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May is Mental Health Awareness Month

You may see green ribbons around this month and think, “St. Paddy’s Day was months ago; what are these people doing?” These ribbons aren’t for the Irish nor the greenery that we see “springing up” around us this month. May is Mental Health Awareness Month and green is the official color to help celebrate and raise awareness. In the same spirit as adorning a green ribbon to draw awareness to this important issue, the Office of Healthy Opportunities hopes to shine a light on the history of, the people who, and the mile left to be traveled in mental health care.

A history of mental health care

The history of mental illness is as old as the species itself. Since antiquity, people around the world have seen mental illness as some religious punishment or revelation. The Romans, Greeks, Native Americans and Egyptians had beliefs that largely supernatural forces were at work as it relates to mental illness. A fullness of religious beliefs and a lack of knowledge caused many in these cultures to shun those with a mental illness. In fact, it was the Greeks that have some of the earliest writings on the concept of stigma. It was the “Father of Medicine” Hippocrates in the 4th century B.C.E. that was one of the first to suggest that the brain was the center of thought, intelligence, and emotion. This hypothesis proved more useful in the understanding and treatment of mental illness and 2,440 years later is still the most useful.

Advancements in thought, like those of Hippocrates, were lacking through much of the fall of the Roman Empire. The smartest of the day needed to focus on protecting and feeding themselves and their communities without the structure the empire once provided. History like mental illness takes place one day and one step at a time.

Early mental health advocates

Bringing us closer to today, the people who we must thank for our modern-age movement are a Civil War nurse and a turn-of-the-century Wall Street banker.

Dorothea Lynde Dix was a schoolteacher and Civil War nurse who struggled with mental and physical health issues. On the prescription of her doctors, she traveled to Europe to seek healing. It was there she met several mental health reformers that gave her the interest in reforming the United States methods of treating those with mental illness. Upon her return, she would travel the country speaking with politicians about her findings and ideas. By the end of her life, she opened asylums in Illinois, New Jersey and North Carolina and physically expanded more than 30 hospitals that worked to treat the mentally ill around the world.

Wall Street banker Clifford Beers suffered his first episode of bipolar disorder and was hospitalized three times in Connecticut. Beers published a personal story of his experience of admissions to mental hospitals in A Mind that Found Itself in 1908. The power of his story rallied those who suffer with mental illness and launched a mental health reform movement. One year later philosopher William James and psychiatrist Adolf Meyer and Beers formed the National Commission of Mental Hygiene which today is known as Mental Health America. In 1949, Mental Health America launched what would become Mental Health Month and to where we find ourselves today.

The mile left to be traveled…

It is said by the National Institute of Mental Health that nearly one in five Americans live with a mental illness. Those of us with the greatest severity of mental illness may find ourselves in the care of a state psychiatric hospital. Indiana has six wonderful facilities to help the most vulnerable in our communities. The Indiana State Psychiatric Hospital Network is a vital part of the Division of Mental Health and Addiction’s vision of an unyielding focus on promoting and supporting the mental health and wellness of the people of Indiana.

Indiana’s state hospital history has always been innovative and active in the research and treatment of mental illness. George F. Edenharter was the superintendent of Central State Hospital in Indianapolis from 1893 to 1923 and knew the value of research in understanding causes and the treatments of people with mental illness. In 1895, he opened one of the nation’s first pathology departments, which engaged in groundbreaking research and medical instruction. From assessments to restoration, transitional care to long-term solutions, our state hospitals do a wonderful job for us all. The newest state hospital in Indianapolis, the NeuroDiagnostic Institute, is continuing this legacy and starting a revolutionary new treatment center focused on integrative psychiatry that is projected to open in 2022.

Thinking ahead

This takes us to the present day and back to us. What will our legacy be in mental health care? How will history think of what we do today and in the coming days of our lives? May is a beautiful and transformative month outside our office windows: trees bloom, birds sing and beauty is renewed again in our lives. Let us take a cue from nature and let this be a time for progress for not just ourselves, but for our community as a whole. One thing history teaches us is that compassion is always that special ingredient that can fix so much that may be broken around us. The state hospitals have adopted a trauma-informed approach to this healing process. Trauma-informed seeks to ask not, “What is wrong with you?” but rather, “What happened to you?”. The history of the person, of the culture and of the community matters. Until we can rise to the occasion of answering this question in our own lives, we may not find the answers for our mental health community that are so desperately needed.

Resources for Mental Health Awareness Month

Suggested readings

  • The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk
  • You, Happier: The 7 Neuroscience Secrets of Feeling Good Based on Your Brain Type by Daniel G. Amen, MD
  • What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing by Bruce D. Perry, MD, PhD
  • Emotional First Aid: Healing Rejection, Guilt, Failure, and Other Everyday Hurts by Guy Winch, PhD
  • The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
  • Stop Overthinking: 23 Techniques to Relieve Stress, Stop Negative Spirals, Declutter Your Mind, and Focus on the Present (Mental and Emotional Abundance) by Nick Trenton

Ways to celebrate

Other observances

  • May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month and Jewish American Heritage Month which celebrate the contributions of Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders and Jewish Americans.
  • May 1 is May Day, marking the return of spring.
  • May 1 is Lei Day in Hawaii. Lei Day originated in 1927, when poet Don Blanding proposed a holiday to recognize the lei’s role (symbol of love, friendship, celebration, honor or greeting) in Hawaiian culture. Writer Grace Tower Warren suggested May 1 for the date because it coincided with May Day, a celebration also linked to flowers. She coined the phrase, “May Day is Lei Day.” The first Lei Day observance occurred on May 1, 1928. The following year, it was made an official holiday in the territory.
  • May 5 is Cinco de Mayo This day celebrates the victory of the Mexican army over the French army at The Battle of Puebla in 1862.
  • May 8 is Mother’s Day show appreciation for your mother.
  • May 21 is Armed Forces Day, which honors those who serve in all branches of the United States military.
  • May 22 is National Maritime Day. Created in commemoration of the first transoceanic voyage via steamboat (completed by the U.S.S. Savannah in 1819), this holiday recognizes the efforts of the U.S. merchant marine during both war and peace.
  • May 23 is Victoria Day in Canada. This holiday celebrates the birthday of Queen Victoria, who was born on May 24, 1819.
  • May 30 is Memorial Day, a reminder of the men and women who died while serving in the US military. It’s tradition to raise the flag on this day.