I’ve said it before and I will I keep saying it until I take my last breath #makementalhealthmatter! Blue lives, black lives, all lives….NONE of it matters if mental health doesn’t matter!
Before you come at me, let’s talk about what is true. 2020 and 2021 were some of the toughest years on record that I can remember as a ripe 43 year old adult. A pandemic, a volatile stock market, an even more conentious US presidentail election, riots, TOO MANY dead folk of color, all of it—being inundated day in and day out with information has caused us–the human race–a serious decline in mental health. MYSELF included.
But, before I get to my own struggles, let’s look at some numbers. NAMI, The National Alliance on Mental Illness, cites suicide as the 2nd leading cause of death among 10 to 34 year olds. READ THAT AGAIN… 10 years old!! As a mother of a 10 year old, that raises a scare in the depths of my soul. Furthermore Mental Health America released its 2021 report, The State of Mental Health in America, with some staggering findings:
The month of May has been dubbed Mental Health Awareness Month #MHAM and NAMI is continuing its campaign, You Are Not Alone, #notalone, to continue to raise awareness about mental health. Normalizing mental health is critical. Afterall, the brain is THE MOST IMPORTANT organ in the human body.
Without the brain, we can’t breathe on our own.
Without the brain, our heart can’t beat.
Our brain is the driving force of all that we are and all that we do, yet there is soooo much stigma around mental health issues. For the life of me, I will NEVER understand this! If I have a bacterial infection, I’ll get an antibiotic. If I have cancer, I”ll receive chemo. Think of COVID–there was a monstrous public health push to keep people healthy and well, but not even of a fraction of the same resoureces were spent on addressing mental health issues, more specifically, the mental health issues that were compounded from the impact of COVID.
Megan Brooks, in here article Poll Shows Worsening Impact of COVID on Mental Health, cites a poll from the American Psychiatric Association in which 4 in 10 Americans report they are more anxious than last year. 43% of adults have reported that the pandemic has had a serious impact on their mental health and the incidence of drug use and alcohol use have increase over last year, 14% and 17% respectively.
I can cite data all day, but it isn’t necessary. All one needs to do is take a walk down a city street and you can see the anxiety in our neighbor’s eyes. Call your friends, you can hear it in their voice, they aren’t well. As I mentioned, I too, have struggled with mental health during my adult life, as have many people I love. Because it is important to normalize caring for out mental health, over the course of this series, I will share these stories.
Until then, we must realize many people suffer with mental health issues. Until we normalize and prioritize caring for our BRAIN, NOTHING matters. We as a society are beginning to decline not because of one political affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identification, or racial classification. WE, as a society, are declining because we are not paying attention to mental health!
Mental health MUST matter. #makementalhealth matter
All 4'7" of me 