Jan 25, 2024 | Mental Health Ministry, Stronger Together Support Group
Hello friends,
Oxford Languages defines stigma as, “a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person.” It defines stigmatization as, “the action of describing or regarding someone or something as worthy of disgrace or great disapproval.” Even the definitions make me cringe.
This week we’re going to watch a quick video about the stigmatization of mental illness: Ending the Stigma of Mental Illness (youtube.com). We can discuss personal or witnessed stigmatization of people with fragilities, especially mental illness, and even the stigmatization of families and loved ones of people with mental illness. This video is made by an organization co-founded by Glenn Close, “Bring Change to Mind” which is working to destigmatize mental illness.
Here is a link to an article that discusses mental health stigma
Mental Health Stigma and The Pandemic | Newport Academy
Our warm-up question for this week:
Tell us about a time when you felt stigmatized or witnessed it, for anything, i.e. age, gender, personality quirks… .
Alex asked me to fill in for him this week, and we all know those are big shoes to fill. Here is the link, and it is the long kind as I don’t know how to make it short like Alex does. Please be patient with mistakes and hiccups. Hope to see you Thursday.
Deatley
Jan 18, 2024 | Mental Health Ministry, Stronger Together Support Group
Hello friends,
If I asked you to describe what it means to be in good physical health, I suspect you’d have an easy time starting to answer. Strong, regular heartbeat; breathing easily; able to get around pain-free and with minimal effort; and so on. Now try the same exercise, but with mental health. Sure, it means there’s no mental illness, but that doesn’t really describe what a healthy state “looks like.”
We’ll watch together a wonderful video on what mental health means as a concept, and discuss how we’ve thought about our own health status over time. How do we think about our mental health when things don’t feel optimal? Do we judge ourselves too harshly? Are we as comfortable talking about our mental health in the same ways we talk about our physical health?
Our warm-up question for this week:
Tell us about a fun memory from a time when you were in the snow!
See you soon,
Alex
Jan 10, 2024 | Mental Health Ministry, Stronger Together Support Group
Hello friends,
The quote, “change is the only constant in life” is typically attributed to the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus, though I prefer two alternate translations: “all entities move and nothing remains still” and “everything changes and nothing stands still.” I like these two translations because they frame change as a natural state of being, rather than as a disruptive force.
Who am I kidding, though: change feels inherently disruptive.
That’s why this week we’re going to watch a quick video titled, “The Four Stages Of Coping With Change” and talk about our own experiences managing (or maybe just suffering through) these stages of change. This is a good time of year to contemplate how we might better cope with change in the months ahead… or at least better prepare ourselves for the possibility of change.
Our warm-up question for this week:
When you were a kid, what was a big change/hope/dream you wished for?
See you soon,
Alex
Jan 2, 2024 | Mental Health Ministry, Stronger Together Support Group
Hello friends,
I realized at 11:59 pm on New Year’s Eve that I didn’t have a resolution ready to go, so I quickly searched the web for some ideas for how I might improve myself over the next 527,040 minutes. Here were some top hits from my (literally) 11th hour search:
- Order every drink on the Starbucks Menu.
- Stop blaming my own foul odor on the dog.
- Perfect my favorite celebrity impression.
- Learn to fold fitted sheets.
- Look busy while doing nothing.
Perhaps sensing the existential dilemma I created for myself, Dee emailed over a couple of helpful resources that got me back on track. The first is a super short video on the problem with New Year’s resolutions, delivered by an “influencer” who really speaks my language.
The video helped me get in the right headspace for the more challenging and provocative opinion piece titled, “This Year, Make a Resolution About Something Bigger Than Yourself” (PDF version also attached, with source link in the file header). I don’t want to give anything away here because it’s better if you read it for yourself; it’s a short essay that will only take a couple of minutes. Suffice it to say I’ve scratched the top hits for resolutions from my last-minute internet search.
Our warm-up question for this week:
What’s a New Year’s resolution you wish someone dealing with mental illness would make?
See you soon,
Alex
Dec 28, 2023 | Mental Health Ministry, Stronger Together Support Group
Hello friends,
I hope you had a very merry Christmas and, if possible, have been spending lots of quality time with loved ones. I’m enjoying time with extended family here in Georgia, but it’s not all perfectly smooth sailing. It got me thinking: what strategies should we use when time with family challenges our mental health?
I came across this really wonderful article on coping with family dynamics during the holidays. The author recalls a favorite dessert — “The Dysfunctional Family Sundae” — offered at a nearby restaurant:
The Dysfunctional Family Sundae, a blend of three ice creams, brownies, chocolate cookies, whipped cream and sauces (chocolate, butterscotch, and strawberry), all topped with a cherry. This dessert required sharing among multiple friends. The tag line went something like this: all the ingredients are good on their own, but when placed together are sure to elicit indigestion, just like a dysfunctional family. Thus, cope with the dysfunction by sharing with friends.
Fortunately the author also offers more than a dozen practical strategies for preserving (or gaining back) positive mental health when the family sundae brings about distress, gastrointestinal or otherwise. In fact, many of these strategies are great to use for building strong family bonds even if there are no mental health concerns! I look forward to discussing them together as a group this week.
Our warm-up question for this week:
What “TV family” (e.g., The Brady Bunch) is most memorable for you, and why?
See you soon,
Alex
Dec 19, 2023 | Mental Health Ministry, Stronger Together Support Group
Hello friends,
Over the past few weeks we’ve watched and discussed some really inspiring videos about how people have turned their personal struggles with mental illness into profound acts of courage and generosity. It’s not your typical Christmas content, I suppose, but Christmas is a celebration of hope and these stories are nothing if not hopeful.
This week we’ll watch one more from Carson Daly (if you grew up on MTV he needs no introduction), who speaks candidly about his struggles with anxiety and panic disorder. One of my hopes is that, in just a few years’ time, we hear even more of these personal testimonies…not just from those affected by depression and anxiety, but also from people affected by types of mental illness such as schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder that are still considered taboo.
Our warm-up is a Christmas-themed guessing game!
Name two Christmas carols, and see if everyone else can guess whether you love one and despise the other, love them both, or give them both a “bah humbug.”
See you soon,
Alex
