Non-Profit Mental Health Awareness

It is half a year away from National Suicide Awareness Month.  (September).  Studies show suicide is the second leading cause of death for people between the ages of 10-34. 

66% of college students have been diagnosed with anxiety and/or depression.  22 military veterans commit suicide A DAY.

The lack of mental health awareness in our country is disastrous.  So why wait six more months to raise the topic? 

In the last three years, I have personally learned how dangerous, lonely, and scary it is to experience suicide ideation, suicidal tendencies, ideology, thoughts, and plans.  To think about your funeral is a different level of pain, one I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

If I hadn’t taken the step to check myself into a mental rehab willingly, my parents wouldn’t be spending the weekends in prison visitation parks.  My friends wouldn’t get to send me messages on Securus.  My roommates/bunkees would never know I existed.  My volleyball partner and best friend, Alisce would play with someone else daily.  My dreams would go unmet, and my future plans would cease.

The statement “I was in a mental rehabilitation center for weeks” at first made me feel ashamed and weak.  I know now that asking for help makes me neither of those things.  But it has taken me a long time to realize that.  I’ve always been a strong friend, the one people go to for advice.  And the one who always checked on everyone else.  I shouldered a lot of my pain internally.

With that being said, check on your strong friends, check in with the people who stopped posting so much on social media, or the ones who randomly started posting everything.  It could be their cry for help.  You never know what someone is carrying, the weight they feel, the times they spend wishing they were anywhere else.  Feeling isolated disrupts not only the brain but also the endocrine and immune system.  Long-term isolation can be as damaging to your health and well-being as obesity and smoking.

Prison is a form of isolation that is unfathomable to the inexperienced human brain.  The terms confinement, segregation, solitary, and “jail” ( the prison slang for going to confinement) bring me such anxiety and nervousness.  They are sinister words.  There are few places on earth as lonesome as prison cells/dorms.  The denial of intimacy is one of the more deceptively cruel realities of prison life.  Love, lust, and craving human warmth do not just instantly cease to exist the second the gavel pounds and years of your life are turned over to the state.  The human heart is no less human because it beats in a prisoner’s chest.  The heart craves connection, the mind craves engagement, and the body craves stimulation.

George Bush once said, “Too often, we judge others by their worst examples while measuring ourselves by our best intentions.” 

So, when given the choice to either be right or be kind, I hope you choose kindness.  Every day is someone’s worst day of their life.  You never know the damage people feel inside.  The most challenging wounds to heal are the ones not seen.  Be kind to someone.  You never know what they are facing.  Nothing feels better than kindness.  

If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out to someone.  (If you have no one to talk to, call the national mental health crisis hotline at 1-800-662-4357

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CREDIT—Some of this article was written based on the statements, quotes, and viewpoints of Malcolm Ivey’s “Letters To The Universe,” an AMAZING memoir written by someone who has spent 30 years in the Florida prison system.  He is set to be released soon, and this book has changed my view on so many topics.