How are you feeling? No, really. Let’s talk mental health.
And before you go, subscribe to our new newsletter to keep the conversation going.
(We’re excited to announce that The Development Set, along with our sister publication Bright, will relaunch at the end of October as BRIGHT Magazine, a digital publication that will explore education, health, and social change in the style that brought you to us in the first place. This newsletter will soon go dormant; please subscribe to our fresh new one!)
We devote this week’s letter to Mental Illness Awareness Week. We at BRIGHT believe stories can do more than inform — they can eliminate taboos, shift perspectives, and start conversations. Nowhere is this more true than with mental health.
We hope our curated stories below will provide some comfort to you and/or a loved one, and perhaps teach you something you didn’t know about mental illness. One thing I’ve learned since editing this magazine is this: no matter how well you may know someone, you never know their internal struggles. Starting the conversation — or even signaling that you would be opening to talking about such difficult topics — can do more good than you could imagine. Since I’ve begun sharing our stories about postpartum depression, PTSD, and child abuse, dozens of people have privately opened up to me, telling me how glad they are to see their personal stories reflected somewhere.
Be part of the conversation. If any of these stories moves you, chances are someone in your network could use it, too. Add the hashtag #MIAW to raise awareness of mental illness.
(And if there’s anything you’d like to see in the relaunched publication — or see us leave behind — please drop us a line at hello@honeyguidemedia.org! We exist for you, and want to make sure you love our new magazine as much as we do.)
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— Sarika Bansal, Editor-in-Chief, BRIGHT Magazine
Our top mental health reads this week:
What If Schools Hired Dogs As Therapists?
By Antonia Malchik for Bright
What happens when you put a dog in an elementary school? Far from chaos, some of these places are finding that facility dogs provide emotional or behavioral relief to their students experiencing trauma.
New Moms Can Get Depressed. Why Don’t Doctors Take Them Seriously?
By Sushmita Pathak for The Development Set
1 in 7 mothers experiences a serious mood disorder in the postpartum period, according to the American Psychological Association. This ranges from ‘baby blues’ to severe postpartum psychosis. While more physicians and facilities are incorporating mental health into their practice and beginning the conversation with mothers, moms are for many reasons still slipping through the cracks.
How Power Outages Can Affect Mental Health
By Alexandra Sifferlin and Karl Vick for TIME
In the two weeks since Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, 95% of the island’s electrical grid remains down. This comes with serious safety and physical health implications, particularly for hospitals and nursing homes. What’s the mental toll of this extended blackout?
The Secret Lives of Male Sex Abuse Survivors
By joanna schroeder for The Development Set
One in six boys in the United States has experienced sexual abuse before turning 18. With few IRL recovery options, more of them are going online for support.
Why We Can’t Diagnose Trump
By The Brian Lehrer Show for WNYC
“‘It’s a terrible mistake to confuse mental illness with bad behavior. It’s unfair to the mentally ill to be lumped with Trump.” That comes from Dr. Allen Frances, former chairman of the DSM-IV Task Force and author of Twilight of American Sanity: A Psychiatrist Analyzes the Age of Trump, who says that we should refrain from diagnosing him as mentally ill.
