May is Mental Health Awareness Month

 

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), "Mental Health Awareness Month was established in 1949 to increase awareness of mental health and wellness in Americans' lives and to celebrate recovery from mental illness."

While this awareness month has been around for a surprising (in my opinion) length of time, there is still a lot of work to be done in this area.  This hilarious video by Kristina Kuzmic sums it up well:

That said, while the pandemic has been devastating in so many ways, it's also brought mental health issues to the forefront.  People are struggling, but they're also opening up and speaking out about the mental health challenges they're facing.  More is being done at local, state, national, and even global levels.  All of this gives me hope that we might finally see some real change.

Out of Sight is Out of Mind: The Hidden Crisis in Rural America

Rural Mental Health: The Hidden Crisis in Rural America

It’s prohibitively difficult to access mental-health services in rural America. That’s because, relative to urban areas, rural counties have so few mental-health professionals. The majority of non-metropolitan counties in the U.S. don’t have a psychiatrist, and almost half lack a psychologist. The paucity has resulted in a public-health crisis—rural Americans suffering from a psychiatric condition are more likely to encounter police than receive treatment. Each year, 2 million mentally ill Americans, most of whom aren’t violent criminals, end up in jail. 

Lack of resources for mental health often falls onto the criminal justice system, which is woefully unequipped to handle them.  

Watch the short PBS documentary by Independent Lens,  “Out of Sight, Out of Mind.” [14 min.]