Are you walking wounded? There are so many scars that many of us are carrying and not all these wounds are visible. How many of us were born in trauma, raised in trauma, and gone through traumatic events and have not processed it? Many of us have experienced trauma for so long that we think dysfunction is normal!
It’s not! This post is to encourage you to take care of yourself mentally! Not enough is discussed in our community about getting help to process what we term “life.” Life is not all traumatic, painful, guarded, and ugly. Life is beautiful and short. Too short to not enjoy the good moments we let escape because we can’t feel the moment. Many times we can’t feel the moment because we have repressed our negative and traumatic feelings for so long; we can’t feel ANYTHING! It’s time to get help!
To practice mental self-care, Oludara Adeeyothe, author of Self-Care for Black Women, encourages Black women to “Find a Black Woman Therapist” (pg. 44) She offers several nuggets of truth and suggestions regarding therapy.
My brothers, I have not forgotten you! Common discusses mental self-care in his book, And Then We Rise. In this book, Common discusses the impact of being a Black male in our society and how that affects our mental and physical health.
July is Minority Mental Health Awareness Month. Let's use the month of July to commit to reading and prioritize our mental health.
(National Institue of Mental Health. For more statistics, check out the Black Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) Mental Health Fact Sheet).
Video: The Hogg Foundation
Where to start? The website, Psychology Today, is a great place to start looking for a therapist in your area.
Thank you for bringing an awareness to an experience that affects us all to some degree or another