mental health
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Kanye West and Charlamagne Open Up Space to Talk About Black Men and Mental Health
It is impolite—unethical, even—to armchair-diagnose anyone in the public eye with having a mental illness, mostly because of the stigma attached to being labeled “crazy.” (It has nothing to do with privacy laws, I’m sure.) But even if Kanye West does not have an official label he wants to share publicly, he is certainly acting…
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Chirlane McCray Is Making Mental Health an Open Discussion, and We’re the Better for It
New York City’s first lady, Chirlane McCray, told the audience here at the National Action Network Convention on Wednesday that “we all deal with mental illness, but we don’t talk about it.” People nodded their heads, saying, “That’s right”and “Mmm-hmm,” as she talked about shattering the stigma of discussing mental health publicly. The session was…
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No Shame: Me, Mariah and Bipolar Disorder
I’m not ashamed to say that I cried. This morning, I woke before the sun—both the one outside my window and the healing sunlight alarm clock a good friend gifted me. This clock removes the cruel and jarring alarm sounds in favor of a gentle, artificial dawning that mimics the rising sun. It’s been unbelievably…
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Mariah Carey Reveals Her Struggle With Bipolar Disorder
After years of suffering in silence, Mariah Carey has opened up for the first time about her experiences with bipolar disorder. In an exclusive interview with People magazine, Carey talked about her struggle with accepting her diagnosis and seeking treatment. She was first diagnosed in 2001, she said, following a physical and mental breakdown, but…
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Watch: More Black Children Are Turning to Suicide, so What Can We Do About It?
Ashawnty Davis attempted to take her own life by hanging in November 2017. Two weeks later, the 10-year-old succumbed to her injuries. Days after Ashawnty’s death, 8-year-old Imani McCray hanged herself in her New Jersey home. And weeks earlier, 11-year-old Rylan Thai Hagan hanged himself from the bunk bed in his family’s Washington, D.C., home.…
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I Had a Panic Attack Last Month, and It Felt Like I Was Dying
It should be good news when you learn that the episode that brought you to the emergency room at Shadyside Hospital, which is where you drove the day after you felt like you were dying, was neither a heart attack nor a stroke. You’d suspected that what happened to you might have been one of…
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White House Refuses to Release Photo of Trump Signing Bill That Overturned Mental Health Gun Restrictions: Report
One of the first acts of Donald Trump’s presidency—which has officially become the undoing of President Barack Obama’s legacy—was to sign a resolution that made it easier for some people with mental health issues to obtain guns. CBS News has attempted some 12 times to get a photograph of the president in action from the…
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When Therapy Is a Comfort
“So, what do you want to talk about today?” the thin Asian woman across from me asks. She asks this twice a week because I see her twice a week. Twice a week, I sit on a gray sofa with red accent pillows and talk for 50 minutes. She listens, often interjects and asks questions.…
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I Didn’t Go Home for Christmas Because I Was Ashamed About Being Suicidal
I just spent Christmas away from my family in Virginia for the first time. I had recently returned from teaching a Mental Health First Aid class for staff at the Los Angeles Children’s Hospital and escaping New York’s oppressively cold weather for a few days. I was still exhausted when Christmas Eve—when I’d typically go…