Week 8 - Nuong Vo - A04

      I found the article "Fucked Up" to be a very interesting perspective on the idea of mental health.  I've had two different types of experience with a therapist, with one recently at the UC Davis SHCS. It was a very odd experience if I reflect back on it because the lady was pushing really hard on the idea of utilizing medications with therapy/counseling even though I already said I wanted to try therapy without it first. It's not surprising if therapists are trained to encourage the use of medication as much as they can since it would benefit the pharmaceutical industry and probably make their job easier. It's already hard enough to make an appointment with at UCD SHCS. I do recognize that people who do not follow with societal norms are immediately outcasted as "crazy" or "in need of some therapy". With that, I think it is unfair to immediately judge them just because they don't fit in with the norm. I definitely accept this perspective that if the people have no desire to utilizing holistic mental health, then they don't have to. It's okay to abnormal and it's also okay to desire normality.
           I think the existence of holistic mental health can benefit the other half that does need assistance with dealing with heavy situations. Holistic mental health can be a pathway to dealing with situations with someone else. It's similar to having a third party listening/giving advice to a situation that you can not solve/understand since you are in the situation. I'm sure everyone feels like they are not normal in a sense, and I do believe some people desire that sense of wanting to be normal because maybe they feel like they have control to their lives. We shouldn't stigmatize people who desire mental health and we shouldn't stigmatize them if they are different from the societal norm. How do we teach society to accept people are different? I think it first begins with time, hopefully, many people can grow to become more accepting of others.

Images:

Jacqueline. n.d. “Official Chibird ⭐️ Jacqueline (@Chibirdart) • Instagram Photos and Videos.” Instagram. Retrieved February 22, 2019 (https://www.instagram.com/chibirdart/?hl=en).

Citation:

Haydock, Shana Bulhan. n.d. “I WOULD ALWAYS RATHER BE ABNORMAL THAN HOLISTIC: NINE MICRO-ESSAYS.” Fucked Up 45–53.