Fall 2018 – Mental Health
Fall 2018

Table of Contents

The Mental Health Issue

From the Editors

Chances for Healing in Every Moment

My beautiful older sister, Bess — a smart, passionate, popular soccer star — killed herself when she was 17. She took my parents’ gun, drove to a park, and shot herself in the head. The effect on my family was profound. Though I’m generally a warm person, for the next 15 years, I avoided people with big emotions, or people who seemed fragile. For me, they were dangerous, unpredictable, unhelpable. I didn’t want to get too close, for fear of being responsible for them in some way. I limited my range of empathy because I was sure if I went too far, I’d be swallowed whole.

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The Surprising Links Between Your Mental Health and Everyone Else’s

Why are anxiety and depression on the rise? Our environments have changed. Our food. Our stress. Our relationships—our “lost connections.”
Travis Lupick
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What Is Barbershop Therapy?

Barbers in the South are training as first responders to assist the men in their chairs with their mental health concerns.
Celeste Hamilton Dennis
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Commentary

I Stopped Playing the “Strong Black Woman”

We are paying for this myth we’ve bought into with our lives.
Shawn Ricks
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What Wildfires Do to Our Minds

A Northern California community offers mental health first aid to survivors of devastating fires.
Dani Burlison
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Where Children Discover the Healing Power of Animals

In this sanctuary, at-risk kids begin to understand the parallels between their lives and the lives of injured wild animals.
Isabelle Morrison
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The Ways We Are Healed by Nature (Even Houseplants)

Green growing things heal us in surprising ways. Communities are trying to bring plant life to areas that lack it.
Natalie Slivinski
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Commentary

I Inherited My Grandfather’s Trauma—and His Healing Culture

Returning to culture is a duty my grandfather believed Native elders had to their communities. He passed this on to me, along with his trauma.
Elizabeth Hawksworth
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7 Strategies to Turn Trauma Into Strength

Survivors discover surprising benefits in the process of healing from a traumatic event.
Michaela Haas
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What a Society Designed for Well-Being Looks Like

Economic justice goes a long way toward improving mental health up and down the socioeconomic ladder.
Tabita Green

Solutions We Love

Explore Section
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What the Maps of Hate Groups Reveal

New research offers clues to stop the spread of organized hate groups in the U.S.
Wyatt Massey
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People We Love

To Love and Worship Freely: Young Muslim LGBTQ Activists Stand Up

These people are fighting the good fight because LGBTQ+ Muslims shouldn’t have to sacrifice one identity at the expense of the other.
Shaima Shamdeen

Culture Shift

Explore Section
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Books+Film+Music

Indigenous Culture Reasserts Women’s Power Through Dance

Native women revitalize ceremony to resist the legacy of patriarchy that supports a long-entrenched history of abuse.
Mary Annette Pember
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Books+Film+Music

Why Mister Rogers Is the Role Model We Need Right Now

The unconventional children’s television pioneer celebrated dignity and kindness in the age of mass media.
Stephanie Van Hook
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Books+Film+Music

Climate Change and Its Staggering Refugee Crisis

Research confirms that massive migration, into the millions, will be an inevitable consequence of global warming.
Todd Miller
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Small Works

5 Ways Small Actions Have Huge Power

To those who take the bus or refuse plastic toothbrushes: Don’t listen to the cynics. Research shows the little things matter.
Sarah Lazarovic