The month of July has a couple of awareness days that we want to highlight.
24/7 Hotlines: Call or text 988 or text 741741
The month of July has a couple of awareness days that we want to highlight.
Every June, we recognize Men’s Health Month.
Men’s emotional, mental, and physical health can often be overlooked, which should never be the case.
Your physical health matters. Your emotional health matters. Your mental health matters.
Forever, and always. 🧡🩷🩵
July is National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month. This awareness month brings awareness to the challenges and unique struggles that affect the mental health of racial and ethnic minority communities. As someone of the racial and ethnic minority communities, I face a lot of unique struggles and challenges. These challenges and unique struggles are presented everywhere… In relationships, at work, with family, in society, etc.
Throughout my healing journey, I found that nearly all of my mental health disparities tie to my race and ethnicity. To be direct, white assimilated people’s cognitive dissonance and racial/ethnic ignorance has negatively impacted my mental health. And that statement is 100% true for all of minority communities.
One of the biggest struggle I’m currently facing, is the health system’s role in declining the mental health of minority racial and ethnic communities. At this point, it kind of feels like they enjoy marginalizing already marginalized people. So, from the bottom of my heart and the deepest depth of my soul, FUCK the system and the health system!
The system and health system always dismiss minority communities. But mostly, perpetuate and continue making the minority communities unattended to in order to keep us under the label of “minority”. These factors actually lower the help we receive for our mental health! And it really has a lot to do with how society is very oriented to the white cisgender male and/or white population.
** That’s a clue to understanding white assimilation. **
Although the system caused a lot of trauma and mental health decline, I learned more about my roots. I wasn’t able to learn from my family/environment as they were assimilated to white society. They were deep within their learned cognitive dissonance.
Due to this circumstance, I did a lot of intuitive learning from my ancestors, researched what I’ve learned, and started healing myself at home. My experiences with the system and “health” system has made me turn to ancestral holistic methods of healing. I learned to self-medicate through herbal remedies and heal via ancient/ancestral methods that were lost in cultural assimilation. I’m grateful for my experiences.
Regardless of my gratefulness, no one should have to experience mental health disparities because of unique struggles or challenges of race and ethnicity. Everyone should work on their white assimilated ways, cognitive dissonance, and racial/ethnic ignorance.
Reminder: No one is safe from white assimilation nor racial/ethnic ignorance. And if you’re a person of racial/ethnic minority groups, know that you are NOT alone.
– Dez 🙂
Each February, young adults and people across the nation raise awareness about the issue of teen dating violence. National Teen Dating Violence Awareness and Prevention month focuses on educating young people on how to stop dating abuse before it starts.
Teen dating violence includes physical, psychological, or sexual abuse. This also includes harassment or stalking of anyone ages 12-18 in context of present or past romantic or consensual relationship.
Teen dating violence can be done in person, via social media, phone communication, electronically.
We want to prevent teen dating violence. Dating violence is more common than you think:
Transgender, LGBTQ, and heterosexual youth/teens of color (e.g. Native Indigenous, African, Asian, Latin, Hispanic) experience a higher percentage of dating violence than their white identifying peers.
We know how hard it is to get out of a violent relationship, especially talk about it. It’s highly encouraged to talk with your trusted friends or a trusted adult. Your experience is taken seriously and there is always someone who can try and help!
For adults reading this; it is extremely important that you open your lines of communication. Meet teens where they’re at. Share your own experiences of when you were a teen. Model compassion and kindness. Always encourage teens to think about how they want to be treated or their “non-negotiables”. Doing so will only create a safe environment and teen motivation to step in the right direction.
Click here for resources!
Maternal Mental Health Awareness Day/Week/Month focuses on the mental health of mothers who are going through childbirth. At least 1 in 5 new mothers go through some sort of anxiety disorder regarding childbirth in many countries. The illnesses often go untreated which can have long-term consequences to both the mother and the child.
Anxiety disorders can be developed by women who are from many different backgrounds such as culture, age, ethnicity, etc. Symptoms of such disorders can be seen any moment during a mother’s pregnancy as well as the first year after childbirth. Effective treatment options are available to help mother’s recover.
If you are a soon to be mother or you know someone who will be, contact the maternal mental health hotline at 1-833-HELP4MOMS or 1-833-943-5746.
TurningPointCT.org’s 2019 Awareness Calendar is here!
Every month there are awareness days that celebrate and recognize different things relating to mental health and advocacy. Have you ever wondered when all those awareness days are?
If so, check out ours below! Scroll down to find it!
Download the PDF or save the PNG to your desktop. Print it, share it, and enjoy it! #YouAreNotAlone
So, if you ever have felt like you are the only one experiencing your struggles, you are not alone. These awareness days exist to remind us of that fact. Together, we are strong. Love yourself, spread awareness, and fight stigma.
Make sure you are following us on Facebook and Twitter to see our posts on each awareness day. You can also find out if there are any events happening in honor of the days.
Questions? Ask the forum!
Did we leave out any awareness days that you want us to include? Or, do you have any suggestions? Then let us know in the forum!
You can scroll down for the PDF!
Here is the PDF link:
2019 awareness calendar PDF
And scroll down for the PNG! Hint: you can save these by dragging them to your desktop. If you are on your phone hold down your finger and save the picture!
Here is the entire calendar, month-by-month in PNG form:
January 2019:
February 2019:
March 2019:
April 2019:
May 2019:
June 2019:
July 2019:
August 2019:
September 2019:
October 2019:
November 2019:
December 2019:
If you want to check out last year’s awareness calendar, click here!
Hi everybody! To celebrate the new year, Turningpointct.org has made a calendar showcasing mental wellness awareness days to share with you!
Below is the entire calendar
Share with your friends, or enjoy it yourself! Some of the days may be familiar and some may be new!
We hope you all enjoy it!
Happy New Year!
Have you ever felt like this?
https://www.facebook.com/ikickassvines/videos/483285395449656/
Not everything in life is full of rainbows and dandelions, in fact being a young adult in this day in age can be really difficult! Some days #adulting feels just like this, when you can look both ways before crossing the street and then you end up getting hit by a plane instead ?? Here’s to pushing through those hard days and being a survivor of life!
What kinds of “adulting” things seem to be harder for you?
What kinds of things are easier than you expected?
Have any of you ever experienced feeling hurt by someone and never having the opportunity to:
A: Confront the person about it
B: Get an apology
C: Talk things through to reach a mutual ground about the situation even if no one apologizes
What have been your experiences, and how do you feel about them now?
In my personal experiences, I can definitely say that I have been hurt by people who have caused me a great deal of harm, physically, emotionally, etc., and most of them I NEVER got the opportunity to talk to or get an apology from. On the same note though, as more time passes and I learn more about certain people, certain situations, etc, I come to realize that there are some individuals that don’t even have the slightest idea of the harm they have caused you or anyone else. Others may be living their life freely, in peace, rejoicing in every moment and I could be suffering inside. So instead, I made the choice to push all of those painful experiences I’ve had to go through and use them to help other people realize they don’t have to get stuck. It makes no sense to drink poison yourself and expect another person to die. If I would’ve continued to hate those whose caused me harm, I would’ve been poisoning myself and what good would that have done if it effects no one else but me? For me, it was about making a personal choice to be stronger than all of my experiences and realize that there were certain things that I was never going to get. I may never get certain things back, I may never hear I’m sorry for certain behaviors or explanations for heinous actions. But today, that’s okay because I’m okay.
What about for you?
The New Colossus
“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” Emma Lazarus (November 2, 1883)
“Franco is being deported from Sweden. Because he’s “not gay enough.”
He fled Nigeria after being brutally attacked by homophobes inside his own house – his boyfriend was killed in the attack.
Now, the Swedish migration authorities want to send him right back into danger because he couldn’t “prove” that he’s gay.” Published: January 26, 2017, in partnership with the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer rights.
Not gay enough? What does that mean? Not out and about? Not hanging in enough gay bars? Or is it just another plight against individuals because of their sexuality. Isn’t this awkwardly comparable to saying that someone is not ‘straight enough’, which is inherently prejudice?
Worst, to imagine this a legitimate verdict, under any legal system that vows to criminalize prejudice, is contradicting.
At the same time, drawing from recent memory, I can’t recall anyone telling me, or any other gay person whom I know that they will spare us prejudice because of the level of our ‘gayness’.
From observation, there is no real justice in falsely claiming the inexistence of prejudice. On paper it looks good but in reality it’s prejudice all the same. It’s simply sad and unjustifiable.
I’m not exactly sure that one can be ‘black enough’ or ‘immigrant enough’. If I am wrong and that is true, does that mean that one is entitled to a certain level of kindness, compassion and tolerance because of the depth of their skin color or their immigration status? Sadly, this is happening… it’s sadly true and in this case, it hurts.
Anyone who flees their country due to persecution, will confirm that their former life was utter hell… and so is their fruitless effort to prove that they were something that they are not. For this reason, their greatest wish is not to be judged, in any way or form, on the basis of their sexuality. A life spent constantly fighting the odds, is in itself, a burden to bare. So being expected to acclimatize to ever changing perception of sexuality is unfair.
There has to be some balance in this world for gay people (and other minorities) because no human being should have to ‘ask’ for their basic human rights. That is not the reality or the world we want to live in.
“Let the poor the needy and oppressed of the Earth, and those who want Land, resort to the fertile lands of our western country, the second land of Promise, and there dwell in peace, fulfilling the first and great commandment.” President George Washington.
TurningPointCT.org was developed by young people in Connecticut who are in recovery from mental health and substance use issues. We know what it’s like to feel alone, stressed, worried, sad, and angry. We’ve lived through the ups and downs of self-harm, drugs and alcohol, and the struggle to find help.
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