M.H.A

Mental health awareness. I feel like expressing that you're dealing with mental strain to others is still taboo in urban culture's. I have seen a lot more people mention it and talk about it in my age group (25-35 range) but it's still a subject that many people of colour still are having difficulty addressing. I have many conversations with my close friends and family members and just ask them about their general health and state of mind. I feel that it's key to show concern about a person's state of mind as this is something that isn't as obvious as a person with a cold, flu or other serious medical problems. I have said numerous times "I'm ok, I'm fine, I'm good" when deep down "I'm on the edge". I verbally use the term "on the edge" to express there are matters I'm suffering with and want to talk about. I believe Caribbean culture and I'm sure other ethnicities look at expressing mental strain as a weakness. I believe it could stem from religious teachings from before. I'm not against religion but I do feel that due to this being the first form of government, there are passages of text in books and teachings that conditioned us to believe that abuse was normal and acceptable in any form. I believe this crippled certain ethnicities in mentally healing. If you take those in North and South America, including the Caribbean, who were part of the slave trade. The conditions and abuse they suffered would have surely had them believe that death must be better than what they're experiencing. But they were taught that suicide would mean they would go to hell. So you now are in a mental state where you need to find strength somehow to endure all this suffering and knowing that all your days could be like this till you die. Fast forward to modern times and the exposure of the internet. The difference is that the abuse during slavery affected you mentally but was applied physically. Because it was applied physically, they were able to maintain their spirit and not be "broken". Now, people say there's no comparison when it comes to slavery but can that not be a state of mind? can in a thousand years society look at how we lived and think that this was slavery? Maybe I'm thinking too extreme but my posts are always to challenge the mind and not shut down thoughts if they can be explained. Social media and the imbalance of work and the pressure's of society means people are having an overload of expectations they feel they need to achieve. All these things are mentally applied now. No more beatings with whips and free labour for results. Now we are manipulated with the abuse of currency and the dream of being ahead in the rat race we call life. We all want great things but society has got us at a point where people are becoming so desperate to not feel left behind. They are believing if they are not doing certain things or acting in a certain way, then they are not doing well in life or they are not on the right path for success. Instagram and other social media outlets have made people fall under the illusion that what we see is how peoples lives are. Someone could work 49 weeks out of the year and spend two weeks of the year on vacation and only show you their vacation pictures. You will start to think that this is all this person's life consist of, that they're doing well and therefore look at your own life and feel that it isn't worth anything. What we have now become in this generation is consumers of lifestyles. We're so desperate to feel look a certain way but don't understand what comes with it. There is conditioning that comes with different types of lifestyles. We start with a certain way of living. This could be going to school getting an education, then once we transition into the working environment we have already been conditioned to handle the changes because during our time at school we were being conditioned to be in by a certain time, fulfil certain assigments and meet deadlines. Today's society isn't fully conditioned to handle the changes social media has created. The internet and the improvement of phones and computers, the introductions of laptops tablets. The introduction of Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat. All these things seeming so minor but having extremely huge side effects on our lifestyles. I think that is what we are experiencing, the trial and error states of the social network. Yes, we had social media outlets before like Myspace and MSN and BBM But they were not used at that stage to push topics, to encourage the masses to address issues. They were used as small portals. You can even say they were used regionally to entertain our small worlds. Now we're at a point where the average person in western society is moving in sync together. Whether from the UK, U.S, France, Canada. Everyone is into the same trend at the same time now. We're all being encouraged to participate in achieving a luxury lifestyle rapidly that we have not all been conditioned to live. We're all being conditioned to live the same way as the next person when we are not all the same. I want to end with this message. I want to encourage people to understand that your race is your race go at your pace you will achieve what you put in just don't mentally destroy yourself doing it. As mentioned in my previous post balance is key. Your time will come as long as you are doing what you want to do. You don't need to keep up cause you're not running the same race as the next person. Live.