Mental Health Awareness
As Mental Health Awareness Month comes to an end; I am so happy that I was able to check out the highly rated play, For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy, by Ryan Calais Cameron. The play follows six young Black British men - Jet, Midnight, Obsidian, Onyx, Pitch, and Sable meeting for group therapy. Due to popular demand, the show was extended until 1st June 2024. It covered so many topics such as racial profiling, masculinity, sexuality, belonging, visibility, “blackness”, and many more. I laughed, cried, and cheered. As someone who started therapy during the pandemic as a new mom and someone who was burnt out; I think it is so important that we have more shows like this to highlight mental health and how it impacts the Black community specifically young men. One of the reasons I became interested in mental health is because of a loss in the family which was self-inflected. After being trained as a mental health first aider; I learned that suicide is the number one killer for men under the age of 50 in the UK. Men find it harder to talk about their feelings and depending on their cultural background; men have been raised to “power” through. That is why it is so important that we normalise that it is okay to not be okay and getting help should be celebrated. Let’s kill the toxic masculinity narrative and embrace that all of us at some point in time may face some form of challenge and it is perfectly fine to express ourselves and get help. I highly recommend the play so please check it out.
