncomfortable with grief, that they really, really need you to get over your grief so that they don’t have to feel uncomfortable anymore.
It’s a weakness. One that cuts people off from their own emotions, whether it be hurt, pain, anger or grief. It hurts people, all in the name of someone else’s comfort.
We see it when people complain about child abuse public service announcements, put in the “required” time at a funeral, avoid people they know dealing with mental health issues, and so on. And it’s not going to change, until it’s them or someone they care enough about to make an effort to get past their own discomfort.
Or, maybe it won’t change. Maybe they’ll continue to isolate themselves from anyone who is hurting. That’s a choice, one any of us is free to make.
Or we can choose to allow people to hurt, and grieve, and simply be with them. Simply care more about that other person than our own discomfort.
Depression, mental health issues, and yes, suicide, happen everywhere, it’s everyone’s problem. For example: While suicide rates for blacks are among the lowest in the nation when compared with whites, American Indians, Asians and Pacific Islanders, suicide is the third leading cause of death for young black men ages 10 to 24, according to 2014…