Mental Illness

I've been gone a long time. I haven't forgotten my readers. Ive been dealing with some mental issues lately, and dealing with them is very difficult and can be a lonely road for some people.

Sometimes a person has to step back and leave the external and focus on the internal. In a world where external is everything, its really easy to forget about the internal at times. When I say internal, I mean what's inside you. Whats going on can be really hard to understand. And I am struggling with that. Medication, therapist and all. Its difficult. Im holding on very tightly. At times everything gets away from me and I cant retrieve it. This caused anxiety and depression on top of other things Im dealing with. Plus others may not be receptive to whats going on with you either. I have to remind myself there are people out there who understand. Sometimes I feel so alienated that I fear that no one does.

If you know somebody who has been battling mental illness, let them know that I understand. Show them this entry. Don't tell them to pray about it. Please. Don't tell them that. Try talking to them about whats going on. It might be really hard, but please don't give up on them.

Just Pray On It <<< For real?

Fair warning. I know I'm about to catch pure unadulterated hell for this post. I'm okay with that as long as you hear me out and fully examine exactly what I'm trying to say.

Again, I really don't pay attention to celebrities like that, but it seems that some issues surrounding them have really piqued my interest as of late. Today I bring the following to your attention. Here we have a young Black actor who committed suicide at the age of  29 years old by the name of Lee Thompson Young.  I asked myself these questions:  Why did he kill himself? What caused it? Was he depressed? How long had he been suffering? I confess, at first I didn't really put much thought into his situation, but then I found this article. Now let me give you guys a brief history of what really kicked this off. I was on Facebook (yeah you guys must think Facebook is paying me a lot of money to mention it because of how much I bring it up in my blog), and after seeing more nuggets of sadness,constantly dealing with some straight up bs in real life, while mulling over what I'm seeing in American culture, how it has affected people like me, while fighting against what is constantly fed to others regarding people like me through the media, and many other things I've seen and dealt with over the years has made me wonder if I will spend the rest of my days similar to the latter years of Louise Little's life. This was the reason I updated my status to "I'm mad today" followed by an angry face. I logged off of Facebook for about 8 hours and then came back to a particular reply "...just pray and everything will be okay."

All of a sudden, I wanted to rage. I logged out of Facebook. Those who know me are fully aware how I feel about that phrase and what that phrase tells me. Later, I stumbled upon the second article, titled "Black Suicide: When Prayer Is Not Enough."  I read the article and I couldn't shake it out of my mind. This article says exactly what I have said to several people who have told me to "pray about it" during various times throughout my life. The same people who say "Pray about it," are the first ones to stigmatize a person as soon as they say they are depressed. They say the most hurtful things like "Oh, they have a 'weak mind'", or call them "Crazy," or say something condescending like "It's all in your head", or  something ridiculous like, "Just don't think about it and it'll go away," or "Smile, it'll get better." or "Just be happy," or "Get over it.".  Instead of pulling a HULK SMASH on them and everything they should ever attempt to care about til death comes knocking at their door, I simply tell them to Get The Fuck Outta Here With That Bullshit.

Are they really serious with that escapist, head in the sand ass comment?! Sooo what, it's a good thing to be a bunch of ostriches now?!  All of the shit that has been and still is going on and they want to continue closing their eyes and ears and act like nothing is going on?  Oh, I get it, they know it's going on, but they want to hope and pray it'll get better. Well guess what? A person can hope and pray in one hand and shit in the other; which one gets full first? Look at how long it took for things to make a lazy,sorry, half ass attempt to get better for Black people? All of this hoping and praying and wishing isn't doing anybody any good. Hoping and praying is the same as saying, "I'm going to sit back and see what happens". Martin Luther King combined action with hope and prayer, and as I mentioned before, he got shot. I guess all of that hoping and praying didn't really do anything now did it?  Sure, we can quote his speech all day, but look at some of the things that are going on right now (in no particular order):

1. Blacks still get discriminated when looking for employment.
2. We get shot at by cops who mistake cell phones, water bottles, wallets, and any other piece of miscellaneous crap we have in our hands for weapons. 
3. We get stalked in stores.
4. We get shitty service in restaurants because somebody told someone else that Blacks don't tip, so that waitresses and waiters expect us not to, which in return causes them to not give good service and not receive a tip.
5. We get treated wrong for moving into neighborhoods that may not have a lot of Blacks in them. 
6. We get side eyed by others when we show pride in our heritage.
7. Even if we make a lot of money we still get treated like shit by other people because of something malicious they heard or saw in the media pertaining to us.
8. When we excel at a job, or even land the job in the first place, we get accused of getting the job not on merit, but by Affirmative Action (which wouldn't have been made necessary if Blacks weren't kept under thumb by various methods for so long in the first place. Remember Black Wall Street ?).
9. The Drug War
10. People can still be found swinging from trees
11. Clear Channel, Time Warner and Viacom all have their hands in controlling a piece of the privatized prison industry.
12. Interracial dating between Blacks and anyone else is still a hot topic.
13. When Blacks show interest in creating their own businesses, etc, they get called racist for doing so even if seeking employment with otherwise has proved a fruitless effort, especially in a crappy job market. (see #1, 8, and 7)

Add all of that up, and step back for a second. This is just a small excerpt of what we may see, and some of which has already been discussed in previous blog entries. Imagine having to deal with that and keep moving like everything is fine. Sooner or later, a person will pop regardless of whether or not this stuff affects a person day to day.  Many people commit suicide each day due to various hardships in their own lives which may be very different than my experience. I don't know what the actor was going through, but it seemed like he really needed someone to reach out to him. I know that feeling very well.  Seeking help for mental issues is often looked down upon in general. I have seen psychiatrists and all of them were either quick to dismiss me by telling me I need to relax and exercise more,or give me a scary pill and send me on my way, only to end up feeling worse than I did before.  They'd always leave me wanting to say, "BITCH IF I COULD RELAX AND EXERCISE I WOULDN'T BE IN HERE YOU DUMBASS!!! AND I CERTAINLY WOULDN'T NEED TO PAY YOU TO TELL ME THAT. Get The Fuck On Somewhere. Are you crazy?!"

That's what gets me about therapy. I'd rather not pay to be insulted or treated wrong  like it was a part of some sexually masochistic pleasure thing. I have yet to have a good experience. Instead I kept getting narcissistic douchebags who left me with the impression that they like hearing other people's problems so they can get paid to take a dump on them.  

Some people say that not seeking therapy is just a part of American Black culture that no one wants to talk about. I find a bit of truth in that, however it doesn't explain why so many White people are committing suicide considering that getting therapy should be something a lot of them may be used to as long as they have the financial means to do so.  Maybe they received the same treatment I did when I attempted therapy. Who knows. I feel that whenever a person commits suicide and is seeing a psychiatrist, a full scale investigation on how the psychiatrist treats their clients should be completed.

I urge people to seek real compassion when someone approaches with a mental health issue or is troubled, and not to dismiss or condescend to the afflicted person. Because when that happens, there's no telling what can happen afterward. It's a huge disservice to say something like I mentioned above, and then turn around and say something like, "I don't know what happened or what brought this on. They were bright, they had a lot of things going on for them, they were smart, beautiful and kind. They were so nice and warm to everyone. I can't imagine why he (or she) would do such a thing (etc)."  And then they have the nerve to be dismayed and upset when something happens to the person whose issues were deflected and dismissed as excuses, laziness, or (insert any cold demeaning remark here).  Really, people?!