Some Gratitude Before Thanksgiving
A personal update with some gratitude for Thanksgiving.
Content warning: mild discussion of suicidal ideation
If you or a loved one is having a mental health crisis, you don’t have to deal with it alone. Help is available through resources like Blackline, Trans Lifeline, and Thriveline.
Hey y’all. It’s been a while since I lasted posted.
This is due to the fact that my mental health was in a bad place until this past Friday, when I had my most recent monthly therapy session. It was a heavy one, because I had to process seasonal depression and grief, caregiver stress, and dark thoughts that had occurred more often than I was used to (esp. post election in the U.S.).
According to Psych Central, between 1 and 10 percent of people experience seasonal depression. It can occur during fall and weather as well as summer.If you’re like me and have experienced a personal loss during the holiday season, it can not only cause seasonal depression but also make the holidays harder or impossible to celebrate.
A couple years ago, I wrote a feature for the website The Ability Toolbox featuring tips on coping with grief during the holidays. I am still learning to put these tips into practice, but I’ve been working towards making peace with the holiday season for a couple of years now.
Since Thanksgiving is coming up, I wanted to share some things that I’ve been grateful for this year.
Open Path Collective- This non-profit therapy collective is how I was finally able to start therapy this summer with my wonderful Black lady therapist. It allows you to search for and get in touch with therapists that offer virtual or in-person sessions at sliding scale rates of $40-$70 per session.
You also have to pay a one-time membership fee of $65 to support the collective and get your membership ID to show the therapist you choose so they can provide the sliding scale rates. You can search for therapists by race, and certain specialties such as age, language, and sexual orientation,and gender identity (transgender and nonbinary). If you’d rather have an LGBTQ therapist, you can also use resources like the National Queer Trans and Therapist of Color Network and search for their name in Open Path Collective.
My blood fam, the unconditionally loving & willing to learn members- Shout out to my older sister, my sister in law, and my younger cousin. I love y’all. I’m excited to go to my sister in law’s house for the third year in a row for Thanksgiving.
My QTPOC internet friends- One of them gave me money to get the video game Persona 3 Portable on sale right before Halloween, and it has been giving me so much life.
My other friend, Jasper Joyner, released their third book about a month ago. It’s called Pansy: A Black American Memoir and it is a thought-provoking & poignant coming of age memoir that interrogates Blackness, queerness, & gender identity from their childhood in Memphis, Tennessee to their coming of age in New York. Buy it here.
The Veer Union- A Canadian rock band that sounds like if William Duvall’s tenure with Alice In Chains combined with the heavy lyricism of Linkin Park. Fronted by Crispin Earl, who reminds me of the soulful vocalist Doug Pinnick of King’s X (another underrated band).
A unique feature of this band is that they often do hard rock and acoustic versions of their songs as well as cover songs on one album. I first discovered them through their acoustic cover of Linkin Park’s “Numb” (my favorite Linkin Park song). In fact, I love The Veer Union’s acoustic stuff more than their hard rock stuff, esp. since it has been relaxing me at night so I can sleep. One of my favorite acoustic songs of theirs is “Defying Gravity”.
That’s all for now y’all. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving if you’re celebrating and a wonderful rest of November if not. Take care of yourself and each other.
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