Mental Health Monday #43: Tracee Ellis Ross' thug motivation, Black children & suicide, queer therapists, etc.

January 15, 2018 The Extraordinary Negroes

Welcome to another round of Mental Health Monday, your weekly dose of stories, resources, and motivation for your everyday life. On last week's installment, ShaRhonda Knott-Dawson reminded us why, after the Kwanzaa shindigs and holiday hoedowns, we still have to be mindful of our mental and emotional wellness during this potentially challenging time of year. Check it out.

THIS WEEK'S GOODNESS:

"How Tracee Ellis Ross Gets Herself to Work on Days She Feels 'Crappy'" by Carolyn L. Todd [Self]

Other tactics can sometimes be as simple as taking your dog for a walk or calling up a friend or family member. “[I find comfort in] being able to name it, to say I’m feeling lonely,” Ross says, “then to have a tribe of people I feel safe enough with to share: This is how I feel.”

"For Colored Girls in Their 30s and 40s Who Feel Like Life May Have Passed Them By" by Janelle Harris [The Root]

Life has not passed you by. It’s not too late to do the thing you and/or other people have been swearing you’re too old to do. Folks will occasionally doubt you. You will occasionally doubt you. Do the thing you want to do anyway. Be Aunt Viv in a pink leotard, back-spinning and floor-posing on them fools.

"Black Children Are Dying: We Need To About Suicide and Depression" by Gioncarlo Valentine [AFROPUNK]

I’ve thought about suicide every single day for the past 15 years.

When I think of the days—5,501 to be exact—it’s difficult to catch my breath. I cup my hand to my mouth and feel the quiet cold of shame. It’s hard to say this out loud. It’s hard to write these words. To submit them. To share them.

"What If: On Black Lives and Mental Health" by Jodi Savage [Catapult]

Eleanor has not paid rent in four months and owes $394.60. The New York City Housing Authority calls the police to evict Eleanor from her apartment. She doesn’t open the door. The cops bust in. Eleanor charges towards the cops with a knife, they say. There is a struggle. An officer blasts two shots into Eleanor’s right hand and chest. The shooter is acquitted.

"Why I See a Black Queer Therapist" by Steven W. Thrasher [Them]

But American therapists are not prepared to deal with the very real wages of racism, nor with the mental health crisis of a president who equates Black and brown homelands as “shitholes.” While more than two thirds of them are women, 84% of all American therapists are white.

This Is What ‘Self-Care’ REALLY Means, Because It’s Not All Salt Baths And Chocolate Cake by Briana Wiest [Thought Catalog]

It is no longer using your hectic and unreasonable life as justification for self-sabotage in the form of liquor and procrastination. It is learning how to stop trying to “fix yourself” and start trying to take care of yourself…and maybe finding that taking care lovingly attends to a lot of the problems you were trying to fix in the first place.