Mental Health Advocates Quotes

When I’d advocated for him to take classes and be in therapy, she mistook it as a nurturing passivity, gentle absolution. What I meant was take note of his mental health, because in my experience, when men were upset, lonely, or neglected, we were killed.

Peace can only survive when fed peace.

You may not understand my mind, but that does not give you the right to judge it.

I wondered how you would react when I revealed to you my hidden parts, my ugly parts that don’t do well in the sunlight.

The stigma of mental illness is first and foremost a social justice issue!

Sometimes I fall asleep with my finger on your wrist pulse to try and steady my own heartbeat.

I walk past these white walls back to my room. The windows down the hallway shine their light and make rectangles on the floor. They angle themselves to the sun, so we never lose track of where the light comes in.

To actually accept that you have an eating disorder or a mental health issue is actually a sign of great, great strength. It is not a sign of weakness at all.

Self-stigma refers to the state in which a person with mental illness has come to internalize the negative attitudes about mental illness and turns them against him- or herself.

On her dark days, she screamed. On her bright days, she laughed, There was no in between, but every day she felt.

Mental illness may be invisible, but the people who live with it are not.

We cannot incarcerate ourselves out of addiction. Addiction is a medical crisis that—when it comes to nonviolent offenders—warrants medical interventions, not incarceration. Decades later, data unequivocally illustrates that this war has been a massive failure. It has not only failed to reduce violent crime, but arrest rates—throughout its tenure—have continuously ascended even when crime rates have descended.

The tight ball of muck inside me—I opened it. I opened the shame, and it crumbled next to yours. This connection—the one I didn’t think we were going to have—let some of my muck go. And when it left my body, it evaporated into nothing. It had been living in me, but as soon as it was exposed, it disappeared.

I wasn’t saying it didn’t all happen like that, but all of that was included in the chunks of time that had gone missing from my brain. They dropped out somewhere. And if the chunks were round, they would have rolled away. So I was hoping they were bricks and heavy so they stayed in the same spot. I just needed to retrace my steps, if I only could remember where I’d been.

Eradication of pain, deviant, or oppositional behaviors does not indicate healing; however, it can signify successful conditioning.

I am the catalyst of change!

If they think you are too much; maybe it's because they are not enough.

To love me, you must accept me as I am. You must love the parts of me you do not understand.

Just like a flower blooms from the ground, so do we.

Be dedicated to change the way in which people see mental illness, at all levels of society. If not for yourself, advocate for those who are struggling in silence.

Technology will destroy this planet mentally, if responsible individuals do not come forward to advocate for responsible use of technology.

Like many fellow travelers who’ve crossed the Styx and returned, I view the itinerary as transformational. On the one hand, I won’t join that cohort claiming gratitude for their time in hell; on the other, I can say that in the wake of my depression, I’m pierced by other people as I wasn’t before, that I waste less time entertaining myself, and that I hear my thoughts with a useful attention to their tenor, fairness, and sanity. I feel equanimous most of the time, and have a strong impulse to give. My life has become, if you will, intentional, in a way it might not be if I hadn’t made my plummet. William Styron died in 2006. During the last third of his life, after the publication of Darkness Visible, he became a mental health advocate. I’m among those aided by his account, who found in it succor, but I’m also mindful of complaints such as those in Joel P. Smith’s essay “Depression: Darker Than Darkness”—that Styron was depressed for months, not years; that he was never alone; that he had the best of treatment; that he stayed in a hospital “as comfortable as they come”; and that he didn’t have to rely on radical remedies like electroshock therapy: all of this to say that Styron didn’t plumb the depths and can’t represent the depressed, and neither can I. Others have and have had it worse. For them, depression never yields or lessens. For them there’s no rising into the light of day, no edifications, and no gains, nothing but the wish to be dead, which is, after a marathon of untenable suffering, granted. “E

self-stigma is not a person's fault; nor is it a part of the person's illness! If the public did not hold negative and stigmatizing attitudes in the first place, these would never have become internalized, causing people the painful and disabling experience of self-stigma.

This is a side of Kate that rarely gets written about. Advocating for mental health causes—the mental health of mothers, for that matter—but ignoring her own sister-in-law’s cries for help seemed out of character for someone the public knew as sweet and easy to get along with.

With gratitude, I have become a healing balm to thousands of people, if not more, who have suffered child abuse, sibling abuse, a dysfunctional family, narcissistic abuse, sexual assaults, and hellish traumatic events. Most importantly, other trauma survivors know they are not alone.

A wide assortment of children's rights advocates, lawyers, and mental health experts were watching closely when we asked the Court to declare life-without-parole sentences imposed on children unconstitutional. ....I told the Court that the United States is the only country in the world that imposes life imprisonment without parole sentences on children. I explained that condemning children violates international law, which bans these sentences for children. We showed the Court that these sentences are disproportionately imposed on children of color. We argued that the phenomenon of life sentences imposed on children is largely a result of harsh punishments that were created for career adult criminals and were were never intended for children--which made the imposition of such a sentence on juveniles like Terrance Graham and Joe Sullivan unusual. I also told the Court that to say to any child of thirteen that he is fit only to die in prison is cruel.

You must watch and observe your friends and family around you. Offer love and support to those who may suffer from acute depression. Depression is one of the most common mental disorders affecting approximately 350 million people all over the world. No person can ever be immune to this mental problem. I have suffered from depression in my life. So, I know the signs pretty well. Approximately one in four women and one in ten men suffer from depression in their lifetime. We need to help and support those who may need it the most

I advocate single-tasking, focusing on one task at a time and working as simply as possible to preserve your mental health and to improve your effectiveness. Here are a few quick reasons not to multitask: Multitasking is less efficient, due to the need to switch gears for each new task and then switch back again. Multitasking is more complicated, and thus leaves you more prone to stress and errors. Multitasking can be crazy-making, and in this already chaotic world, we need to rein in the terror and find a little oasis of sanity and calm.

The authors analyzed 695 news items. The content of 47.9% (n = 333) of the articles was not strictly related to mental illness, but rather clinical or psychiatric terms were used metaphorically, and frequently in a pejorative sense. The remaining 52.1% (n = 362) consisted of news items related specifically to mental illness. Of these, news items linking mental illness to danger were the most common (178 texts, 49.2%), specifically those associating mental illness with violent crime (130 texts, 35.9%) or a danger to others (126 texts, 34.8%). The results confirm the hypothesis that the press treats mental illness in a manner that encourages stigmatization. The authors appeal to the press's responsibility to society and advocate an active role in reducing the stigma towards mental illness. Reinforcing Stigmatization: Coverage of Mental Illness in Spanish Newspapers. Journal of Health Communication: International Perspectives. Volume 19, Issue 11, 2014

The power of format creates opportunities for manipulation, which people with an axe to grind know how to exploit. Slovic and his colleagues cite an article that states that “approximately 1,000 homicides a year are committed nationwide by seriously mentally ill individuals who are not taking their medication.” Another way of expressing the same fact is that “1,000 out of 273,000,000 Americans will die in this manner each year.” Another is that “the annual likelihood of being killed by such an individual is approximately 0.00036%.” Still another: “1,000 Americans will die in this manner each year, or less than one-thirtieth the number who will die of suicide and about one-fourth the number who will die of laryngeal cancer.” Slovic points out that “these advocates are quite open about their motivation: they want to frighten the general public about violence by people with mental disorder, in the hope that this fear will translate into increased funding for mental health services.

These genetic malfunctions are unlikely to produce schizophrenia in an individual unless they are stimulated by environmental conditions. By far the most causative environmental factor is stress, especially during gestation in the womb, early childhood, and adolescence—stages in which the brain is continually reshaping itself, and thus vulnerable to disruption. Stress can take the form of a person's enduring sustained anger, fear, or anxiety, or a combination of these. Stress works its damage by prompting an oversupply of cortisol, the normally life sustaining “stress hormone” that converts high energy glycogen to glucose in liver and in muscle tissue. Yet when it is called upon to contain a rush of glycogen, cortisol can transform itself into “Public Enemy Number One,” as one health advocate put it. The steroid hormone swells to flood levels and triggers weight gain, high blood pressure, heart disease, damage to the immune system, and an overflow of cholesterol. Stress is likely a trigger for schizophrenia.

The Blue Mind Rx Statement Our wild waters provide vast cognitive, emotional, physical, psychological, social, and spiritual values for people from birth, through adolescence, adulthood, older age, and in death; wild waters provide a useful, widely available, and affordable range of treatments healthcare practitioners can incorporate into treatment plans. The world ocean and all waterways, including lakes, rivers, and wetlands (collectively, blue space), cover over 71% of our planet. Keeping them healthy, clean, accessible, and biodiverse is critical to human health and well-being. In addition to fostering more widely documented ecological, economic, and cultural diversities, our mental well-being, emotional diversity, and resiliency also rely on the global ecological integrity of our waters. Blue space gives us half of our oxygen, provides billions of people with jobs and food, holds the majority of Earth's biodiversity including species and ecosystems, drives climate and weather, regulates temperature, and is the sole source of hydration and hygiene for humanity throughout history. Neuroscientists and psychologists add that the ocean and wild waterways are a wellspring of happiness and relaxation, sociality and romance, peace and freedom, play and creativity, learning and memory, innovation and insight, elation and nostalgia, confidence and solitude, wonder and awe, empathy and compassion, reverence and beauty — and help manage trauma, anxiety, sleep, autism, addiction, fitness, attention/focus, stress, grief, PTSD, build personal resilience, and much more. Chronic stress and anxiety cause or intensify a range of physical and mental afflictions, including depression, ulcers, colitis, heart disease, and more. Being on, in, and near water can be among the most cost-effective ways of reducing stress and anxiety. We encourage healthcare professionals and advocates for the ocean, seas, lakes, and rivers to go deeper and incorporate the latest findings, research, and insights into their treatment plans, communications, reports, mission statements, strategies, grant proposals, media, exhibits, keynotes, and educational programs and to consider the following simple talking points: •Water is the essence of life: The ocean, healthy rivers, lakes, and wetlands are good for our minds and bodies. •Research shows that nature is therapeutic, promotes general health and well-being, and blue space in both urban and rural settings further enhances and broadens cognitive, emotional, psychological, social, physical, and spiritual benefits. •All people should have safe access to salubrious, wild, biodiverse waters for well-being, healing, and therapy. •Aquatic biodiversity has been directly correlated with the therapeutic potency of blue space. Immersive human interactions with healthy aquatic ecosystems can benefit both. •Wild waters can serve as medicine for caregivers, patient families, and all who are part of patients’ circles of support. •Realization of the full range and potential magnitude of ecological, economic, physical, intrinsic, and emotional values of wild places requires us to understand, appreciate, maintain, and improve the integrity and purity of one of our most vital of medicines — water.

September 1995: Mark and I had our well documented book entitled TRANCE Formation of America published, complete with irrefutable graphic details which are in themselves evidence to present to Congress, all factions of law enforcement including the FBI, CIA, DIA, DEA, TBI, NSA, etc., all major news media groups, national and international human rights advocates, both American Psychological and Psychiatric Associations, the National Institute of Mental Health, and more… to no avail. TRANCE thoroughly exposes many of the perpe-TRAITORS and their agenda replete with names, which raises the question “why haven't we been sued?” The obvious answer is that the same “National Security Act” that continues to block our access to all avenues of justice and public exposure also prevents these criminals from inevitably bringing mind control to light through court procedures, an opportunity we would welcome. Meanwhile, as reported by both APAs, survivors of U.S. Government sponsored mind control began to surface all across our nation. The first to encounter the vast number of survivors were law enforcement and mental health professionals, and these professionals began to ask questions. in other countries, answers are being provided through somewhat less controlled media, reflecting the CIA's involvement in Project MK Ultra human rights atrocities. A television documentary entitled The Sleep Room aired across Canada by the Canadian Broadcast Corp. in the spring of 1998. Dr. Martin Orne, an associate boasted by Dr. William Mitchell M.D., Ph.D. who thrust Kelly into Vanderbilt's cover-up attempt (re: p.14), is named as an accomplice to Dr. Ewing Cameron's MK Ultra 'experiments' in Montreal, Quebec. Additionally, it should be known that Dr. Cameron went on to found the American Psychiatric Association, which has helped to maintain America's mental health profession in the dark ages of information control.

When humans are born, we assign them to be either male or female based on their external genitalia. Based on that assignment, we raise them to be either men or women, which are essentially the polar opposite options of personality, occupations, dress, behavior, and demeanor. “As they grow up, we constantly curb their behavior if they don’t fit within the extremely limited options they are given based on their gender assignment and place an incredible amount of social pressure on them to embody every aspect of that identity. If they question their identity, we silence them. If they act in ways that conflict with their assigned identity, we ridicule them. If they don’t align with one of the two options available, we stigmatize them. And if they decide we assigned them the wrong identity, we question their mental health.

Mental illness do not designate a set path to failure. It’s simply a chemical or hormone imbalance that causes individuals to accept and process new information in a different way.

A loving, resourceful family, college enrollment, housing security, and even sound mental health all made it so I could advocate for myself at key moments.

Most schools fulfill this legal obligation by providing services that won’t involve a perpetrator, such as academic accommodations or healing resources. At Western University, victim advocates would broker agreements between survivors and their professors to get extensions on assignments or excused absences. They would also help survivors submit paperwork to receive refunds for classes they dropped or failed due to the strains of their traumatic symptoms. To improve survivors’ mental health, the Counseling Center hosted group therapy for sexual assault survivors and offered one-on-one counseling at a cheaper rate than the insurance co-pay at most private practices. Advocates also had a small fund available to cover survivors’ trauma-related expenses. Overwhelmingly, survivors who received these resources benefited from them. Some called them life-changing. However, few survivors felt comfortable actually using them. Especially more than once.

We need to ensure we're not just taking care of others but also of ourselves. It's about balance - taking time to recharge so that we can keep showing up. If we don't recognize our own limits, if we don't recognize when we need rest, we risk not being there tomorrow to continue making a difference in people's lives.

Working in mental health support has made me realize that everyone wears a mask and everyone deserves a second chance because it's our first time at life.

Expunction of pain, deviant, or oppositional behaviors does not indicate healing, but it can signify successful conditioning.

The CHP commissioner uttered those words before kicking off a five-hour meeting to talk about mental-health training for police. More then 100 experts and advocates, lawmakers and legislative staff, public health officials, family members and police officers from around the state gathered at the patrol’s North Sacramento headquarters.

Expunction of pain, deviant, or oppositional behaviors does not indicate healing; however, it can signify successful conditioning.

What about parents who traumatize their children and then tell them to get over it...

As a Mental Health Advocate, I've learned that some stories take time to surface—patience is part of the healing process. Learn to understand when their isolation feels like rejection to you, because if they don't put themselves first, they're going to 'break'. To those who struggle to open up, know that your silence is understood, and your journey will unfold in its own time. Your story is safe with me, whether it’s told today, tomorrow, or when you’re ready

As a woman, I’d tried asserting my opinion without coming off as self-serving or overcontrolling. So I repressed pissed-off victim. Now I wondered if I had handled it too gracefully, my composure a signal that what he’d done was of little consequence. When I’d advocated for him to take classes and be in therapy, she mistook it as a nurturing passivity, gentle absolution. What I meant was take note of his mental health, because in my experience, when men were upset, lonely, or neglected, we were killed.

Mental health issues are not the cause of an inability to say no, be assertive, and advocate for ourselves.

Mentally fit is the new sexy.

There it was . . . yet another label to attach to Audley’s identity—mad man, as he called himself.

While the people of Mandeville knew about the racism in North America at the time, they weren’t living that reality in Mandeville, by any means. He was happy there.

Excited with this new adventure, he arrived at the Toronto airport, experiencing snow for the first time . . . nothing but white snow all around him. He says that he didn’t even feel the cold because of his excitement. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long before his eyes were opened to another cold reality…the snow wasn’t the only “white” surrounding him. It was the first time in his life that he felt the divisive impact of racism.

I was fascinated to learn from him just what a “mad” manic state was like from his point of view. He described it as a state of exhilaration; extreme high energy; racing thoughts; exaggerated self-confidence where there are no boundaries; and, a feeling of immortality. As Audley says, “You feel dangerously good.

AUDLEY says that “when you see the devastating effect of mania and depression on your family over time, you realize that you have to get it under control.

Your mental wellbeing should be one of the most important cares in your life.

Advocacy is a natural process that comes from within. It emerges when someone gets to the point where they are tired of witnessing the injustice imposed upon others and decide to do something about it. It is not something you can buy or pay for. It comes from the heart. That is where the fiercest warriors come from.

The autism employment efforts of recent years have tapped into an enormous wellspring of energy and desire to work among adults with autism, family members, and advocates. The post pandemic efforts will similarly need this participation.

While the drug war is undoubtedly a primary driver of our nation's incarceration explosion, it is inaccurate to depict it as the independent impetus of mass incarceration. The War on Drugs is only one of five pipelines currently funneling people into prison, jails, and detention centers nationwide. The other four carceral conduits are the crackdown on immigration offenses, decreased funding for mental health, private prisons and detention centers, and the school-to-prison pipeline.

Among those who would block the right of rape victims to choice, none is more determined than David C. Reardon,48 founder of the Elliott Institute. There is no eponymous Elliott; the institute’s website explains that the name was selected to sound official and impartial. Starting in the early 1980s, some pro-life advocates opposed abortion even for rape victims on the basis that it could lead to a condition they named ‘postabortion syndrome’,49 characterised by depression, regret and suicidality – a condition formulated as evidence that the Supreme Court had been wrong, in Roe v. Wade, when it averred that abortion was a safe procedure. The ultimate goal of the Elliott Institute is to generate legislation that would allow a woman to seek civil damages against a physician who has ‘damaged her mental health’ by providing her with an elective abortion. On the topic of impregnated survivors of rape and incest, Reardon states in his book Victims and Victors, ‘Many women report that their abortions felt like a degrading form of “medical rape.”50 Abortion involves a painful intrusion into a woman’s sexual organs by a masked stranger.’ He and other anti-abortion partisans often quote the essay ‘Pregnancy and Sexual Assault’ by Sandra K. Mahkorn, who suggests that the emotional and psychological burdens of pregnancy resulting from rape ‘can be lessened with proper support’.51 Another activist, George E. Maloof, writes, ‘Incestuous pregnancy offers a ray of generosity to the world,52 a new life. To snuff it out by abortion is to compound the sexual child abuse with physical child abuse. We may expect a suicide to follow abortion as the quick and easy way to solving personal problems.

In my condemnation of Christianity I surely hope I do no injustice to a related religion with an even larger number of believers: I allude to Buddhism. Both are to be reckoned among the nihilistic religions—they are both décadence religions—but they are separated from each other in a very remarkable way. For the fact that he is able to compare them at all the critic of Christianity is indebted to the scholars of India.—Buddhism is a hundred times as realistic as Christianity—it is part of its living heritage that it is able to face problems objectively and coolly; it is the product of long centuries of philosophical speculation. The concept, “god,” was already disposed of before it appeared. Buddhism is the only genuinely positive religion to be encountered in history, and this applies even to its epistemology (which is a strict phenomenalism). It does not speak of a “struggle with sin,” but, yielding to reality, of the “struggle with suffering.” Sharply differentiating itself from Christianity, it puts the self-deception that lies in moral concepts behind it; it is, in my phrase, beyond good and evil.—The two physiological facts upon which it grounds itself and upon which it bestows its chief attention are: first, an excessive sensitiveness to sensation, which manifests itself as a refined susceptibility to pain, and secondly, an extraordinary spirituality, a too protracted concern with concepts and logical procedures, under the influence of which the instinct of personality has yielded to a notion of the “impersonal.” (—Both of these states will be familiar to a few of my readers, the objectivists, by experience, as they are to me). These physiological states produced a depression, and Buddha tried to combat it by hygienic measures. Against it he prescribed a life in the open, a life of travel; moderation in eating and a careful selection of foods; caution in the use of intoxicants; the same caution in arousing any of the passions that foster a bilious habit and heat the blood; finally, no worry, either on one’s own account or on account of others. He encourages ideas that make for either quiet contentment or good cheer—he finds means to combat ideas of other sorts. He understands good, the state of goodness, as something which promotes health. Prayer is not included, and neither is asceticism. There is no categorical imperative nor any disciplines, even within the walls of a monastery (—it is always possible to leave—). These things would have been simply means of increasing the excessive sensitiveness above mentioned. For the same reason he does not advocate any conflict with unbelievers; his teaching is antagonistic to nothing so much as to revenge, aversion, ressentiment (—“enmity never brings an end to enmity”: the moving refrain of all Buddhism....) And in all this he was right, for it is precisely these passions which, in view of his main regiminal purpose, are unhealthful. The mental fatigue that he observes, already plainly displayed in too much “objectivity” (that is, in the individual’s loss of interest in himself, in loss of balance and of “egoism”), he combats by strong efforts to lead even the spiritual interests back to the ego. In Buddha’s teaching egoism is a duty. The “one thing needful,” the question “how can you be delivered from suffering,” regulates and determines the whole spiritual diet. (—Perhaps one will here recall that Athenian who also declared war upon pure “scientificality,” to wit, Socrates, who also elevated egoism to the estate of a morality). The things necessary to Buddhism are a very mild climate, customs of great gentleness and liberality, and no militarism; moreover, it must get its start among the higher and better educated classes. Cheerfulness, quiet and the absence of desire are the chief desiderata, and they are attained. Buddhism is not a religion in which perfection is merely an object of aspiration: perfection is actually normal.—

The screen-averse attitude is about values, principles, and cultural customs. It's a moral and ethical position. It's grounded in beliefs about proper and improper ways of living a good life. It may be framed as if it were objective, as if it were about physical or mental health; but the real problem is that grown-ups are resistant to change. They are anxious about their kids' adjustment. They should be. After all, today's parents aspire to the impossible: adjusting their kids to old-time habitual norms that no longer characterize the predominant social experience. This is the root cause of their screen-time anxiety - it is not the technology, but rather discomfort with the increasingly ambiguous boundary between home and work. Like Engelhardt, parents don't like it that the private world of the controlled family home fraternizes with the frightening unpredictable chaos that is supposed to happen elsewhere. Connected digital devices exacerbate their stress because, paradoxically, they facilitate deeply private encounters with a wildly public world. Parents see attention streaming away from the household. The lines between inside and outside, private and public, isolated and connected become ambiguous. And grown-ups become become confused. This is why most of the screen-time advice offered by experts, practitioners, and journalists advocates for drawing clearer boundaries and achieving better balance -- these are misguided attempts to bring what's blurry into focus.

Mental health isn’t all about mental illness; however, if we don’t manage our mental health our issues can take an ugly turn into mental illness.

Third: Become an advocate. By which I mean, pick an issue that means a lot to you (immigration, mental health, clean water) and look for an organization that’s doing work on that issue. Join. Give them your email address. Go to the meetings. Become a foot soldier. You’d be surprised how quickly foot soldiers in these organizations can become