Sharing – We Need More Comprehensive Suicide Prevention

Sharing – We Need More Comprehensive Suicide Prevention

ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

I, obviously, agree. Awareness is great. Ending stigma, and having a crisis resource is great. It’s also not enough. What are we doing after the immediate crisis to prevent the next one, or to provide treatment and resources for all of the people who aren’t getting any now? What are we doing to accommodate people in the workplace who need to see a therapist on the regular, or need to be medicated and have some accommodation made? What are insurance companies doing to make sure mental health coverage is on par with physical health coverage, and who is enforcing the law when it isn’t? What are we doing to support families and loved ones who are doing their best to support people dealing with mental health issues?

As long as there are still so many not getting the help they need, the obvious answer to all of these questions is, not enough.

Shared Links (weekly) August 15, 2021

Shared Links (weekly) August 15, 2021

ByMikeM Reading Time: 1 minute
Sharing – One in 100 deaths is by suicide

Sharing – One in 100 deaths is by suicide

ByMikeM Reading Time: 1 minute

I want abuse survivors to know that healing is possible. I want people dealing with mental health issues to have hope that they can get better. I work hard to get that message out, but those 700,000 people who died by suicide in 2019 won’t ever get to read what you just read. They aren’t here.

I’m tired of that. These numbers are so much more than numbers.

Sharing – On the Mental Health Conversation

Sharing – On the Mental Health Conversation

ByMikeM Reading Time: 1 minute

I love the fact that her boss was just honest about his mental health issues, and the fact that he took antidepressants, and how much difference that made it her own ability to talk about mental health. Simply put, this has to be what we do. All of us who advocate for more mental health conversation, awareness, and resources, need to create a space where anyone, everyone, can share their own stories, and advocate for their own care, without fear of being judged for needing it.

Sharing – A Shortage Of Mental Health Treatment Beds Can Trap Kids In Crisis Inside ERs
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Sharing – A Shortage Of Mental Health Treatment Beds Can Trap Kids In Crisis Inside ERs

ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

We have to have serious discussions about mental health resources, for adults and kids. This isn’t even about stigma or awareness, this is a system with fundamental flaws, that creates this lack of available, and affordable, resources. This is a society that is unable, and unwilling, to provide basic care for too many of its own members. Is that the society we want to live in? I hope not, but as long as we continue down a path where the best plan we can come up for a teenager struggling with suicidal thoughts is 17 days on a gurney, and sedated, inside of an ER, we are not that society. 

Shared Links (weekly) June 20, 2021

Shared Links (weekly) June 20, 2021

ByMikeM Reading Time: 1 minute
Sharing – Supporting disclosure for adult male survivors of child sexual abuse

Sharing – Supporting disclosure for adult male survivors of child sexual abuse

ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

The reality is that men who were sexually abused at a young age don’t often see themselves as sexual abuse victims, and often it’s because what happened to us doesn’t fit the descriptions we see on TV. In his example, what his older brother and his friends did to him was “just sex”, because he is gay anyway, even though he was 7 at the time it started. For many other male survivors, sexual abuse is what happens to girls, not boys, or if it does happen to boys it’s when a priest, or boy scout leader does it, not older kids, family members, women, or close family friends. That’s not sexual abuse, that’s something else.

It’s the lack of communication around these kinds of experiences, on top of all the other reasons men are less likely to come forward for decades, that makes it almost impossible to truly know the rates of male sexual abuse. We simply have no way of knowing how many survivors there are who don’t even think of their experiences as abuse.

Sharing – Mental health advocacy doesn’t equal visibility for everyone

Sharing – Mental health advocacy doesn’t equal visibility for everyone

ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

Carter is writing about mental health in Canada, but I think this really applies everywhere. When we talk about Mental Health Awareness, there’s a lot of focus on people struggling with Anxiety and Depression to seek help, and let them know they aren’t alone. That’s important, but it’s just part of the story: