The Cookout

[Coreygoldwaves]

I think to myself, if my biological parents received the proper mental health support would my life have been the same? I believe that we as black American descendants of slaves, must attend to our mental health if we ever hope to win this war against white supremacy. Along with getting reparations, we must take it upon ourselves to perform mental health wellness checks with each other. A lot of us, whether we like to admit it or not, deal with untreated mental illness because of generations of trauma. This drama is because of the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, white supremacist attacks, having our ancestors lynched, having our businesses burned and our families torn apart. As tough as we think we are, our psyches are still fragile. I felt I needed to address this because suicide in the black community, is a beast that isn't getting enough light shined upon it. Mental health therapy is for too expensive and unattainable for a lot of us to partake in. We have to be our own mental health and trauma healing. We have no friends so we must take it upon ourselves to give our psyches much needed pampering. A mentally ill people, will never be a supreme people.

 

[Jay]

When you think about it we have never been able to put our health first in any capacity. It’s not just mental health, it’s physical health, financial health, spiritual health, etc. in my opinion it’s because we are a people in a constant state of insecurity regarding our health, safety, prosperity, etc. We have a “just make it through the day culture” because for hundreds of years we literally just needed survive white people for the day. When you add in lack of resources then it intensifies this mentality because everyday you’re scrambling for find food wage shelter.


I say all that to say this. I believe we’d hold mental health higher if we had more resources. Going to therapy is one thing but can you afford to? When you go, do you see someone who understands your pain? Do they understand a Black experience. I don’t think it’s as simple as “we don’t care about mental health”.

 

[BadDoggieRenegade]

In coincidental, corollary consensus!

For your conscious intent, You DO 'get what you deserve'!

Not that your intent is validated as good or bad, or that the results will, being favorable or unfavorable, are ethical and spiritually moral. It means in the context of your motivating preconceptions, you've gotten what you deserve!

When You're going by your own rules-just pulling them out of your intuitive, ass' notions of obsessions and imperatives-there will be mechanical adjustment other than being more accommodating or conformist to what you decided from which to deviate. There are some hard realities you'll encounter that will necessitate a new perspective or incidental fine-tuning. That which particularly seems like FAILURE or success may have more to do with the perspective and expectations of intent.

In "failure", though one door seems to be slammed shut in your face, if you take a moment to step back, turn around, and see the broader scope about you, that failure just might have been the liberating forced leverage you needed for your 'Self' to open your eyes to other means and factors that your preconceptions had not counted on.

Being an intuitive Iconoclastic thinker from the herd-of-thought is a meandering, convoluted, marathon path, than a sprint or short run from point A-to-point B. It's a thought deconstruction and reconstruction of your minds soft-ware and embedded hardware of habits. This will take the time and discipline which you randomly ignored and discounted, prior to this off-the-beaten-path journey.

It's about your juxtaposition with an idea, for which relationships with people come to be seen as passing ephemerals and transactional incidentals. People are just the symbolic props of place and time than the long-sought soul-mate of longevity. The mechanics of your thinking are your bestie, your partner, your companion-literally and figuratively.

Make friends with your mind's mechanics and its minimalist, obligatory and imperative needs in the most expedient, amoralistic ways, when necessary, to nurture and develop the path your mind's mechanics present to your conscientious discernment.

----------------------------

 

[Coreygoldwaves]

When you think about it we have never been able to put our health first in any capacity. It’s not just mental health, it’s physical health, financial health, spiritual health, etc. in my opinion it’s because we are a people in a constant state of insecurity regarding our health, safety, prosperity, etc. We have a “just make it through the day culture” because for hundreds of years we literally just needed survive white people for the day. When you add in lack of resources then it intensifies this mentality because everyday you’re scrambling for find food wage shelter.


I say all that to say this. I believe we’d hold mental health higher if we had more resources. Going to therapy is one thing but can you afford to? When you go, do you see someone who understands your pain? Do they understand a Black experience. I don’t think it’s as simple as “we don’t care about mental health”.

But Jay, if mental goes... nothing else survives. Not financial, not physical and not spiritual. There is nothing simple about my post. If we don't figure out a way to secure our mental health right now with the resources we have... it's over.

 

[ProMoatBlack]

But Jay, if mental goes... nothing else survives. Not financial, not physical and not spiritual. There is nothing simple about my post. If we don't figure out a way to secure our mental health right now with the resources we have... it's over.

I have ro concur with Jay. Our environment produces our mental health or lack thereof. When you are on the hamster wheel you have no time to focus on your mental health especially when it's under constant barrage in this system of white supremacy. At work, housing situation economic power. All are effected by your mental health as well affected by it. "The Self Fulfilling Prophecy" The solution is sustained autonomy. Your mental health improves when you have peace and tranquility. When you don't have to worry about how you're going to scrape by. You truly hace to break out of their matrix to have mental peace. This system and especially in the modern context is fueled by mental instability.

 

[Coreygoldwaves]

I have ro concur with Jay. Our environment produces our mental health or lack thereof. When you are on the hamster wheel you have no time to focus on your mental health especially when it's under constant barrage in this system of white supremacy. At work, housing situation economic power. All are effected by your mental health as well affected by it. "The Self Fulfilling Prophecy" The solution is sustained autonomy. Your mental health improves when you have peace and tranquility. When you don't have to worry about how you're going to scrape by. You truly hace to break out of their matrix to have mental peace. This system and especially in the modern context is fueled by mental instability.

How are you going to have the mental strength to get the weapons to defeat your opponent that would lead to peace if your mental is gone. You guys are just responding to respond while not letting my initial post sink in. You don't have to respond...you can simmer on it.

 

[ART]

I think to myself, if my biological parents received the proper mental health support would my life have been the same? I believe that we as black American descendants of slaves, must attend to our mental health if we ever hope to win this war against white supremacy. Along with getting reparations, we must take it upon ourselves to perform mental health wellness checks with each other. A lot of us, whether we like to admit it or not, deal with untreated mental illness because of generations of trauma. This drama is because of the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, white supremacist attacks, having our ancestors lynched, having our businesses burned and our families torn apart. As tough as we think we are, our psyches are still fragile. I felt I needed to address this because suicide in the black community, is a beast that isn't getting enough light shined upon it. Mental health therapy is for too expensive and unattainable for a lot of us to partake in. We have to be our own mental health and trauma healing. We have no friends so we must take it upon ourselves to give our psyches much needed pampering. A mentally ill people, will never be a supreme people.

If we also decide to seek mental health therapy, a psychologist, a counselor, or a psychiatrist, we have to be careful on who and where we choose to get our treatment from because too many of these health care professionals don't have our best interests at best even though they claim to. Bias, medical racism, and medical apartheid are very real and you could find yourself getting substandard care, lack of solutions, or worse whether you are seeing the best mental health care professionals or the worst.

 

[Coreygoldwaves]

I propose we make a habit of saying "How is your mental health today my brotha...my sista...." Who knows, that very question may stop someone in the community from taking their own lives...

 

[Blackgravity]

The mental health of our people isn't taken seriously in this country, or any other country to be honest. I think if our condition as a whole was better, this wouldn't be an issue. Our brains have to working and operate at 3 times the capacity of non blacks in this country. A good of stress is put on us, unnecessarily.
I'd never go to a white doctor to seek help with anything mental. I'd need the doctor to be able to relate to me.
Take racism, living conditions and economic worries away from our people, we'd be a whole lot happier as a group.

 

[equis]

It definitely is a huge issue and our collective mental health is in shambles. I used to think that many of us needed to see a professional, but we have to be cautious about these quacks as well sadly. I'm thinking that we first need to examine how slavery has impacted the mentalities we carry around today. I recommend books such as Shahrazad Ali's "Are You Still A Slave" and Joy Degruy's "Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome". The causes of mental degradation are unique in our community, so we have to be exploratory on how we interface with it.
Another thing to consider is that we've lost our communities and support systems. Once upon a time, black communities had a sense of family and everyone looked out for each other and had a code. That's been torn down and we have a culture of screwing each other over which leads to unease and a lack of trust amongst ourselves and thus you have more loneliness than ever amongst us. Which makes me think of this experiment.

A rat was left alone in a cage with two sources of water. One was regular water, and the other was water laced with cocaine. The rat chose the water with cocaine and soon became addicted, drinking itself to death via overdose. The scientists sought to recreate this experiment, but with a few changes. Instead of living alone they put the rat in a sanctuary with other rats where it could socialize, exercise, and live in a more communal environment. When they placed the regular water and cocaine laced water side by side, they found that the rats rarely if ever went to drink from the cocaine laced tap.

 

[ProMoatBlack]

How are you going to have the mental strength to get the weapons to defeat your opponent that would lead to peace if your mental is gone. You guys are just responding to respond while not letting my initial post sink in. You don't have to respond...you can simmer on it.

Im responding as a living testament. My wife and I were extremely mentally drained when in the rat race. Covid lockdown allowed us time to sit breathe and plan. The result, we purchased firearms started investing, created an llc and eventually with our stimmy and a tax refund bought our own land an RV and some solar panels. Now after living on my land a year I can tell you from experience this is the most peacful and tranquil situation I have ever been in. Childhood included. I haven't had to worry about rent lights or scraping by feeling like im never in a solid spot. Now instead of rent i have a once a year property tax charge of 50 bucks. I know now what security and mental health and wellness really means. Environment does effect your mental health. Improve your environment ie own your home and land.. Hell just purchasing land as an escape or a vacation is good to regenerate mental health. You have to break out the hamster wheel to truly be at peace.

 

[Danny]

When you think about it we have never been able to put our health first in any capacity. It’s not just mental health, it’s physical health, financial health, spiritual health, etc. in my opinion it’s because we are a people in a constant state of insecurity regarding our health, safety, prosperity, etc. We have a “just make it through the day culture” because for hundreds of years we literally just needed survive white people for the day. When you add in lack of resources then it intensifies this mentality because everyday you’re scrambling for find food wage shelter.


I say all that to say this. I believe we’d hold mental health higher if we had more resources. Going to therapy is one thing but can you afford to? When you go, do you see someone who understands your pain? Do they understand a Black experience. I don’t think it’s as simple as “we don’t care about mental health”.

You took the words right out of my mouth. Do we recognise that we are suffering from more than just mental health issues? The answer to the question is a big YES but the problem is that we don't have the financial capability to take care of it. It's been hell over for us for ages.

 

[Jay]

How are you going to have the mental strength to get the weapons to defeat your opponent that would lead to peace if your mental is gone. You guys are just responding to respond while not letting my initial post sink in. You don't have to respond...you can simmer on it.

Why would you think that? Why invalid everyone’s responses? Couldn’t it simply be that some don’t agree with you?

 

[Red Velvet]

”Why don’t black people take [insert random thing] seriously?”

We are not special, in a positive or negative way we are just a broke group of people in a racist society. Going to a mental health person could make it worse because it could be a white person gaslighting you.

 

[Jay]

But Jay, if mental goes... nothing else survives. Not financial, not physical and not spiritual. There is nothing simple about my post. If we don't figure out a way to secure our mental health right now with the resources we have... it's over.

Your mental is based on stability. You cannot get the stability without fixing the issue that's making us unstable. It's like saying that we need to save more without addressing the issue of us not having enough to pay the bills.

 

[Heatice]

But Jay, if mental goes... nothing else survives. Not financial, not physical and not spiritual. There is nothing simple about my post. If we don't figure out a way to secure our mental health right now with the resources we have... it's over.

This is why I give some of us a big credit because with everything that we have been put through - physically, psychological, emotionally, mentally and even spiritually, some of us are still out grinding it without giving up or breaking down to the point of taking our lives. It's never been easy for us.

 

[Maxwell]

This struggle with our mental health is real mate and I'm very aware of it because 3 of my childhood friends have committed suicide in the last 5 years. You would see someone and he looks all good and well but mentally that individual is wrecked beyond reasoning.

 

[TeeGee]

Law of correspondence states that your outer world corresponds with your inner world, that is what you experience on the outside is a reflection of your inner world, paying proper attention to your inside that is your mental health and mindset is key to achieving whatever goals you might set out for yourself.