Welcome To The Mental Health Mirror

The newsletter from 2017 is now a website. We are talking about emotions and a lot more.

Welcome to The Mental Health Mirror!

This website has been on my mind for more than 2 years — as some of you might now, it started off as a newsletter in 2017, with the older editions available here. Thank you to those who believed in me then and subscribed to it, thank you to those who have now joined me. You all are incredible!

In the time since then, I have gone on to dig deeper into the field, understanding that the complexity of the issue defies any straightforward answers or a one-size-fits-all solution.

Consider this: People are still scared to go to therapy, because of the judgement attached to it. If they are open to the idea, they might not be able to afford it. If they can afford it, the system might betray them. Sitting in a therapist's room is intimidating as is, without adding systemic violence and over-pathologized diagnosis to the mix. And the most ironic part of all this? We are throwing all these hoops and hurdles on someone who is clearly seeking help because they aren't in a good place. How exactly do we imagine them going through all of this? A lot about this doesn’t sit right.

The conversation on mental health has progressed a lot in the past decade. Even so, we have a long way to go. There's a lot happening — and I wanted to be able to create a place where all these wonderful initiatives, support groups, projects, organizations, individuals are recorded, so that a decade from now, we can look back and see how far we have come. I am hopeful.

The website will stay a work-in-progress. My goal is simple: to simplify mental health for everyone. We are all an expert in our own lives. We deserve to be treated as such.

I hope you enjoy visiting the website as it grows and I hope you feel seen!

Dollops of warmth,

Kritika

Spotlight

• I (virtually)sat down with Sasha Greene, author of Something Like Happy and a mental health advocate, to ruminate over the nuances of writing mental illness into fiction, drawing on lived experiences and letting our emotions have a life of their own. Here is the interview.

• Here is a feature by our first contributor, Arushi Sharma, looking at the gaps in the conversation on elderly mental health. 

Happy reading!

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If you wish to write for/contribute to the publication or if you have comments/suggestions, write to me at kritika@thementalhealthmirror.com.

The newsletter will be sent to you every weekend, please spread the word and get your pals to sign up, too!

Upcoming

Next week's newsletter will take a critical look at K-I-N-D-N-E-S-S. Stay tuned.