Miranda. 20 year old Psychology major; Women and Gender Studies minor. I enjoy hot tea, books, and a good old fashioned text post. Warning: this blog will contain everything and anything....but mostly cats.
Finding good mental health help is already really challenging when you’re in the best possible social position to access it. Poverty, disability, racial and cultural factors, physical access, regional access, gender and sexual prejudice, stigma, language… these are just a few of the roadblocks in the way of accessing effective mental health services.
There are a number of reasons why we should not shame people who do not engage with mental health professionals, the least of which is that a significant portion of people with mental illness are simply unable to access those services.
A core tenant of activism is the idea of autonomy and self determination - this means we must work to remove these barriers to treatment so that those who want to engage with a mental health support system are able to do so. While we should respect those who chose not to access those services, it is most important that everyone get that choice.
