21 Day Mental Health Stigma Detox
We’re leading a 21-day stigma detox to help reduce stigma around mental health, mental illness, and neurodiversity through increased understanding. Through social media, our blog, and our newsletter, we'll share resources, prompts for reflection, and action steps to take personally and at large to improve support and reduce the impact of stigma. That's a key recipe for sweet communities!
Like everything, we all experience the world in different ways, which is what gives us our talents, creativity, and personality. For a variety of reasons, so many of us process the world in ways other than what's considered “normal” (by normal you mean like the washing machine setting, or normal like the bland option at the restaurant with no toppings or spices?). Those of us who "think different," or are neurodivergent, or experience mental illnesses, or manage mental health day-to-day often face high levels of stigma. As a result, many have difficulty accessing care and support, work opportunities, and more. This limits the power to share their beautiful, impactful, and unique abilities to improve the world and help others. These gifts often come as a direct result of these experiences or unique ways of processing. We should celebrate and appreciate this neuro-diversity, not discriminate from poor understanding.
We'll compile all related information on this active and dynamic page, stay tuned!
Day 1 - Reflection: How has a difficult experience or what seems like a "nutty" trait became a sweet superpower for you?
Day 2 - Mental Health Stigma: What Is It? How does it show up, and how we can beat it! Easy as: 1. Education 2. Contact 3. Advocacy. Sharing Research on What’s Worked!
Take the #StigmaFree Pledge at NAMI.org/StigmaFree and stay up to date on their resources!
Day 4 - Reflection: Rest. Rest can be active too. Sometimes it needs to be. What kind of rest do you find most regenerative?
Day 5 - Monday Blues or Summertime Sadness? Looking at some unhelpful mental health misconceptions
Day 6 - Surviving and Thriving: A stigma-creating misconception is the idea that people experiencing mental illness are dysfunctional, but a major percentage of the people we revere not only experience mental illness, but often are so inspiring and creative because of it.
Day 7 - How do we make sense of the world? We're not all the same!
Day 8-13 - (Mental Health break needed as we go through our go through!)
Day 14 - Which is "Normal" again? Statistics and Action Steps: See Blog Post
Day 15 - Let's Remove Structural Stigma in Crisis Response: 911 or 988 - One Crisis Response Doesn’t Fit All! Action Steps: See Blog Post
Day 16 - Let's Talk Exercise and Mental Health - “Just exercise, you’ll feel better.” Uhhhhh, Why? How? See Blog Post
Day 18 - Mental Health-Focused Book Club Recommendations for Summer Inspiration! Check out the blog post for all links!
Day 21 - ; What Comes Next? See Blog Post