A co-worker I talk to used to say these words to me. “Mental health is very important”. Sometimes, he would say them in a joking way, when he saw a co-worker who he felt had mental problems, and then other times, he would be serious when he said them.
His words stuck with me, but I didn’t really grasp how important our mental health truly is — until this story came out on Youtube about a 44-year old man named Rajaee Black who confessed on a Facebook live stream to killing his ex-girlfriend before killing his ex-wife.
Learning about this tragedy started to make me question my own mental health & how healthy it really is. Black said some words that resonated with me. ‘’I never thought I would be that guy’’. None of us want to be that guy or gal who ends up killing someone or whose mental health is so distraught that we end up doing something drastic that can affect ourselves & people that love us.
Black’s story made me think about the trauma I’ve accumulated over the years (and it’s a LOT), it made me extremely grateful & glad that I’m not in a mental asylum right now.
A lot of us have been through trying situations that put our mental health at risk, and somehow, we’ve persevered through those times. But, there comes a time when we reach a breaking point; and need a mental break just to get our mental high right again… if it’s possible?
The recent suicide tragedy of 30-year old Cheslie Kryst taught us that bad mental health doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t care about your social or your financial status. It just wants your mind. When it’s ready to collect, it’s relentless & won’t stop until the job is done.
Cheslie Kryst was a renaissance woman. The things she achieved in her short time are mind-blowing to me. She was a model, an attorney, and a pageant winner. Sadly, bad mental health ended her journey a few days ago.
Some individuals don’t realize the seriousness of good mental health until it’s too late. Others know about it, but feel overwhelmed by life that they don’t see any hope in ever getting right mentally. It’s a tough battle to win in a microwave world that doesn’t give you time to breathe mentally. You have to focus on the next trauma or the next obstacle, and that wears on your mind after a while.
One of the few positives of the pandemic hitting in 2020 is that it freed a lot of us from work (depending on how long the furlough lasted for you), and we got to unplug mentally; after being on autopilot mode for too long.
Every once in a while, we need to take a long break & check on ourselves, because our mental health is important.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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You may also like these posts on The Good Men Project:
White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism 
Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box 
The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer 
What We Talk About When We Talk About Men —
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