≈ May is Mental Health Awareness Month ≈

∞ It’s Important ∞      

This Blog is really late, and I apologize.

As I mentioned in my last Blog, we hosted a "Big Chill" at our home, pretty much a week of very old friends (literally and figuratively) all tied in some way to a small private college in late 1960’s Vermont. We didn’t party quite like we used to, but I think we delivered a respectable performance that honored the old days… (Checkout the soundtrack, one of the best)

Rain dominated most of the week. It kept us inside together playing various “highly competitive” games, talking for hours, together and individually, walking the woods between storms, essentially a week-long reunion of longtime friendships, aging bodies, memory lapses, and stories that somehow improve with time.  

Missing a week of blogging is hardly a crisis, but May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and that matters. The Month exists to emphasize the importance of mental well-being, reduce the stigma surrounding mental health challenges, encourage awareness in ourselves and others, and remind people that support is available, even if the person who needs the support happens to be you. It’s a significant topic for me, and if the Blog reaches one person and makes one difference, it makes being late worth it.

When I grew up in mid-century Brooklyn, mental health was whispered about. Quietly. Uncomfortably. Kind of the way cancer was whispered about back then, except with judgment instead of sympathy.

People didn’t say, “He’s struggling.” They said, “There’s something wrong with him.” Or “He’s crazy”, “nuts”. I grew up in a row of six attached houses. Our neighbors included two people with cancer and two people considered “crazy.” Guess which ones received casseroles and visits.

That was the world then. Thankfully, things have changed.

Mental health is now recognized for what it actually is, a real health issue that can affect thinking, mood, relationships, behavior, focus, and sometimes a person’s ability simply to function day to day. It comes in multiple flavors and touches nearly every family whether they talk about it or not.

With that, people still either don’t recognize or admit or get care for their problem. And like any health issue the longer it goes untreated the worse it gets, the longer the road to wellness. We all get annual physicals. Doctors monitor our cholesterol, blood pressure, heart function, lungs, almost everything. So Mental Health Awareness Month is a reminder to not just check your heart, but your head as well, stigma be damned.

The statistics in the U.S. are staggering.

Digest this - More than 75 million Americans experience some form of definable mental health issue. This includes over 60 million adults and 15 million children and teenagers. So fundamentally 25% of our adults and 20% of our kids have a mental health condition. Approximately 50% of all lifetime mental health issues begin by age 14, and 75% begin by age 24. This doesn’t include the 13 million people that suffer from various forms of PTSD. Fact check away.

These numbers aren’t politics. They aren’t ideology. They’re people. And many of them are people we know and love.

With much of the old stigma faded, friends talk more openly, parents hopefully understand their children differently, and people are more willing to seek help without feeling uncomfortable. In today’s world recovery from even serious mental health problems is not only possible, but probable. That’s a big deal.

We’ve also learned something equally important, not every difficult emotion is a disorder, not every loss of temper or lack of focus is a mental health problem, not every rough patch needs a label, and, most importantly, not every human struggle is solved by a prescription pad and a pill. 

At some point, people need people who listen without judging, trying to fix, diagnose, lecture, or minimize what they’re saying. For me, fortunately Covid came along (you don’t hear that often), and I found those people at a NAMI Support Group on Zoom. I even ended up on the Board of my local Affiliate and became a Support Group Facilitator. It’s amazing what can be accomplished when you confront something difficult.

Mental health care is evolving for the better. Today there’s more conversation around multiple categories of mental health diagnosis, a win in and of itself. Solutions touch lifestyle, community, relationships, purpose and holistic care, and these conversations matter because mental health issues don’t have a one-size-fits-all solution.

Recovery isn’t linear. Support matters. Hope matters. Friendship matters. Kindness matters. Patience matters. Listening and talking to your kids, your parents, your friends all matter. Some of the most powerful help available still costs absolutely nothing.

This year’s Mental Health Awareness theme is “More Good Days, Together”.  It reminds us that being human has always been a shared struggle. And perhaps the healthiest thing any of us can do is make sure nobody has to struggle alone.

How can you help? Volunteer, write a check. Support organizations doing good work.

You know what else you can do? Be kind. When someone seems angry, impatient, rude, or withdrawn, don't judge them, you have no clue what that person is going though.

"Follow the way of kindness. It is a language the blind can see and the deaf can hear." Kobi Yamada