For many of us, child abuse was normal. Not because there is anything remotely acceptable about it, but because it happened to us. Turning away from our stories and ignoring our voices because you don’t want to think about it isn’t good enough.
We don’t have that choice. We deserve more than being kept silent in order for you not to be upset by our realities.
The article breaks the steps into two large buckets, and I’m going to ask you to consider these when you stop to consider whether your state, local, or federal representatives are actually doing something to improve the state of mental health care.
Are they doing something to make it easier to pay for mental health care services?
Are they doing something to make it easier to find mental health services?
If they’re not doing either of these things, or worse, cutting funding and services, they are not actually interested in improving the mental health situation in the US.
Dr. Smith calls for the creation of a new institute to educate not only new mental health professionals but also to make sure that primary care practitioners are trained to offer some mental health support to patients since right now that seems to be where most people who are in need of mental health care wind up.
I haven’t fully considered all of the possibilities with this particular idea, but I will agree that it’s going to take something at this kind of national level to start to address the need.
How many times have we heard “why did you wait so long to speak out?” Have we considered what we’ve done to make survivors feel safe to do so? Have we considered what our friend or family group would need to look like in order for a survivor to feel safe opening up about their experiences?
Sometimes our coping strategies need to adjust to these new realities. That doesn’t mean you are failing, it means you need to adapt. It’s no different than what I often encounter at work, where the technology we work with and assist clients with changes and evolves, and we need to change and evolve with it. What we did yesterday isn’t going to work in today’s reality.
The same is true for our mental health toolkit. We need to keep evolving with it to adapt to changes.
I think it’s important that we understand our need for both. As science keeps telling us, we are social creatures. Even introverts like me need some sort of social activity and friends. We also need those intimate relationships where we can hit those emotional connections. Romantic relationships are an obvious example here, but other relationships can also be our emotional connection.
The lack of one of these will feel like loneliness, but the “fix” will be different. If I’m well-connected to my wife but missing out on the variety of social connections that a larger friend group might provide, that’s where my focus should be, and it might show up differently. The lack of an emotional connection would also look different and brings with it a different set of risks.
