Can we rally around mental health the way we have for cancer?
Unfixed quote
For my new Substack subscribers—WELCOME! I’m so happy you’re here. On Thursday’s you’ll receive Unfixed news: resources, new media, and Unfixed community quotes and prompts. And each Sunday you’ll receive chapters from my serialized memoir Unfixed. I hope each of my offerings are an inspiring, thought-provoking and healing addition to your weeks ahead.
I would say wholly my experiences with ovarian cancer have been positive in terms of the way people respond, react and support me. And I would say it was the converse with post-traumatic stress. It was the rare exception who wasn't freaked out, afraid or threatened.
It’s what fuels my activism. People used to whisper about cancer, people died in silence and you wouldn't mention it. And families didn’t necessarily talk about it. So there used to be stigma around cancer. It makes me hopeful that someday we'll respond to mental health diagnoses with the same rallying around people, offering extra love and care, offering to be present, giving rides to therapy. And even if it doesn't change the outcome, it's heartwarming and affirming to feel loved even while you're in pain. When people can feel loved and revered while enduring psychic, spiritual, emotional pain and anguish, they will do better, heal faster, and have less shame.
Supporting people helps because it's the only thing that carries us through, that makes the pain bearable.
Christine Cissy White (1966-2023) was a writer and health advocate who believed in the healing power of expressive writing and truth-telling. She blogged at www.healwritenow.com and her essays, interviews, and reporting about living with post-traumatic stress and ovarian cancer have been published in The New England Journal of Medicine, Ms. Magazine, the Boston Globe, the Patient Empowerment Network, and ACEs Too High. Her survivor-led advocacy was highlighted in The Atlantic, The Mighty, and Huffington Post and she appeared on PBS NewsHour as well.
Please join us this Sunday November 5th at 2pm PST/5pm EST for the 2nd episode of Unfixed Mind: Navigating Mental Health Today.
All four episodes are free to stream on Youtube and The Disorder Channel (available via Roku and Amazon Fire.) Premiere dates for the remaining episodes are as follows:
November 5, 2pm PST/5pm EST - Facing and Transforming Stigma
November 12, 2pm PST/5pm EST - Relationships and Mental Health
November 19, 2pm PST/5pm EST - Coping with Uncertainty and Finding Hope
I had never heard of Cissy, or her writing before now, but her message is such an important one to get out there.
Thank you for shining a light on this.
Very sad to hear of Cissy's passing, she spoke so eloquently in the first episode. 🕊️