The “logical despair” of womanhood.

There's a piece over on Salon by Joanna Rothkopf that highlights recent studies that find that women in every age group are more likely than men to suffer from "serious psychological distress." Vikram Patel, from the Centre for Global Mental Health provides the most brutal quote:

They suffer logical despair.

Check it out.

Maz & Juan: Black Mental Health & A Hanging in Mississippi.

Just listened to a few Maz & Juan podcasts, one of which discussed mental health, specifically in communities of colour. I was linked to Maz & Juan through Ayesha Siddiqi’s podcast, pushing hoops with sticks. I follow Ayesha on Twitter and have read some of her work, she’s brilliant and I want to be friends with her. She's a great example of someone having some serious fucking things to say and then saying something funny about Kanye and not thinking it negates everything serious you've ever said. We are capable of having many opinions on various things, and they can occupy our mind at the same time. She did an episode of Maz & Juan on how white women hijacked the feminist movement (I'd argue feminism's roots are inherently racist, so it's not even about hijacking the movement but closer to neglecting / rejecting anything “other” to upper-class whiteness from the beginning). Feminism, like all anti-oppression spaces, has a lot of work to do.

After the episode, I made my way to another podcast, this one about mental health and black men. One of the main guests, Terrell Starr wrote an article on Buzz Feed about his experience with depression and suicide, his article discusses his experience. Our stories are different, but the pain is the same.

Terrell talked the importance of access to mental health, how he himself has access to insurance, but how those who usually need it desperately, do not. There was also mention of co-pay - what I understood to be the up-front cost of these services (that are then reimbursed by the insurance company). This has been an ongoing issue for me, since so few places are sliding-scale, and I can’t front 100+ dollars a week, or bi-weekly for therapy. It makes me so angry. Ask for help, but you know, once you do, shit kind of falls apart unless you've got money.

Terrell mentioned how part of the next step is helping people navigate the process of accessing mental health services. YES. YES THIS. How many times have a griped about the exhaustion I face attempting to find, locate, and access free or sliding-scale services? What kind of a success rate do I have? It's a discouraging process on a good day, let alone on a day when you feel like you're stuck in the anus of the devil. There are little organizations here and there, but there is nothing cohesive and all-encompassing, especially due to first-language access.

Another great point brought up by Terrell was the importance for him to find a therapist with which there was already a commonality. For him, that was a woman of colour with an understanding of racism and inequality. When I contacted the Argyle Institute, I asked for someone with an understanding of atheism, feminism, gender norms, body dysmorphia and eating disorders. Having someone to speak to who understands certain fundamental pressure points for you is so important. I was able to find a real connection with A (my 10-week therapist at The Argyle) and I adored her. It changed everything. Therapy can be excruciating on a good day, I needed a safe space and she immediately offered that. I was bummed that she had to stop seeing me to finish her doctorate, but I'm happy I had her when I really needed her.

Maz & Juan end their podcast with a segment called Tell Me Something Good. It’s heavy, discussing racism and oppression all day, so I think it's a nice feature to end on a positive note, or with something encouraging or beautiful. We gotta go back into the world every day.

I recommend listening to their podcast. Check it out. 

My Tell Me Something Good is how the lone-female guest of the podcast (on the mental illness episode) Indrani Balaratnam, mentions Rupi Kaur's photography projects surrounding menstruation, and it clearly makes the guys uncomfortable. This made me smile. She challenges them to go check it out, as should you.

Baltimore.

What's happening in Baltimore, the protesting and rioting, is necessary. The absolute devastation of black experience is unarguably historically rooted and needs to be actively addressed and corrected.

I don't feel discussing racism is my place, since there are fantastic writers out there covering what's going on. You can go on Twitter and follow, in real time what's going on. You can watch guerilla journalism happening, and see what is and what isn't being represented by the media. 

I post on Pushing Hoops with Sticks' Tumblr just tore at me. 

i don’t think people will ever understand how tolling this shit is on black people. during the bulk of the ferguson/eric garner protests during november i fell into the deepest depression. i couldn’t fall asleep until 6 or 7 in the morning, my jaw was permanently clenched, no appetite. i had ridiculous migraines and i’m someone who rarely has headaches, i would cry out of nowhere, i felt paralyzed/paranoid in public around any white people even my own mother/friends. no one will ever understand how draining this is for us.

This is brutal. I feel so deeply for this. I don't know what it is to be black. But I've known discrimination, and I know pain. Not like this though. 

I might not be super effective at discussing everything that's going on, but I want words of support and kindness to come from me, and to be expressed outwardly towards all those marching, all those protesting, all those doing what they can while they can to fight the systems of oppression and corruption. 

Montreal has a big, thick history of protesting. We're big on unions, we're big on student strikes. There's a lot of racism here as well, the Montreal police department is part of that, as is the long history of the indigenous people of Canada. The Oka Crisis wasn't that long ago. There are ongoing reparation problems. There was a cultural genocide of natives here, and people consistently choose to ignore that. Hérouxville is still fresh. Our hands in Canada are just as dirty as the white majority of the U.S. There's a lot of work to be done. 

MLK said that riots are the voice of the unheard. We're seeing that now in Baltimore, and all across the United States. We're also seeing that locally here in Montreal, and globally as a show of support. 

I've read a few articles on how to show support and solidarity for people of colour, as a white person who lives with a certain type of privilege, and it seems the consensus is using your whiteness to confront the racism in white spaces. 

11 things white people can do to be real anti-racist allies

Dear white Facebook friends: I need you to respect what Black America is feeling right now

There's just a lot out there. I'm trying to stay abreast of the situation. It's just such a brutal time. It seems every-time I log into Twitter, there's a new name, another black man immortalized by a hash-tag. 

#Freddie Gray
#Michael Brown
#Trayvon Martin

I cannot imagine the way this demoralizes a community. I listened to Part 1 of This American Life's pod-cast on how Cops See it Differently, this disconnect between how police see what's going on, and how "regular people" see what's going on. 

All I hear in the pod-cast is the pain in the voices of those being interviewed. It's just so personal and raw. 

I just don't want to be silent and complicit in this. 

Baltimore riots: How the Western media would cover the unrest if it happened elsewhere

It's just so fucked.