Why I hate awareness months, but participate anyway (and think everyone should)

May, 2021

Happy mental health awareness month! Ok, so I do hate awareness months. Why, you may ask? Isn’t that kind of, well, mean spirited? Ok, maybe dislike is a softer word. But hear me out.  Some of it is the same reason I have gripes about women’s history month and black history month. Like what happens the other eleven months? We just forget about it and go on with our default settings of being woefully ignorant about large swaths of the population?

But it’s more than that. Part of it is based on my work at nonprofits in a previous life. Nonprofits have to use every square inch of leverage of that one month to get folks to care enough about their issue to donate money. Fundraising is how these places survive, and it often means all hands on deck. Staff have to set aside their regular work to stuff envelopes, design invitations, solicit auction items. There’s something very wrong with a system that largely relies on the fickle world of charity for the important services people need.

I also see as an implied passivity in awareness months. When does one achieve this so called awareness? And what do we do with it once we have it?  In an ideal world we would all donate to worthy organizations (Neuro Blooms donates 10% of its sales to different chapters of NAMI). But not everyone has expendable income. In an ideal world we would all be rallying at our state capitals, demanding our legislators adequately fund mental health services. Also incredibly important, but not an option for everyone.

I recommend a simple action, especially for those who do not know much about mental health conditions: foster a mindset of active learning. Even if mental health conditions completely baffle you, and you feel like you will never understand them. Most of us don’t understand them completely. There’s so much to learn. Even if this begins in your own mind and doesn’t convert to an action - at least not right away - I believe intentions and mindset eventually manifest out in the world in important ways.

Maybe this active learning mindset leads to a deeper understanding of someone like your great Aunt Ida who talked loudly and danced a little too wildly at the wedding reception, because she was experiencing hypo-mania. Maybe you go dance with her, not in a mocking way, but to keep her company, in a joyful way, acknowledging that her condition is not only hardship, not only something to be treated, but can contain joy, the vigor of life, and creativity. Maybe it’s taking a moment to look at the offerings of a man selling ragged paperbacks on the sidewalk, quietly muttering under his breath. Maybe this learning just leads to less fear. I’m proposing a conversion of awareness to some action, however small the action may be. I am viewing this mindset of active learning in the same spirit as meditation that appears like you are doing nothing, but is actually quite hard work. It’s not nothing. It’s actually one of the most important things you can do.