A Motherâs Day Wish for Mental Health Awareness
May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and that seems as good a time as any for me to break my year-long hibernation to shout this to the rooftops:
My child, Alex, was the most amazingly vibrant, feeling, loving, creative force you could imagine. Alex was full of life. Alex committed suicide last year, at the age of 14.
I am shouting out my pride to drown out the idea that mental illness is something to be ashamed of.
What I am ashamed of are profound shortcomings in awareness about this devastating illness among our communities, our families, our educators, and our politicians. Even those who know better can wind up in a pretty bad place, our own awareness flung aside.
The stigma around mental illness defines and permeates the grief of a suicide survivor. It is a special sort of stigma, trapping the survivor in a howling vortex of self-condemnation and guilt. The very haziness of mental illnessâââis this really illness? if a deadly illness, why was treatment so indeterminate?âââmeans I am subjected to a lifetime of, at worst, soul-crushing self-punishment, and at best, constant second-guessing self-doubt. Not a day (an hour?) goes by that a new, tender memory of Alex doesnât morph into an assault. I seize. âThere. That was it, the moment I dropped the ball. If only I had done x, or y, or z âŚâ
With a child, the onus is as unbearable as the course was unchartable. The stigma of suicide starts with the stigma of mental illness.
Over the last three years, so many âpeersâ questioned Alexâs diagnosis. Depression and anxiety? The younger generation just isnât tough enough; who doesnât get bullied? Then, whatâs up with your Goth child? And, er, what does it even mean to be Emo Pastel? Thatâs where you need to crack down.
More recently, it was how I could buy binders when Emma became Alex, imploring people to go with the flow of pronoun changes from she to they to he. Just 18 months later, I donât even need to explain it. Have you seen the âmainstreamâ traditional press? A March cover of Time: Â âBeyond âHeâ or âSheâ .ââ NPR this past week: âA New Generation Overthrows Gender.â â
Who would have thought, 20 years ago, when mental health parity was first enacted into law, that today it would be gender identity awareness that has moved so far, so fast; leaving, it seems, progress on mental health awareness, and acceptance ⌠in the dust? One means you are for equality, for civil, societal, and personal rights. Yet not only does the fight for mental health âparityâ continue; how many even know what it means?
For a just-turned-13-year-old Emma, Robin Williamsâ death was a wake-up call to how little awareness and knowledge was out there about depression, illness, and suicide. All of the coverage and all of the people trying to âunderstandâ only highlighted how much misunderstanding there seemed to be. Coming shortly after Emmaâs own first suicide attempt, this was the beginning of a desperate and heart-wrenching search.
The theme of this yearâs Mental Health Awareness Month is Risky Business, which includes internet addiction that can exacerbate mental illness. By addiction, they donât just mean online dating or gambling, or posting to social. It includes âinformation seeking,â surfing and searching. Alex was desperate to be seen and accepted as well as understood. For that, being online presented the biggest potential, as well as the biggest pitfalls.Â
Mental health awareness today, my kid would tell you, demands a massive scaling up of work in this arena. Alex, who saw at least six mental health professionals in the last two years alone, would test them by asking what they knew about Tumblr. âIf they donât even know what that is,â heâd say, âhow can they get me?â Sadly, Alex found his own communities online with teens as far away as Iceland sharing stories of depression, cutting, and suicidal thoughts. On the one hand, he found support and friends, people to be honest with. But he also found challenges to join in the salve of self-harm, and suicide ideation. We canât turn away: this is our culture (who isnât debating Netflixâs 13 Reasons Why?).
Iâm speaking for both of us, my child and me, when I say, think today, and tomorrow, and the day after, about mental illness. You know someone who is suffering. Learn about it. Learn about its effect on families. Support advances in treatment and research, especially in the multimedia landscape that encompasses us all.
Alex knew his mental illness challenges were intensifying. He knew the illness wasnât going away. What he didnât know, what he couldnât see, was how it would ever get better and how people would ever understand.
So help the next person to survive. Instead of stigma, help him/them/her to find community, acceptance, support, and hope. And help the suicide survivors, with knowledge, awareness, and understanding.
Help me.
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