Again, I’ll say it. You can’t solve the problems that exist and create risks for traumatized children when you don’t acknowledge the trauma. How can someone dealing with discrimination, hate, poverty, etc., get assistance when we won’t recognize that those things exist?
Like her, I am all for doing what you need to for self-care, whatever that looks like for you. But we cannot simply prescribe better self-care practices to people who need our society to stop harming them.
Until we recognize that and fight for those changes, we are falling short in advocating for better mental health for everyone.
For more like this, subscribe to the newsletter and get everything I’ve been sharing in your email.
The reality is that we know what kinds of societal change will positively impact mental health. We know that poverty, pollution, discrimination, violence, etc., are environmental factors that harm mental health. We know that medication, exercise, touching grass, etc. won’t make the slightest difference for those factors. (They may help some of the things that factor into mental health issues, but when you’re unhoused or being discriminated against, a walk in the park won’t change that.)
We also know what it will take to correct some of those environmental factors, lift people out of poverty, invest in local resources to support each other, eradicate discrimination by creating inclusive programs aimed at the needs of different groups, etc.
The only question is whether we care enough to do those things, and the overwhelming answer we’ve gotten in recent months is no.
We need more resources and more access to care. Not less.
We need care located where people live and work so they can remain part of their communities.
We need NIH grants to pay for more mental health research.
Our government is in the process of doing the exact opposite while claiming to care about mental health.
Anchoring myself in the present moment means focusing on the situation in front of me and doing what I can to improve it. That can mean donating money or time to causes I care about, calling elected representatives, supporting the people around me who are suffering, speaking out where I can, educating where I can, and staying aware of opportunities to do the things I can do.
The hope doesn’t lie in one person changing everything; it lies in enough of us doing what we can to make that change.
