What The World Needs for Mental Health Advocacy Has Changed: A 6 Years Retrospective
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Mental Health Advocacy Has Changed: A 6 Year anniversary retrospective on mental health in the world copy with mxiety logo and a brain growing flowers from it
This World Mental Health Day marks the 6 year anniversary of starting Mxiety as a blog with live streams dedicated to advocating for openness in mental health.
2020 was a HUGE watershed moment for mental health online, with information on the topic, influencers, start ups and everyone else finally coming around to openly discussing and making things around it. The 3 years of work I did before COVID are dramatically different from the 3 years I’ve done since (and not just because I learned to take burnout-forced breaks).
Inevitably, this means nostalgia, introspection, and thoughts about the future have made home in my mind for the time being.
Here they are laid out to make sense from:
There is just a lot more content and it’s a lot more matter of fact. That doesn’t mean The stigma is gone.
There’s a huge difference between volume of info vs public acceptance
Mental health is still a scapegoat when it comes to talking about gun violence, trans rights, and violence and video games. Meaning that mental health gets blamed for all of those issues being as hot as they are right now, but with little actual reason to (but those stats need their own post).
In great news, lots of folks, especially on socials are talking openly about mental health. As a new mom, I’m seeing a lot of folks being open about the reality of not just PPA/PPD but how tough being a parent, being a default parent, being a working parent etc. As a streamer, there’s a lot more conversations that are being had about content creator mental health.
Countries are dedicating more funding to expanding mental healthcare. Venture capitol is being directed for new companies in the space. It feels like everyone is paying more attention.
But that doesn’t mean that rude comments about people’s mental health are not rampant online.
For one tiny example, there’s a huge surge in how many people are being diagnosed with ADHD, Autism. Which means now lots of people have opinions about whether it’s all made up “for attention” which is honestly straight out of the mental health ableism 101 rule book.
Similarly, anytime you see someone make fun of people using pronouns in their bios, or representation in a movie, you’re witnessing re-traumatizing of folks who need those things to be seen and be validated. Those people are being silenced. Which brings me to my next point…
People have finally connected that true mental health Awareness means caring and seeing folks as they are with all the public/Social issues Connected to that
Housing
Transphobia
Racism
Homophobia
Lack of representation
Being overworked
Pay inequity
Climate anxiety
When we ignore those issues, or leave them unresolved, we create new mental health concerns for folks on the receiving end. The person who’s experiencing microaggressions at work is way more likely to experience burnout and depression. The person who doesn’t have access to insurance to access a therapist, is way more likely to experience homelessness than someone with access to those things. Addressing inequity can reduce the number of folks dealing with mental illnesses drastically and we are just now finally making a dent in that fight. And in some industries, that’s worse than in others (here’s looking at you, gaming even if there’s hope).
A sticky note quote from Brené brown that says, "Don't expect us to follow the rules once we learn that the game is about protecting your power with our lives." from her twitter
Globally, Attention around mental health is still not where it needs to be.
According to a World Health Organization report from 2022:
Countries dedicate less than 2% of their healthcare budgets to mental health.
More than 70% of mental health expenditure in middle-income countries still goes towards psychiatric hospitals.
Around half the world’s population lives in countries where there is just one psychiatrist to serve 200,000 or more people
So yeah, tons more work to do compared to cracking the thing that I started out Mxiety for: having open conversations about mental health. Globally, it feels like mental health is in it’s “ok now what?” stage. We’re here for it. But the work going forward is just different.
Additionally, when I say we’re more comfortable about mental health conversations and conditions, what do you think of? It’s likely not Bipolar, Borderline Personality, Scizophrenia, etc. Depression, Anxiety are more discussed and understood, but everything else in the DSM still has a ways to go before being largely accepted. There’s a ton of stigma outside of those concepts.
Scene from finding nemo end card. Fish in plastic bags in ocean saying now what
Goals going forward
I honestly don’t know what I thought in 2017 past, “not talking about mental health is literally killing people (namely almost me), we should start the convo publically.” Probably I thought that alone would fix a lot of things. Oh she was so silly.
The more I did, the more I learned that access to care and equal care/equality is way more likely making folks su*cidal now that we have started to talk about it. But honestly, without that conversation starting, and getting a …err boost? in 2020 during the pandemic I am not sure that folks with more privilege (namely like me) would have even known to look here.
I’m sure my looking around for more issues is also informed by my own mental health being in a much better place. Over the past 6 years I’ve:
Gotten a more accurate diagnosis of ADHD (instead of the alphabet soup I had at one point)
Found community with those like me
Connected to the LGBTQ+ community and come out as part of it
Had a kid, who is a white male
Done research on content creator mental health, wrote a book, and been part of other’s books/consulting
That’s not to brag, but more to say, if I didn’t see a conversation before, of course I would have thought that was the 1st step as it’s the one I needed the most. Now that I’ve gotten my feet underneath me a bit, I’m dusting off and ready for the next fight.
I can do this all day captain america gif
I’m not talking about the goal being world where mental illness does not exist. That is so beyond my lifetime, it’s silly. Sadly, I’m also not talking about a utopia where everyone is always fair, people get to live the way they want/know themselves to be without being bothered.
Truly I just mean the work cut out ahead for us lies in equity above all. Let’s get folks better healthcare. Let’s get folks better access to info whether it’s the mental health of 5 year olds or 105 year olds. Let’s not tell people who they can and can’t love and who they can and can’t be based on how they were born. The cognitive pain is most terrifying when you know something about yourself to be true, while understanding that the world will never accept you that way.
In the next 6 years and beyond, let’s learn to meet and help people where they are and for what they need.
Love and Light,
Mxiety
PS Like what you read? Didn’t like what you read? Let me know in the comments!
