May: Mental Health Month

Helping with Advocacy and De-Stigmatizing? Or mere tokenism?

May is Mental Health month, and it represents yet another themed months, among the many others—Pride month, a nod to LGBTQAI2+ community and issues; Black History Month, Women’s History month, etc, etc.

I have mixed sentiments on the issue of themed months.

Is it better than nothing? Perhaps. It is enough? Not at all.

It begs the question—what do we really DO with these months when one of them rolls around? Anything substantial? Does anything come from them? Does it really raise awareness and attention, education and advocacy? That black history matters, that women’s issues should be of concern, that queer people still need support and have their own struggles and issues?

Or, do these themed months simply enable us to continue to relegate them to the periphery? Including mental health month?

As someone who struggles with mental health, who comes from a long line of family members and ancestors who also struggled in this area, I often times sit with just how much more work we have to do, on the journey to de-stigmatizing mental health episodes and mental illnesses.

We have such a long way to go, science and research and medicine and psychiatry and psychology aside, Just….society, to fully understanding that mental health issues ARE physical health issues, that we cannot parse them out to weaknesses, emotionally based, character flaws, as existing only in the mind…

Because, we know better now. Or, we should.

Science supports that our physical bodies are interconnected to our minds, that mental illness also is physiologically based.

And, depending on the mental impairment, this truth can be understood in just oh-so-many different ways, like through traumatic brain injuries; or, through lived, embodied experiences of violence, living through war or assault or witnessing violence and now having trauma. We now know through PTSD and the work of van Kolk among others that trauma actually changes the way your brain functions, enough to appear vastly differently from others in brain scans; Or, we see this through hormonal or chemical insufficiencies like not enough dopamine or serotonin, which show through depression and anxiety, and again, show a brain functioning in a different way, at limited capacity; or, through a vagral nerve that fails to function properly and connect gut serotonin to the brain; or through gut microbiome disturbances/imbalances (known as dysbiosis) which have psychological and cognitive impairments.

There are just oh so many ways that we know now that mental health is not just ‘a matter of the mind’.

The bottom line—we know better now. Or, at least, we should.

And yet, it disheartens me to hear people say things on the regular, that equate mental illness to not being strong enough, mentally, to not having enough faith in God, that anxiety is just not being “in control” of your thoughts. That they are just weak.

We clearly have a long way to go in separating moods/emotions, conditions of mental illnesses, so we do not continue to perpetuate harm on those afflicted.

I hope for one day where we may finally see those who endure mental illness and mental health episodes for what they are:

NOT weak. The opposite of weak. But, helluva strong.

I frequently think: being at war with your mind is one of the worst things that you can face. When it is not your friend. When it is your worst enemy.

But, unlike when a mean or annoying voice exists externally, if it’s within you, your own internal monologue, you can’t just tap out, ex out of that box.

You are stuck with[in] it.

And that, my friends, is one definition of living hell.

Let us continue to work to de-stigmatize mental health.

And if you are one of the ones who ‘don’t get it,’ rather than passing judgment, maybe instead, consider what that might be like, and have compassion. Be kind.

We need more of that kindness and compassion in this world where so much that you see and hear on the news these days is deeply troubling, shaky and scary, and it makes us fearful and rage-y.

We can never know the inner-workings of someone’s mind, their lived, their embodied experiences that took them to this place, how their mind works, the genetic hand they’ve been dealt and how that affects their brain chemistry, if they are on the proper medication or not, if they’re traumatized, and what their inner voices are shouting at them, constantly, that they can’t help but hear.

Those people are working really fucking hard to survive and to function and to be kind, to others, but especially to themselves.

So, let’s aim to be kind. Amen.

That’s all.