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May: The Mental Health Issue
As women, we’re more likely to experience depression, anxiety, PTSD, panic attacks and eating disorders. As millennial women, we’ve witnessed an increased discourse on mental health, leading to progress in destigmatizing these experiences. Yet, mental illness continues to run rampant among women and modern mothers.
Awareness is a refreshing and much appreciated breeze, but far from the hurricane winds needed to take down systematic failures, traumas endured, genetics, racial disparities, unrealistic societal expectations and unavoidable hormonal rollercoasters embedded in our lifetimes.
In a conversation with our May Woman Who Went For It, Leslie Forde, she shared a hard but important truth when it comes to our stress levels and mental health: big system answers and policy changes aren’t coming any time soon. If we want to lead happy, healthy and fulfilling lives now — Forde says we have to look for realistic, small interventions to protect our mental health and learn how to implement them. And the conversations that we’ve seen increase must continue. Regardless of the cause, mental illness can be a deeply isolating experience — a frustrating and inescapable fight within yourself. Every honest conversation and experience bravely shared are potential lifelines.
We’ll always cover mental health in our content, but this month it’s front and center. We’re exploring lessons learned from years of anxiety, how to find a therapist and why time freedom is essential to our mental health. You can read more about Forde’s work and a quiet mental health crisis: women staying in unhappy marriages, plus a therapist share what she learned during an experience of heightened anxiety and depression. Let’s keep the conversations going.
FEATURE
Your Brain On Clutter
Studies have shown that living in cluttered environments can significantly increase levels of stress, anxiety and even depression. Professional home organizer Heather Aiello shares how to break free from the mess.
SPONSORED
Does Divorce Need a Rebranding?
Avoiding divorce at all costs can be detrimental to women's mental health and quality of life. Yet, many delay the decision with the belief it will be a never-ending, expensive, and nasty fight. Family Law Attorney Jolee Vacchi shares what can drive these fears and what she sees as the reality in her daily work.
ESSAY
The Breakdown
When the laundry machine broke down, so did my mental health.
As a licensed clinical social worker, I don’t mean to make light of mental health issues. But since some time has passed, I am able to look at my episode of heightened anxiety and depression symptoms (from which I have suffered since youth) more lightheartedly. And I think it’s important to share, so here goes.
HEALTH
A Match Made in Mental Health Heaven
To make your life a little easier, we’re exploring why it’s so hard to find a therapist, what to look for in a compatible therapist and how you know if you’ve found a match made in mental health heaven (or if it’s time to break up).
INTERVIEW • WOMEN WHO WENT FOR IT
A Hierarchy of Her Own
After reaching complete burnout in her own life as an exhausted mom with a demanding corporate job, a colleague asked Leslie Forde a simple question: why are moms so stressed out? Her response would change the course of her career and life, as well as the lives of many others.
