There are certain books that I’ve seen discussed in the survivor community so often that it can be easy to overlook them when talking about recommendations for someone starting out on their healing journey. Bessel van der Kolk’s book about healing from trauma, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind and Body in Healing Trauma, falls into that category.
As Scarlett discusses, it’s easy to feel sympathy for the “good” people with mental health issues. That would be the folks who didn’t commit a crime, and who can act mostly in socially acceptable ways. The ones who have much messier situations often escape our empathy, especially if they happen to be homeless, or a member of an underrepresented group.
Mostly though, it’s just luck. Just as I’ve mentioned many times that I was privileged and lucky enough to be able to get help to learn how to deal with my trauma, I was also lucky enough to have only been homeless for a little while, and to have not had a violent or disruptive outburst that led to my being imprisoned or killed.
That luck doesn’t make me more worthy of empathy. It was just luck.
Let’s start the conversation, where do you go when you want to see some good news? Do you check out a site like Upworthy.com? Do you follow someone making fun content or beautiful art on social media? Do you find fun music on your favorite streaming app? What can we do to bring more kindness into our newsfeeds?
Where do you go to find the good in this world?
Who knows, maybe in the current system there really was no hope for Jordan and many like him. That’s hardly a reason to celebrate his death and the person who killed him. It should be a wake-up call about how poor our current system is and a push for systemic change. Unfortunately, that’s a serious discussion that too many people in politics are not interested in having.
I cannot emphasize enough how difficult it is to talk about our struggles. We should never take that lightly. We should also never take lightly how much trust and vulnerability it takes for someone to choose us as the person they want to talk to about their mental health.
Don’t take that for granted and please do not take that with anything less than the utmost seriousness. Dismissing someone who is talking about their mental health is a great way to make sure they don’t talk to anyone ever again.
Don’t be the person who causes that.
Jake has concerns, and I think we should be concerned about this. “High school students are being encouraged to write about their struggles, hardships, and traumatic life experiences in order to be admitted into college & university. This therapist has some concerns.” Writing about trauma can be beneficial. I’ve always encouraged people to talk and…
