Protecting mental health in crazy times A ToDo list
it’s waking up on the floor of a cold
prison cell
and having no idea how you got there
it’s hiding in the bathroom at work
because you’re shaking again and if
anybody sees you you’re going to lose
your job
and it’s that little girl who used to be
so sweet that now she’s punching the
other kids at school
it’s mental injury in this pandemic
a social fabric torn asunder it’s hard
to feel
stable when the world has been collapsed
at your feet
but it’s really important to take
concrete steps
to protect our mental health both on an
individual level
and also on a societal level and so i’d
like to share with you
my 10 points the first of which is to
take stock
now even before the pandemic roughly one
billion people were estimated to be
suffering from mental health issues
and of course that leads to
corresponding issues of poverty
criminalization discrimination but the
pandemic
cracked open the facade of mental health
and exposed the insufficiencies and
injustices that have been there and of
course
also rates of mental illness have
increased during the pandemic the
suicide rate
has increased across the board and in
fact it’s being called a shadow pandemic
but in the same way that we need to take
stock on
a societal level it’s also important to
take stock on a personal level
for me i can say oh man my burnout is
back
and it has brought a friend insomnia
it’s two o’clock in the morning staring
down the barrel
of my alarm clock knowing that i have to
wake up
in a couple of hours but i can’t sleep
it’s when the colors of the rainbow
turn to black and white which leads to
point two and that is to get context
now in my family we have a long lineage
of trauma
and an equally long history of denying
it
when my mother was a little girl in the
great depression
her father killed himself under the
weight of economic ruin
but her bereavement soon turned to
horror under the hands
of the man that her mother went on to
marry
incredible abuse that happened behind
closed doors for over 10 years
everybody was in denial about it my
mother went on to have profound
psychological problems and i took care
of her
and 60 years later i still can’t sleep
in the same way that we need to look at
the deeper context however
of our personal challenges we also need
to look at societal challenges
now under the pandemic alcoholism
child abuse domestic violence have
increased across the board but they are
seen as individual trends rather than
very clear signs of collective trauma
a societal failure in dealing with
mental injury
and of course people of color and those
of marginalized gender identities
face more discrimination in the mental
health system
it’s waking up on a cold prison cell and
having no idea how you got there it’s
your black skin
it is the post-traumatic stress that you
got from multiple military tours to
afghanistan it’s being triggered by
watching the murder of george floyd on
television and the voices that told you
to take that rock and break that window
and it’s the fact that when the police
found you
you were taken to prison rather than to
get the mental health care support that
you clearly need and deserve
so then the question comes well where
is the money this is number three follow
the money
it’s amazing because on average
countries spend only two percent
of their health budgets on mental health
that is nothing that is crazy
for example in the united states a
person with a mental health challenge is
10 times more likely to end up
in prison or at jail rather than in a
facility in which they are getting care
but meanwhile of course during the
pandemic billionaires have become even
richer as our social services have been
cut it is hard to keep your personal
balance in a world that’s so
imbalanced but we must and that
leads to connecting the dots now
social services have decreased jobs have
decreased during the pandemic
alcoholism domestic violence have
increased
it is to be expected that child abuse
has also increased
and all of this suffering that is
completely unnecessary and that clearly
is going to go on and have implications
for
generations individuals often however
are blamed
rather than seeing this as a systemic
problem
but if we don’t acknowledge that then we
can’t fix the structures that created
them
in my mother’s case after so many years
of vicious abuse she was called crazy
she was ostracized
institutionalized over-medicated
and of course you know she became
suicidal again and again
i grew up really fast but these echoes
of injury do not have to continue
now one way that we can change this
path is to redefine experts
people with lived experience and people
who are actually
service users should be involved in
designing the programs
that are for healing in this capacity
the world health organization obviously
has done so much great work
and its quality rights program is
fantastic
in terms of combining human rights with
mental health
in the same way grand challenges canada
is amazing regarding
you know innovation and impact tech
and humanitarian issues and the amazing
vikram patel has taken task shifting for
capacity building to an art form
so basically when we see the whole
person in the context of broader society
it leads to the next point and that is
to expand
the narrative and during this pandemic
anybody who needs to have their
narrative expanded is
frontline workers they have clearly
borne the brunt
of this pandemic it’s that nurse who is
hiding in the bathroom
of the hospital because she’s shaking so
much because now she’s got anxiety
attacks and if somebody sees her she
might lose her job
it’s the long and grueling shifts that
she has to work
the fact that she’s been treating and
burying her colleagues
it’s her intense fear of catching covid
and then giving it to her
elderly parents and her child within
that context
of course she would have anxiety and we
should be dealing with that
and another element of expanding our
narratives
is to redefine target groups and the
united nations
secretary general guterres has done a
great job
in saying that we must focus for example
on the elderly we must focus more on
youth
and to that extent the youth envoy ms
vikramana yaki has also been
just done a great job during this
pandemic when the narratives are
expanded
holistic approaches to mental health
follow suit
and that leads to the next point which
is to find
synergies for example in zimbabwe
there’s this fantastic thing called a
friendship bench
where a grandmother sits on one side and
the person suffering
from anxiety sits there and then they
just talk and
the person feels better in italy there
have um
psychotherapists have come up with an
online platform
providing free consultation to those who
need it
and there are all kinds of really great
initiatives focused on the educational
system
for example the born this way foundation
lady gaga
and cynthia germanotta founded this and
they’re
in public schools doing amazing work
similarly
generation mental health is mobilizing
on campuses
we’ve got to find unique ways of
reaching out
and ultimately this means to go global
now mental health connects societies in
ways we cannot even
understand we are connected
across borders across generations across
belief
these challenges are global and
international
and intersectional so the solutions have
to be as well
now in this regard for example
generation unlimited
aims to bring cognitive behavioral
therapy to underserved youth globally
and united for global mental health is
doing amazing work
but that also leads to a really
important point and that is
to make noise every single person needs
to do
what we can to break the stigma i’m
always really really happy when famous
people come out and say hey i’m having
some challenges
thank you adele thank you beyonce thank
you the queer eye guys
you know for every time somebody who is
well known comes out and says hey
i have this then it just makes it easier
to talk about
and a special shout out to bts
for informing and motivating its army
supporting
unicef and its love myself campaign at
the un general assembly this stuff
really really matters
and of course in the very same breath
thank you very much to rani ali for
connecting
tolerance with mental health thank you
to every single person
who discusses lived experience
breaking the stigma one voice at a time
and that leads to the last point and
that is taking action
now i have lived experience with mental
health on an intergenerational level i
have it in my own personal burnout
but you know what i don’t have i don’t
have shame
i have pride i have conviction i have
determination
that i’m going to make a difference i am
going to
do anything in my power to protect
other people regarding mental health now
that means that on a personal basis
i need to finally take care of my
burnout
and i will do that i will break this
chain of trauma
now on an activist basis i will continue
advocating for mental health and that
means addressing social
failures that means advocating for
funding
on a work basis as a psychotherapist and
also a virtual learning expert
what i really want to do my focus now is
to bring
cognitive behavioral therapy to
underserved youth across the world with
an emphasis on people of a refugee
background
and in really innovative ways and i’m
currently developing
projects in that regard and i’m so
inspired by the work
for example of queen matild of the
belgians
intergenerational and focused on the
sdgs both very important and of course
queen rania of jordan
linking education and health
basically all of these things are
critical but it leads to
the single most important point of all
and that is how about you how
are you doing in this pandemic
have you had any mental injury are you
getting the support that you need
does your community have services
available
if not is there anything that you want
to do to try to create them
because look just keep in mind you are
so not
alone there are so many people across
the world
going through the same thing and
thinking the same thing and together
we really are stronger when the whole
world has crashed and burned at your
feet and
splintered into a thousand pieces it is
that
crystalline moment of brutal honesty
yet impossible beauty when you realize
that you’ve got the opportunity
if not the responsibility to pick up
those pieces
and put them back together in a way
that’s even better
a way that is more just and more humane
and more inclusive and ultimately more
sustainable
thank you
you