The month of May is Mental Health Awareness Month. It was established in 1949 to increase awareness of the importance of mental health and wellness in Americans’ lives and to celebrate recovery from mental illness. Mental health encompasses emotional, psychological, and social well-being, influencing cognition, perception, and behavior. It is a “state of well-being...
While NASA promotes the availability of EAP counselors at each Center, there may be reasons when, during a mental health crisis, employees do not think about EAP or cannot remember how to access. Now, the Suicide and Crises Lifeline () is available to anyone, anytime nationwide by calling or texting three numbers from your cell phone “988”. Please check out their...
WUNC, the NPR affiliate at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, devoted an entire broadcast of their Due South talk show, to the Student Media Challenge work in North Carolina. Nine college newsrooms have formed a Mental Health Collaborative to share coverage of mental health topics across their campuses.
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What causes homelessness? Is it mental illness or drug abuse or early childhood trauma? The answer is yes, yes, and yes. And everything all at once. As Audrey, one of our Shepherd’s Door participants will tell you: “When you don’t feel hopeful and you don’t feel safe, those become reasons to use.” According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), “drug...
As a resident assistant (RA), I have had to intervene in situations where students deal with suicidal ideation and want to avoid the carceral forces of involuntary hospitalization. In the few years I have spent in Tennessee, students have dealt with the killing of Tyre Nichols, attacks on trans people, and most recently Vanderbilt University Medical Center turning...
Over the past few years especially, I’ve found myself spending more and more time considering what my responsibility is as a journalist, particularly as one who frequently speaks to teenagers and young adults. That question of responsibility is multilayered, especially given how often “listening to youth” becomes–unintentionally or...
Content note: This essay contains mentions of suicide and suicidal ideation. One sunny day in Feb. 2023, hundreds of protestors stood in front of the Tennessee State Capitol. The state legislature passed a record number of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, and the local LGBTQ+ community had enough. Standing alongside them were parents, doctors, and friends—allies who are...
There should be something comforting about the repetition and familiarness of a routine. There should be a sense of understanding—the parking ticket spit out as you enter the hospital parking deck, or the insistent blaring of machines in the cancer center, or faint smiles of the doctors who, yet again, have no answers. When I was diagnosed with Hurley stage III...
When Hurricane Katrina touched down in New Orleans in late August 2005, nine-year-old Nia Burnett was too young to realize that her life would never be the same. Nia’s family had chosen to stay in the city and wait out the storm. They all headed to a local hospital for safety. What they found were corpses lining the hallways. The whole building smelled like...