Catch da Flava Radio - Bell Let's Talk Day
For this episode of Catch da Flava Youth Radio, we had a panel discussion on Bell Let’s Talk
Day since it occurs this year on January 31st. In discussing the importance of events like these,
where Bell has created a national campaign to have mental health awareness through donating
texts during this day to organizations that help those with mental health issues, we had some
questions in terms of mental health. We discussed why it was so important to even have a day
to “talk about mental health” as we reflect on the past and cultural viewpoints on mental health.
Joel shares that in his Jamaican culture, mental health is nonexistent and that people think
those suffering from it should be addressed by the church, causing them to go undiagnosed and
untreated. In the past, we know that mental health practice were not always supportive of
patients with mental health.
A lot of people who were in mental health institutions suffered from abuse and mistreatment, as practices like “shock therapy” and lobotomies were commonplace due to this viewpoint that those with mental health concerns are defective in some way and so treating them this way is not deemed as bad. Beverly talked about her own experience with mental health concerns, sharing how hard it was for her to talk about her mental health because she was scared people would view her differently. For her, the idea of stigma around mental health was very real and she often worried about that but one of her doctors gave her some good advice, which was to keep talking about it, and the more she would the faster she would heal. So she has since taken the advice and no longer feels like she is “wearing a mask.”
We would like to thank our panelists Beverly and Joel for being on air with us to talk about mental health and Bell Let’s Talk Day. To get more information on the national campaign, visit: https://letstalk.bell.ca/en
A lot of people who were in mental health institutions suffered from abuse and mistreatment, as practices like “shock therapy” and lobotomies were commonplace due to this viewpoint that those with mental health concerns are defective in some way and so treating them this way is not deemed as bad. Beverly talked about her own experience with mental health concerns, sharing how hard it was for her to talk about her mental health because she was scared people would view her differently. For her, the idea of stigma around mental health was very real and she often worried about that but one of her doctors gave her some good advice, which was to keep talking about it, and the more she would the faster she would heal. So she has since taken the advice and no longer feels like she is “wearing a mask.”
We would like to thank our panelists Beverly and Joel for being on air with us to talk about mental health and Bell Let’s Talk Day. To get more information on the national campaign, visit: https://letstalk.bell.ca/en
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