So, some of that 47% who think seeking therapy is a sign of weakness have, themselves, sought out therapy. I can only assume then that these messages about it being a sign of weakness are so ingrained that people will even view themselves as weak.
I know this feeling. It’s not easy to shake. We do, however, need to do it. It needs to be normalized to the point where we don’t view it as a weakness.
This study out of Australia confirms something I’ve written about many times in regards to things like the ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) study: While the study reaffirmed that people who had adverse and unpredictable early life experiences had elevated symptoms of poor mental health (including depression and paranoia), it also found that children who grew…
We are going nowhere with this. We are still looking at kids with mental health struggles as a product of bad parents, and discouraging parents from getting their kids the help they need at a young age. Then, without treatment, they just grow up into adults with worsening symptoms who need ever more help.
Is this really the cycle we want to be in? This makes no sense. It’s not about raising awareness anymore, I suspect it’s about putting an end to passing judgment on every single thing parents do, or don’t do. We’ve got to stop that. We’re only hurting more and more kids.
I saw this talk shared the other day and bookmarked it to go back and watch later. It’s a powerful talk given by Lori Prichard about her husband’s suicide. If you’ve not lived with depression, or lived close to someone dealing with it, you may have a hard time relating, but I want you to try, because I know how accurate this is. I’ve been depressed. I’ve lived with that bully inside of my own brain that told me every day how much better off people would be without me, and I managed to hide it and downplay it so that most people didn’t know anything was wrong at all, or as Lori put it, they let me get away with talking them out of any concerns.
For example, I’m not anxious JUST because my brain is working overtime, or because I find myself focusing on the negative. I’m also anxious because over 400,000 people in the US have died from COVID-19 and a large number of people in my local area feel no need to change their behavior in acknowledgement of that fact.
You know what that is? That is reality, and there’s no amount of “good vibes” that is going to make that reality not a reality. It’s totally normal to feel anxious about that, and telling me to “think positive”, or get more sleep, or exercise, isn’t going to change that.
We all live in a very uncertain, and difficult, reality right now. The answer to social injustice and racism, again, is not just thinking positively about it. It’s having difficult, often painful, conversations about the topic. It’s about listening to other people’s experiences and working hard to understand the world differently than we did yesterday.
That too, is a source of anxiety.
These are Joanne’s suggestions, and I wanted to share them with you all in the interest of offering some small reviews of books about mental health issues. As she says: ” I think everyone needs a self-care library – if you need a little inspiration for what to include in yours, here are some of…
