July is National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month. What I find interesting and sad is that I bet almost no one knew. As a matter of fact I didn’t know until literally minutes ago. Minority mental health and mental health in general is often overlooked, undervalued, and overly minimized. With everything that’s going on in the US and the world in general, I can’t help but wonder how much of the Earth’s pain is due to under-recognized, undiagnosed, and untreated mental illness. The constant barrage of anger, sadness, fear, frustration, rage, confusion, and despair on my personal Facebook timeline leaves me seething with indignation that mental illness is always sacrificed on the altar of budgets, consequences be damned. I’ve been dealing with my own fear which has led me to be stagnant for some months now. However, I cannot in good conscience sit back and do nothing. For the voices that often go unheard, the very least I can do is listen.
We are all worthy of being holistically well. . .
Yulinda Rock
“later that night
i held an atlas in my lap
ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?
it answered
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere.”
? Warsan Shire