Awareness and hope.
You need them. I found some and I'd like to tell you about it. And about disco and a guy named Clifford.
Tomorrow is the last day of the Max Fun Drive. If you haven’t donated, please do. Find a level that works for you and give. Don’t put it off. Do it now. Please. Thank you.
I come to you during a time of great anxiety and depression in our society. I am the host of a show about anxiety and depression. I don’t want to use the events of the world to raise money, even though we are in the midst of our annual fundraising drive. But I feel like I need to say something.
Gonna talk about awareness and hope.
I’m writing this in early May of 2022. During a time in American culture history where there is reason to worry. Bigots and misogynists and homophobes and transphobes and all stripes of bullies are trying to hurt people. Trying to hurt the most vulnerable people. And often succeeding. Building apparatuses to hurt people in the future.
It sucks. It’s a hell of a time to be a person in the world, let alone a person with an interesting mind like some of us are. All this (I gesture to the world) AND depression? Or anxiety? Or traumatic stress? Or something else? Come on. It’s ridiculous.
Could feel hopeless. So. We need to go looking for hope. I’m not saying it would be nice to find more hope, not saying it would be an extra treat. It’s not a treat, it’s sustenance. You need to find hope.
And it’s not a good plan to just wait for hope to come to you these days. It’s not always at your fingertips. It’s certainly not always found by idly scrolling through your social media feeds. Are you kidding, there’s monsters in there. You have to go out and hunt the hope down.
And just like antidepressant medications and country music, what’s effective for one person won’t necessarily work for another.
This year, I’m finding hope in a place that I didn’t expect. Mental Health Awareness Month. It’s a yearly event that I always forget about because mental health and awareness thereof has kind of become my thing. I spend all my work being aware of mental health issues and trying to help others become aware.
I’ve rolled my eyes a bit about Mental Health Awareness Month. I’ve had some knocks against it.
The name. Mental Health Awareness Month. I’ve now said it three times and I swear it took up a combined fifteen minutes. It’s cumbersome. And it’s clinical. It sounds archaic and corny.
And I’ve often been a bit of a skeptic on awareness campaigns in general because at least part of me thinks, well, you’re letting people off pretty easy. Awareness? That’s all? I mean, what are you asking for, a second of consciousness? A brief drop of attention amid an ocean of ignorance? Come on. That’s even easier than signing an online petition. Awareness: it’s literally the least you can do.
And I often think that awareness isn’t what’s important, it’s action. It’s change. It’s the hard stuff. For many people with physical disabilities, they need things to be more accessible. They need to be able to get into vehicles and buildings. They need an end to workplace discrimination.
Remember a few paragraphs ago when I said I like Mental Health Awareness Month and found hope in it? You know before I started complaining about it? Yeah yeah, don’t worry, I’ll get back to that. First, I’ll complain a little bit longer.
For mental health, my issue of fixation, awareness seemed like weak sauce. Suicide rates are not good. The rates of depression, especially among young people, were bleak before covid and have gotten worse. How does awareness change that? It’s like I’m treading water in the middle of the ocean and I’m getting tired and I’m surrounded by sharks. If you go by in a boat and say, “I’m aware of you,” that’s not enough. Like fuck off rescue me what’s the matter with you.
Thing is, I don’t need Mental Health Awareness Month to solve things. I only need it for hope. And things changed a little for me when I came across the year it started.
1949. That was the first year they held it. 73 years ago.
It was started by an organization now called Mental Health America. Which was founded in 1908 as the National Committee for Mental Hygiene. Started by a guy named Clifford Beers, who had been in mental hospitals and had horrible experiences. Set out to improve things.
So Clifford started this thing 114 years ago. When things had been horrible. He did that with hope. He died years before the organization he founded started commemorating Mental Health Awareness Month
This is the 73rd year of Mental Health Awareness Month. That’s a long slow climb. That’s 73 years of trying to put a dent in prejudice and fear and ignorance every May. I kind of chewed on that a little. It’s a long and difficult road to get people to square one: to be aware of what mental health is and is not. To get some reality past all the assumptions and fear and ugliness.
And when I think about those decades, I think it’s kind of working. Awareness is higher than it’s ever been. Conversations are more open and more abundant. People know more.
I believe negative stereotyping of people with mental illness is better than it’s been in the past. It’s not perfect. Prejudice doesn’t get solved that easy. But in society in general, you’re now expected to be sensitive and enlightened about mental health. And if you’re not, people think less of you. If you expose yourself to be a jerk or a bigot about people with mental health issues, it is more likely than ever that someone will call you on it.
And here’s what I find most inspirational, and it may surprise you. People are saying helpful things about mental health who I can tell don’t mean it. People are saying the right things even though, judging by their delivery, really don’t care much at all. It inspires because that just means a new status quo where having at least some enlightenment on the subject gets you points.
And change is happening. It’s much easier to get tele-health appointments with a therapist than it used to be, which means more people are getting help than ever before. Our healthcare system is still a byzantine nightmare but more awareness has led to more action.
And more funding for research and more interest in conducting research. That research is pointing to a future with more effective treatments - TMS, psilocybin, ketamine.
Mental health is becoming like littering was. I was very young in the 1970s but I still remember how parks and natural areas looked like ass back then. People throwing garbage all around. We decided to do something about it. Didn’t solve it entirely but it got better and the default mindset became one of not throwing crap all over the place.
Smoking. People still smoke but as a society we decided to make things healthier and better smelling. We reasoned that if someone didn’t want to be around cigarette smoke, they should not have to be. Seems obvious now but it didn’t used to be.
We know - now - that disco music is great. Chic and the Bee-Gees and Donna Summer and those beats and syncopated bass lines and the impetus to dance, those are wonderful.
That’s why it caught on in the first place.
Disco music had roots in the Black and LGBTQ communities, marginalized communities, communities that were subject to widespread, deep, and systemic discrimination and hatred., Which explains why there was such a violent reaction against it by bigots. They stated disco sucks, which was wrong because disco rules.
Our collective better natures have evolved to get past prejudice and let disco into our hearts. Now our hearts have spinning mirror balls and colorful light--up floors.
I’ve said before that in my work, with Depresh Mode, with everything mental health related that I do, that I am fighting a war that I will not win. I won’t eradicate stigma and shame around mental health in my lifetime. Gonna keep fighting. Gonna knock it down a few notches, I hope.
Similarly, I can’t eradicate mental illnesses. They happen.
And I wonder if there’s another form that victory could take. And this is another little piece of hope that I collected. That I went out and found.
As people become more aware of mental health, maybe we move toward doing away with that term, start seeing it as yet another outdated phrase. Maybe we get toward a notion of health and how to promote it. And maybe we recognize that people’s minds are unique. Everybody’s got their own biz going on up there, that adherence to the majority isn’t automatically virtuous and divergence from the majority isn’t bad. Maybe we just all support each other and talk to each other and give everyone the best chance of being happy.
And maybe it starts with being aware.
So happy Mental. Health. Awareness. Month.
Depresh Mode with John Moe is only able to exist by people contributing to the show. That’s how we make it. I think we’re making something good and valuable here. I believe it might make your life or at least your week a little better. Please donate to Depresh Mode by going to Maximum Fun dot org slash join. Select Depresh Mode from the list of shows and find a level that works for you. We have some fun and silly gifts for you, including a star-studded sleep aid episode called Sleeping With Celebrities. maximumfun.org/join.
While I fully understand how deeply uncomfortable fundraising can be (especially for folks like us), I think you are doing a great job! This post is a great example. Deflect away from what *I* am doing and focus on the cause. I am simply a small stepping stone on the path of a great journey. Don't support *me*, support the journey. Help *us* get to the next stone. You're doing a great job. Thank you. Keep doing what you're doing. We'll be at your side.