What's Missing From Mental Health?
What's Missing From Mental Health?
Mental illness is a conversation we aim to have every day, but what aspects of mental health are we overlooking or needlessly stigmatizing in the process? This month, we're focusing our Mental Health Awareness efforts on the discussions of mental illness that are routinely pushed to the margins. Be it paranoid schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, or the trials and tribulations of accessing proper psychiatric healthcare, we want to talk about the things that aren't talked about. We hope you will too.
I love what it feels like when I dive into a cold pool on a hot day. I write dirty jokes on the internet. I follow four kitten accounts on Instagram. I have hope. I never thought I would be able to say that. I also happen to have Borderline Personality Disorder.
I first went on disability when I lived in Rochester, New York.
I have to accept the fact that Black men are not allowed to deal with their mental health issues — specifically personality and schizoaffective disorders. The man I considered a deadbeat dad for most of my life is a victim too.
I thought that my drive to perfectionism was warranted and desirable. "I am just doing what I have to do" — that's the mantra I used to motivate myself to continue to be productive, especially when I was feeling tired and tense.
I don’t look at all like the portrayals of these killers Hollywood never seems to tire of writing into movies and series. But I do have paranoid schizophrenia.
Hormones cause me to amble through an unrelenting fog, a fog that takes over my life for two weeks out of each calendar month.