Final Intervention

 

Brittney Hatcher

Acts Of Resistance Spring 2024

Professor Doris Cacoilo

4/23/24

 https://youtu.be/3EW3CWTih1A

   My pitch

                                      Mental Health Should be Talked About More

                 My last interventions relate to the last two that I did. Mental health is something that is not talked about enough! If I’m being honest, I didn’t start hearing it’s time to take care of your mental or don’t burn out until I got into college. From my senior year in high school down to the first start of me going to school, I never heard put your mental health first. I always heard go to school, don’t follow the wrong crowd, get a good job, and do better than what is seen in my neighborhood. So, what I chose to do was make a vlog where I talk about mental health and have others express how they feel about it.

                Mental health doesn’t always start within the brain. What I mean is your brain is not the reason why you're sad or going through mental illness. However, if you don’t take care of your well-being it can lead your brain functioning in ways that make you feel like you have an illness. The experiences we go through, and our physical health are what change the way our brain functions. From its structure and neurconnections. (U.S. News)

                We live in a society where mental health is a stigma. Which should not be okay, we should be able to be loud about our mental health, especially when we know we need help, and we seek to get help. As I said in my video, mental health doesn’t mean you have to be medically diagnosed with a mental illness.  You might feel like you don’t want to get up or you feel trapped. However, people don’t understand that. According to Lois Zoppi,” People living with depression are often stereotyped as lazy, while some judge those with anxiety as cowardly.” When a loved one room looks a mess, and they are barely motivated these are signs that they are going through something. Don’t yell at them or make them feel bad try to understand what they are going through.

                Mental health stigmas make things worse. Parents fail to realize just because their child is young doesn’t mean they can’t go through something. Their favorite line is you've never seen depressed yet, you're too young. Especially, in African American households we have a type of culture when it comes to mental health. Now because of that culture, it has a negative impact on the way we understand and communicate about our mental health. “This is why it’s so important to be self-aware of our own cultures that influence our creations.” (Chapter 4, pg. 136) We create this culture where we ignore mental health so much that we create a stigma towards it as if it’s not real. There needs to be a change.

                So, my message to my audience is to start talking to your loved ones or students at younger ages about mental health. Y’all continue to push this hustle culture on kids and even on yourself as adults to the point y’all break. Let your kids know it’s okay to feel down but express it, talk it out. Also, it’s okay to take time out for yourself and get back to work the next day.  Even adults do the same. Everyone doesn’t believe in talking to somebody or a therapist but that doesn’t mean make a person feel bad if they do. “We don’t need to agree with what they think or do, only to understand.” (Chapter 6, pg. 241) Start being more supportive and understanding when a person tells you I’m not mentally well right now.

                I got my audience to engage in my project by asking them questions and how they felt about mental health. It led some to go deep and others kept it brief. However, from what I heard we need to start being more supportive. This project fits into my professional aspirations because I want to be a child therapist. The majority of our trauma starts at a young age and because we don’t release it and get the help, we need this is why as adults we are still affected by our childhood trauma. I just want to be able to change families' perspectives when it comes to mental health, so we don’t have to feel alone and even get suicide rates to get low. “Artistic activism is not only aimed at people’s hearts; it also aims at their minds.” (pg. 171)

                An artist who inspired me to stay on this path was Saburo Murakami's performance art piece, Passing Through. The way I interpreted him breaking through the walls of paper is not letting obstacles stop me from moving forward. When it comes to our mental sometimes, we can be stuck in the same place for years. The best thing to do is fight through it, get help, and keep pushing forward.

                Another artist's work that relates to my project is Vincent van Gogh, Sorrowing Old Man. In his painting, you can feel the emotions of a tired man who went through so much. After so many years he was finally worn out at an old age. Usually, when we are old, we are supposed to retire and just relax. This relates to the hustle culture I was talking about. We are always on the go until we burn out. We shouldn’t burn out we should learn how to take some time off and take care of our physical and mental health.

 

Heidi Godman and Elaine K. Howley, A Patient’s Guide to Mental Health, U.S. News Health, April 12, 2023

Mental Health: Symptoms, Causes, and Treatment | U.S. News (usnews.com)

Lois Zoppi, What is mental health stigma? November 11, 2020

Mental health stigma: Definition, examples, effects, and tips (medicalnewstoday.com)