Through my mental health journey, I’ve grown to learn that it loses its aspect of privacy and individuality just cause of what and who it ropes in along the way. In my case, my ongoing journey has roped in a few people, some were strangers who turned into family and others were family right from … Continue reading Mental Health Awareness Month – DawnMercy
Category: Mental Health
I am a WIP on the road to recovery from PTSD.
I also have OCD, and every now and then my Anxiety threatens to overwhelm me.
My mental illnesses do not make me any less human/worthy/awesome than my mentally fit counterparts. I want anyone struggling with their mental health to know it is okay not to be okay. That there is nothing to be ashamed about in asking for help. That in fact there is great strength in the vulnerability, courage and honesty it takes to accept that you need help and to go ahead and ask for it.
Through this category I intend to do everything in my power to destigmatise conversations around mental health because every mind matters.
Mental Health Awareness Month – Calm Wildness
I have been struggling to write this story because I would be the girl who occasionally has suicide ideations and has ever attempted suicide. This story would give me the label, and everyone would say how brave I am for telling it. Then they will turn and treat me like a broken vessel or an … Continue reading Mental Health Awareness Month – Calm Wildness
Mental Health Awareness Month – Soraya
My upbringing is what you would consider a typical Nairobi middle-class one; I went to good schools, participated in sports and clubs, was considered a good student all through my academic life into university, got a job and settled into “grown up life”. I had done all the things and checked all the boxes, but … Continue reading Mental Health Awareness Month – Soraya
Mental Health Awareness Month
For anyone who may not be aware, May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Also referred to as ‘Mental Health Month’, it has been observed in May in the United States since 1949, reaching millions of people in the United States through the media, local events, and screenings. With time the month has shifted from being … Continue reading Mental Health Awareness Month
Mental Health Monday: Why Am I Grasping, But Not Latching, On To Happiness?
March 20th is International Day of Happiness and on that day in 2019 I put up a post titled Find Your Happy. In it I wrote about how, for the first time in my life, I identified as happy. I have spent most of my life pursuing happiness. My second tattoo, which I got in … Continue reading Mental Health Monday: Why Am I Grasping, But Not Latching, On To Happiness?
World Health Day: How Your Gut Affects Your Mental Health
April 7th is World Health Day, a global health awareness day celebrated every year under the sponsorship of the World Health Organization (WHO), as well as other related organizations. From its inception at the First Health Assembly in 1948 and since taking effect in 1950, the celebration has aimed to create awareness of a specific … Continue reading World Health Day: How Your Gut Affects Your Mental Health
Healing. Mindfulness. Discipline
In my Karibu 2021 post I mentioned that one of the things I decided to try out in 2021 is a Word of the Year and after much deliberation I settled on Discipline as my WotY. In my letter to my mum on the third anniversary of her death, I said that 2020 was a … Continue reading Healing. Mindfulness. Discipline
Mental Health Monday: The Unmothered Club
For 30 years I had a mother. Now I do not. I am unmothered. I have been meaning to start a Mental Health Monday (MHM) segment on the blog for almost a year now because mental health is something I am deeply passionate about. If my mum were still alive, she would be turning 62 … Continue reading Mental Health Monday: The Unmothered Club
Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month Q&A with Dr. Frida Kameti
Why do people attempt suicide? The most common reason is that someone is depressed. When one is depressed, their thinking becomes irrational and so someone will have negative, and often exaggerated, beliefs about themselves, others and their future. There’s a sense of impending doom and feeling worthless, and so suicidal thoughts start to take hold … Continue reading Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month Q&A with Dr. Frida Kameti
World Suicide Prevention Day
World Suicide Prevention Day is an awareness day observed on September 10th every year, in order to provide worldwide commitment and action to prevent suicides, with various activities around the world since 2003. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), every 40 seconds someone takes their own life. That’s about 800,000 people worldwide every year … Continue reading World Suicide Prevention Day