Note to Health Series: Depression and Mental Health

By NAACP Evansville Branch Health Committee

NAACP Evansville Branch Health Committee are pleased to share a poem by Ms. Zola Johnson of Evansville.  Her work as a community leader and advocate for physical and mental well-being is known by many.  She shared her poetic gifts at May’s Mental Health Matters event, “The City We Are Becoming.” Healthcare is a human right, and mental healthcare is healthcare.  Over the past three years, NAACP Evansville Branch has worked in partnership with organizations like CAPE Minority Health, AndHowAreTheChildrenEvansville, Vanderburgh County Health Department, Greater Evansville Youth, and Black Nurses of Evansville to normalize and elevate public discourse on mental well-being.  In addition to confronting stigmas attached to mental health challenges, the Mental Health Matters team has connected diverse communities to mental health resources and support.  These resources include 

• Beacon Recovery Services (ECHO Community Healthcare) at (812)427-7489
• Southwestern Behavioral Healthcare at (812)423-7791
• Brentwood Springs at (812)858-7200
• If you or a loved one are experiencing a mental health crisis needing urgent attention, there are several resources.  
• Southwestern Behavioral Healthcare’s CRISIS line:  (812)422-1100
• Suicide Hotline:  988

Conversation with Depression

Hi Depression,

I really don’t have time for this today

You seem to consume my whole life

Taking everything away

My energy, thoughts and appetite

When you come to visit me

I never sleep good at night

Everything about me changes

It’s so hard to get out of bed

With Monsters in my head

I’m often in pilot mode

My smiles are fake

I wish people knew that I don’t feel safe

I try to tell myself that I won’t stay in this place

Not much longer anyway

These are the phases

The cycles of trauma

Identity is built on scars

It’s made of the hurt and pain we go through

Being different

There are those whose scars are light enough,

But deep enough

They walk as though unscathed

But in reality their identity is an armor of mirrors and masks

Built on the carnival of what their life could have been like without the masks

Were they not perceived as different

Identity is crafted by scars

Hurt and pain crafts different stories

Different lives

There are some whose scars are loud and brash

Smart enough

To let their pain be heard by the mass

Angry at those who refuse to listen

Grateful for the hands that guide them through the trenches

That they must walk through

Identity is defined by scars

We use our pains and hurt to cast shadow on light

And show us how we’re different but alike

There are some whose scars are granted by misfortune

Unlucky enough

To need kind souls to reach out

Pick them up, soothe and heal

Buy them the time to figure out what will help the abuse done to them

Or the abuse done to self

Identity is not our scars

Our pain and hurt does not have to make our totalities

And separate us through difference

There are some whose scars are born there

At the beginning

And there’s always something there to get use to

Because we demand they get use to us

Forgetting that they are us

While they remember there is no difference

-Zola O. Johnson

The NAACP‘s policy recommendation to the federal government clearly states:  “Guarantee that all people in the US can obtain physical, mental, and oral health care when they need it regardless of their coverage, employment, financial, or immigration status.”  We at the Evansville Branch NAACP take this statement at face value. We recognize healthcare as a human right.  We see that we fall short of that aspiration, and we will continue to promote awareness of health disparities and insist on sustained systemic change to eliminate those disparities.  

Please submit any feedback or questions you’d like to have addressed in future columns to tlstratton2009@yahoo.com.