I am caught in the sometimes painful crosshairs of my personal intersection right now, a woman with a mental health disorder living in a world that diminishes women, and freely and openly discusses their prejudicial beliefs about mental illness. But, while I have not lost my experiences, I seem to have lost my enemy.
“Mommy, can I tell you something?” she asks. I, of course, nod, my entire life is trying to get this girl to tell me something. She turns away to stare at the ceiling above us. “On the inside, my brain is sad all the time.”
What if I told you it isn’t hard to sit with someone who is buried in their depression? In fact, what if I told you it often doesn’t involve sitting with them at all?
The fact is you cannot support a person with a mental illness and also stigmatize mental illness itself. You cannot say with one breath, “I am so glad that medicine works for you,” if you must use your very next breath to remind me, “I mean, I would never take them personally, but I’m glad they help you.”
Just like mental illness itself, our prejudicial and discriminatory feelings against those who bear the mark of a mental health diagnosis crosses all racial lines, socioeconomic barriers, and sexual identities. If there is something all communities still share, perhaps it is this.
I wholeheartedly believe in authenticity on social media. Presenting your life as perfect creates an incredibly unhealthy world and an unhealthy (and unable to be supported) you. To that end: I often hear “you’re such a good mom” because of the pictures I post and the stories I tell on Facebook. So, you should also […]
The following information is provided courtesy of Heather Irvine (pictured), clinical herbalist, and professor at JSC and VCIH. Heather began her study of herbalism at Northeast School of Botanical Medicine. In addition to teaching, Heather is an experienced clinician, remedy maker, and the owner of Giving Tree Botanicals in Montpelier, Vermont. She has been studying, teaching, and practicing herbalism since 2002.
Which brings me back to the question at hand. If you were diagnosed with HIV, would you take the medicine the doctor prescribed you? What about if you were diagnosed with a psychological disorder? If your answer to those two questions is different, you need to ask yourself why. If you’re still telling yourself that having a mental illness is a personal failing, a weakness that should somehow be able to brought under your superhuman control, you’re doing yourself and your life a great disservice.
I like the class I’m in this morning, it’s full of information about all aspects of health and wellness, and though the focus seems to be on alternative methodologies, it’s a science based course. Today the professor tells us we are going to spend the next several classes discussing psychology and mental health. I’m excited. These, […]
Again and again I talk on this blog (and much more often on the more active Facebook page about the importance of speaking out. Share your stories. Speak your truth. Stand for what is right. Defend those who are not yet able to defend themselves. Define discrimination when it has not yet been defined. Name stigma where it […]