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 of Mental Health Monday, The Rock opened up about depression and his mother's suicide attempt, how shaming in the church can prevent healing, Therapy for Black Girls explores angry Black women, and much more. Come get some.
MORE GOODNESS:
"The Silence: The Legacy of Childhood Trauma" by Junot Díaz [The New Yorker]
I was hiding, I was drinking, I was at the gym; I was running around with other women. I was creating model homes, and then, just as soon as they were up, abandoning them. Classic trauma psychology: approach and retreat, approach and retreat. And hurting other people in the process. My depressions would settle over me for months, and in that darkness the suicidal impulse would sprout pale and deadly.
"Tyrese, Bow Wow and The Rock shared mental health battles and other Black men should too" by George Johnson [The Grio]
These men are taking a enormous risk in putting their mental health business out in these streets. Our community has struggled to help those who are in distress. Removing the mask that money and fame can hide allows us the space to have conversations around all the crap that we are dealing with every day.
"Withering Under the White Gaze: The Hart Family Tragedy" by Deep Green Philly [Medium]
The white gaze is the product of a culture that automatically centers whiteness and gives white people the benefit of the doubt. This is why, for days after the deadly crash, some people were refusing to even entertain the possibility of foul play because it did not compute with the familiar “white savior” narrative Jennifer and Sarah embodied.
"Brown men don’t cry: How a culture of shame stops South Asian men talking about mental health" by Rupen Gahir Kalsi [Metro UK]
What we don’t think is that brown men get ill – mentally ill – and find it more difficult to get the help they truly need. Their faults are instead twisted into thinly veiled critiques of their culture; a result of the failure of multiculturalism rather than a collective failure to look after the well-being of everyone in our society.
Channel 4 News and researchers explored why Black men are more likely to be affected by psychotic disorders.
