"summer child" is such an interesting term, it's often used sarcastically but in this house i'm gonna use it more genuinely <3 okay so anyways yap time!! i find it really weird how we as society simplify a lot of things around mental health. it's a complicated topic for sure but often times we skip around the unfortunate parts. like take those presentations that you've probably seen in school. a majority of them (or the ones that i've seen, at least) certainly don't address aspects like: - fear - culture - home life so i guess i will. here i'm speaking as a queer person of color. everyone's experiences are different, i just wanted to acknowledge that i'm probably gonna have some sort of bias here, and i wanted to make the *how* part (how my bias would affect my rambling) clear as well <3 okay here we go: a: fear) fear around a lot of things is so so real. i feel like the majority of the presentations push you to talk to a trusted adult, but the sad reality is that sometimes that doesn't work. it's sorta connected to my second and third reasons, honestly, but essentially it's *scary* to reach out especially if you don't know what'll happen and how people will react. more should be done to educate people on how things work. like, a lot of people believe calling crisis hotlines immediately gets the authorities involved, when it doesn't (only if there's an urgent threat), and that fear distracts them from calling an emergency resource. so yeah. fear is 100% a factor we need to start thinking about, and designing our systems to work better for people who are afraid. b: culture) wheeeee. culture. it's a really really great thing because it unites but it also has things that affect people and their ability to support themselves. for example, stereotypically where my parents are from (and thus where i'm culturally placed) mental health is notttt valued at all, it's thought of as "not real" when that's the opposite from the truth. so the majority of presentations don't address the cultural affects on us and our personality and our very core ability to reach out when we need support. especially if you know, if you're aware that the people around you don't support who you fundamentally are, or what's happening to you. that's one of the reasons, i think, why sometimes we reach out to friends or others first instead. it's safer, for some, in a way. i think because of how diverse everyone is, especially now, we need to focus more on this as well: becoming open and aware of culture and its impact. c: home life) okay so this sorta ties into the second point, but people's home lives are vastly different. there's a very fine line between abuse and discipline and culture ties a big part into what the people in power believe is which. again, for instance, from my background certain things that seem bad from an outside view are HEAVILY normalized, and vice versa!! certain things that may seem okay to you may seem bad to me. but i'm rambling- what i'm trying to say here is that not everyone's guardians are supportive of mental health, or even believe in it at all. or maybe they're supportive, but they don't believe that the person they're responsible for needs help. i feel like the majority of places only address the fact that some people have very supportive guardians (which is absolutely great). for example, at some schools the legal guardians often get called if you go to the admin asking for mental-health related help. if said guardians don't believe in it at all or are the ones *causing* problems... yeah, that becomes an even bigger problem. and then that can lead to not being able to get support, and that can lead to all sorts of very unfortunate, permanent consequences that we aren't able to fix. so yeah, our society needs to work towards understanding that not everyone's home life is all sunshine and roses. and that's a horrible truth to think about, but it still is the truth. and we can't all live like the movies, and it's REALLY important for us to understand that and be mindful of how that affects others. not to mention acceptance, because THAT'S a whole thing. it takes a lot of courage to reach out and admit that "okay, hey, maybe i'm struggling" and pushing past all of this fear is *tough.* i'll admit that right here, right now. but it's important to, and i think our society can really work towards making it easier for us to do so <3 it's gonna require a lot of cooperation, a lot of input, and a heck of a lot of hard work but i do firmly believe it's possible to make things better. not perfect, but *better.* thank you for reading this, it means more than you know that people actually read my long rambles haha stay safe out there, you're always always loved daphne <33
