Did you know that May is Mental Health Awareness Month? Most people I’ve encountered aren’t aware that Mental Health is observed in the month of May. I just found out myself a little over 6 years ago. Here’s why:

Keep reading if you don't mind me being vulnerable with you for a moment.

So since I was a little girl I watched many of the women in my family on my mother’s side suffer from mental illnesses such as depression, bi-polar disorder, and even schizophrenia. I remember taking trips to “Bolivar”. Bolivar is actually a small town in TN, home of Western State Mental Institution. So when momma said we were going to Bolivar, it was already understood that someone in our family had been committed again. At the time I had to be about 9 or 10 years old. I, nor did my cousins know how serious these illnesses were. Sad thing is our “crazy” aunt would become the butt of many jokes growing up. The kids joked about it and the adults sugar coated it.

One day I remember my mom having a conversation with my other aunt about the “Bolivar” situation. Because mental illness was now a trend in our family, they were taking about what to do if they ended up in the same situation. I remember my mom specifically saying “If something ever happens to me like that, get me help.” I was about 9 years old.

Since that day, seemed like every 5 years another person in my family had some sort of mental breakdown. These illnesses began to trickle down to my generation, sadly affecting some of my cousins too. I’m not talking 1 or 2 cousins. I’m talking 5, of my first cousins, that have been committed at some point into “Bolivar”. We have a big family, but to have 5 of 21 cousins committed into an mental institution for a mental illness seems to be a very high number. As I got older I used to ask myself, why are the people in my family breaking down so much and so often?

Fast forward to 2012, no longer a little girl, now a wife, mother, and owner of Fancy. I found myself in the middle of this situation again. My mom had a “nervous” breakdown. I watched her go from being a happy, hard working, wife and mother of two with two new grand babies, to depression, full blown psychosis, and diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic.

Whew…

All while I’m empowering and inspiring women to be the best versions of themselves with boudoir photography, the one woman I wanted to help the most was mentally ill. All I can hear in my head as I watched the quality of her life deteriorate was her voice saying “get me help.”

I come to find out that getting help for mentally ill adult who is suffering is very difficult if they don’t consent to getting the help. It’s just as difficult if that person isn’t insured. It’s even more difficult when you feel like your prayers are not being answered and you faith seems to be failing you. Long story short it took over 2 years, the criminal justice system, arguments with momma’s side of the family, and hard decision making with dad, to get my mom the help she needed. There I was sad and trying to wrap my head around the fact that my mom might not ever be the same again.

Fast forward to 2019, MOM is Better than EVER! It’s been a long journey and sometimes unpredictable, but the lessons I’ve learned along the way have been worth it.

OK! Sorry I know that’s a lot to unpack. There is so much more that I would like to dive into with the blog, but I’ll save it for a part ii.

However, I’m sharing this in hopes that the stigma of mental illnesses will one day be released and treated as any other disease that affects the human body, with dignity and respect!

As we enter into Mental Health Awareness Month I want you to be observant and proactive in being mentally healthy. Here are a few ways you can start:

1. Get some help! If you have health insurance with your employer use your EAP benefits to see a therapist. The first 4-5 sessions are usually free.

2. Don’t give up yourself. You need you! Your family needs you, the world needs you!

3. Find your why! Be proactive in creating the quality of life that gives you a peace of mind and the ability to sleep at night. Fancy is my WHY! The career change for me may have cut into my lifestyle financially, but mentally it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done. Helping other women know they are worth is worth more to me than any headache at my old 9-5s.

4. Look at the bright side of EVERYTHING! There is a reason for everything we go through. We go through in order to grow in this life.

5. DO IT BECAUSE YOU ARE WORTH IT! Everything you do in your life that makes you happy, do it for you. If you don’t know what makes you happy or gives you peace, try something new until you figure it out!

After all these years I’ve learned that kids joke and adults sugar coat, simply because that’s the easiest way to cope. We are suffering simply because we aren’t aware that getting help is normal!

GO DO IT! YOU ARE WORTH IT!

Tru