Week 8 Lily Trang A04

For this week's reading, I Would Always Rather be Adnormal than Holistic by Shana Bulhan Haydock, Haydock disagrees that the ideals "normalizing" mental health. She describes how it is okay to feel not okay. The idea of mental health as something normal and you will get over eventually, is however, not what should be done. Haydock emphasizes it is okay to be broken and fucked up. Mental Health issues should not be viewed as something that is 100% bad. In today's society, everything is perceived as curable with medicine. Using medicine as a way to "shut us up and take medication to help us." The industry uses the idea that medicine will make us feel better and we cannot be without it. Causing us to have the mentality that taking this will make me feel and I need it. I do relate to Haydock because my family does not understand the concepts of mental health and that it is something I have to slowly try and improve. It doesn't automatically get better if I take medication. My parents view it as something that has to be cured and horrible. Mental health is usually frowned upon due to scientific evidence and holistic views. It is harder to Asian American families to talk about the subject of mental health because in Asian cultures they don't think it is real. The ideal of if you have mental health issues, you need help.



Question: Why do people feel the need to adapt to the norm and how can we inform individuals who struggle with mental health that it is okay to not be okay? How can we help them recover from mental health in the healthiest way?

References: Haydock, S. "Fucked up.", I would always rather be abnormal than holistic: Nine micro-essays. (45-53). DSM: Asian American edition.