I am very new to Twitter. There's a really interesting conversation happening at the moment, over on @DKuzNY, @basseyworld, and @LalaJackson's pages around mental health in the black community.

It's actually quite astounding that two Nigerians are spearheading this discussion. It's a topic I rarely hear discussed among them, or any other africans for that matter. I have quite a bit to say on this, but thought it necessary to first share the conversation. I have not joined in as of yet, am only following the issue! (Start from the bottom and work your way up. Sorry I deleted half the author attributions!)

----
# @hamptongirl Thank you, I will.
# hamptongirl

@basseyworld check out @iskelliwright's new blog on Black folk and mental illness. http://iskelliwright.wordpress.com/

@DKuzNY Assuming you'd want to.

@DKuzNY Wow. I had no idea. Have you thought about creating art around this?

@basseyworld if someone can't find the assistance they need, they can contact the National Institute of Health for information.

@GabrielaSalvado I'm not at all. I'm jus someone who has lived it in all it's incarnations and I want to help like I've been helped.
# msbabbleon

@basseyworld Out of Our Right Minds - Trauma, Depression and the Black Woman http://vimeo.com/8067851
# DeeshaPhilyaw

@basseyworld My insurance company just made mental health care unlimited, on parity w/medical. Then raised copay to double medical.
# AyanEva

As does Glaxo Smith Kline @basseyworld RT @TB_BT: @basseyworld...Astra Zeneca has a program like that 18 minutes ago via web

@DKuzNY Does he live with your parents? 19 minutes ago via TweetDeck in reply to DKuzNY

RT @TB_BT: @basseyworld...Astra Zeneca has a program like that
# museofinsanity

@basseyworld Also, not everything effective for you comes in generic. You mentioned Klonopin, on it for years, But one company makes it and 24 minutes ago
# RyceJuanton

@basseyworld As a "mentally well" (word?) person, when my friend's provider said "we are not currently accepting patients", I FELT SICK!
# skuzemewoods

@basseyworld Black people never need therapy, they just need more jesus. Thus the ignorance regarding mental health continues.

@RyceJuanton Oh crap.I forgot. I can't. I have to go to Philly early in the morning. Friday?
# LalaJackson

@basseyworld charge more for mental health programs than they do for physical health ones, which they've been doing for a long time
# LalaJackson

@basseyworld I know that health insurance companies are pissed b/c Obama passed a law pre: health care bill that makes it so ins. can't...

ATTENTION: If you think you need help and you can't afford it, call a hospitals Behavioral Health Unit and ask for resources for the unins.

@basseyworld unfortunately a lot of blk parents wldnt bring their children back saying that therapy wasn't what they needed.

Go to any of the major drug websites, there will be a link somewhere if you can't afford it. Hell, they say it in the ads.

@DKuzNY I love that, BD. You have to advocate for him.

@basseyworld I used to work for an organization ran by St.Vincents in NYC that was sliding fee scale and it helped so many of our ppl

@NaijaRoyale That I understand.

@Call_Me_Liz What are you talking about? 3

Also, TARGET has discounts on medication. I got my prescription filled there once because I was already there. It was $60 cheaper.

One drug was $100 and it's generic version was $30. You have to take it twice a day instead of one but um... $70 difference,.

But any medication can be expensive. Someone needs to lobby the difference between a drug and it's generic versioN???

Meds are hella expensive but a lot of companies have allotment to get them cheaper or free. Folks don't know and it's not easy.

@DKuzNY Wow. I had no idea, BD.

.@BenJAMMN17 Call your local hospital ask for the behavioural health unit and ask them for resources. I'll bet they have some.

A friend of mine that works for a pharmaceutical company told me that many companies have free programs for ppl who need it but can't afford

I had no idea. My co-pay right now? $2 I pay for meds out of pocket because I'm still working that out but there's a way.


When I was in the hospital in January, they wouldn't release me until I had an exit plan. They had a list of free or sliding scale places.
# na_you_biko

@basseyworld haven't heard that b4. if anything, there aren't enough resources available 4 pple to take advantage of. that + stigma=no help.

@museofinsanity I've known. I know when I need to take a step back but it takes nothing from me but... sleep. ;)

I'm not sure how getting help for mental health is putting people into debt. Can I see some reccords on this?

@BeyondFedUp Email me: basseyworld@gmail.com

@basseyworld & they're quick to call it anything BUT self love. they will try to shame you when you're taking care of you. i hate it

Say something.

I dare someone look down on me. Have you seen me? I'm amazing. I'm talented. I'm beautiful. I'm intelligent. AND I have bipolar II disorder.

Folks okay being labeled a ho' or a pimp or a nigga but "depressed" ooooh... stigma! Fuck outta here.

Rest your understanding on THAT. Word to @CrispCoCo's grandma

I love that when I talk about this, I get unfollowed by the same set of people. They come back when I'm cracking jokes. *blocked*

Miss me with all that. Next time I hear anyone shaming another person for this, I'm speaking up. You're about to get hella tired of me.

Folks running around with low grade mental illnesses refusing help wanting to point figures and shaming folks out of getting help. Please.

I know what and who I am. If you want to google bipolar II Disorder, I can find the link for you. I'll tell you who and what I am.

I'm not going to let ignorance. Calling me a "mad woman" or "schitzo" or "emotional" stop me from seeking or encouraging treatment.

No, muthafucka, I got mad because you did something fucked up.

I've had people excuse THEIR bad behaviour by using my mental health. "You know Bassey's bipolar right? That's why she got so mad."

@basseyworld Also, people think mentally ill means standing on the street corner talking to yourself. "being sad" isn't a warning sign

@NaijaRoyale People will go into debt for other things. There's no extra expense for mental health. It's a medical condition.

I said it yesterday: sadness is tripping off a curb. Depression is falling off a cliff.

@LoveMySkip @basseyworld so, if you're "sad" for a long time it connotes weakness, laziness instead of a potential medical condition

@basseyworld When i FINALLY told my aunt about my MDD & BP she said my "spirit isn't right & i need 2 go 2 church" i'll nvr mention it again

@LoveMySkip @basseyworld when ppl say "I'm depressed" meaning "sad", they take meaning & understanding away from clinical depression as well

So a big fuck you to anyone who has ever shamed someone who reached out for help or was brave enough to admit it. Fuck you.

@basseyworld B/c mental health = crazy, not capable, and when we admit that we have mental health issues, we get treated like we're disabled

@basseyworld When we say, "I'm depressed" or "I have anxiety" etc, it's assoc w/incompetence, handicap, insanity, dependence.

People would rather be miserable than labeled. So people die. And they will continue dying. Until something changes.

so if someone believes that, something isn't right. Why don't we talk about that? Ever.

or say something. The world doesn't end because he doesn't love me. or she's mad at me. That's the constant fight that reminder.

I know this for myself. Small things become big things very quickly. I have to remind myself that the world won't end because I forgot to do

If you try to kill yourself or kill yourself over a relationship, something is wrong. Not in the relationship, in how you process things.
Why are people so afraid to say THAT? why is it everything but that. It's symptomatic of something else.

changes NOTHING. People who are in good mental health don't kill themselves. They just don't. If they do, something is wrong.

Beauty, money, fame, fortune none of those things matter if your brain is misfiring. Saying that she's too beautiful or it's over a boy..

Why are people so afraid of discussing mental health and mental illness? I'm seriously asking.

Been back from Johannesburg for a couple of days trying to ease back into things slowly, though next week's film school orientation will likely upset my natural equilibrium. I hate coming back from vacation.

This morning I took a jog around Brooklyn Tech track a block from my apartment. As long as I didn't talk to too many folks, I could pretend that I was still on the continent surrounded by South Africans.

There was an older, stocky sista walking on the track in a black, ankle-length skirt. She wore headphones and kept raising her hands in the air and clapping as she shouted some indecipherable phrase to the heavens. Must be listening to gospel music, I thought, thanking God for another day. She was not unlike any of the women I saw at my friend's wedding ceremony, shouting and waving their hands in the air, clapping and stamping their feet rhythmically. The only real differences were language and zip code.

Crossing the 300-meter mark, I noticed that someone had cut a jagged, human-sized hole through a new chain link fence they had built last month. The fence was supposed to separate the track -- property of the prestigious Brooklyn Tech High School, down the road -- from the surrounding low-income housing buildings in Fort Greene.

Every time someone succeeded in bending back the metal, to make a way inside when the fence was locked after hours, they built a taller, stronger fence to replace the damaged one. Again, some clever young'un would rip a hole through it, so they would build another new fence. It was pointless and inevitable, but it didn't stop the powers that be from building bigger fences.

I looked up and saw a sheet hanging out of one of the project windows, like off some rooftop in the Ninth Ward. Humph. It's funny how, despite all our differences, black folks from Soweto to Brooklyn are really the same -- praying and waiting for deliverance. Trying to break free from physical, emotional, and mental ghettos while the rest of the world is hellbent on building bigger fences.

Maybe I never left Brooklyn after all. When I was in Soweto, some places reminded me of my own neighborhood. People on top of people on top of people and all black. Some places in Soweto are even becoming gentrified, so expensive that well off blacks can't afford houses there, not that that means whites are moving in.

I think things will flow to a natural order as long as folks who leave the ghetto never forget that our liberation is bound up with those still living in it. To forget that is to forget our communities and lose ourselves.