3am thoughts on mental health:
A professional acquaintance of mine lost her brother this week. His obituary says he “passed away [details] from a long struggle with mental illness”.

Think of that - not how he died, but from what. Big picture. Not he died at his own hand, not he “committed suicide” (ugh the worst phrase).

That’s how you start peeling back the layers of stigma surrounding mental illness... using the same phrasing you would with cancer or any other illness.

This young man, aged 23, died after a long illness.

And guess what? Just like physical illness, sometimes those who suffer do so quietly, without everyone knowing they’re sick. Sometimes, we don’t know where it came from or how someone “got it”.

Sometimes, it just is. How many people would still be with us today if the stigma of seeking help for mental illness was the same as it is for physical illness? Are we blamed for going to the doctor with a stomach virus? Or a breathing problem? Laughed at? Shunned?

And sometimes, people seek help and we lose them anyway.

But what if... what if we considered it all just simply illness for which we reach for help?

What if counseling was considered as legitimate as physical therapy? What if serotonin was as okay to need as antibiotics?

I’ve felt the anguish of a friend’s suicide at 21 and though now having lived more years without him than with, he is a daily thought. I would like to change his obit to read, he “died after a long struggle with an illness no one knew about”.

I don’t know the end of this story. My work colleague’s little brother struggled for many years, and was so very loved. My thoughts are with them tonight, but I’m also so grateful that they took this small step to, in his death, normalize this epidemic.

Mental health is physical health, y’all. They are connected. They are one.

Love on your people. Tell them you are there and safe and then actually BE there and BE safe. Healing occurs in the context of relationships. And be good to yourself also