Well anyone that knows me knows I had a group called the “Mental Health Student Association” @ UTSC. I’m not going to lie, I could’ve ran that better. Problem was is that group really didn’t have any real hierarchy of power; it created a lot of room for childs’ play.
So after the collapse of this group, the members had all went their own paths. Not everyone had left on the greatest terms, but inevitably that’s how the cookie had crumbled; or in this case several cookies.
After university I still tried to keep a hold of the group an it’s initiative, but not many had felt the same need for the importance of mental health; a lot of people took advantage of the system that was in place to deal with such issues. This led me to close the group several times, as I felt it was not having the desired effect.
So after a few open and closes of the Facebook page, I rebranded the initiative under the Name “Kognitive” (the use of the “K” instead of the “C” is for added style points, because I am cool). I watched as my numbers dissolve from 100+ to 12. Not getting the desired effect here, never the less; 加油.
I wasn’t changing the world, or educating as I hoped. “Time to brain storm” I thought, how best can I do this? I am going to reiterate, society doesn’t really care about mental health; I was losing confidence in my efforts and ultimately my cause.
Along this journey, I ran into social media, media in general. I watched as Donald Trump took Obama’s place in the white house, BLM and the shootings in the US, ISIS and other terrorist groups demolish places in the EU, gender equality and feminist groups flood the internet and colleges; the list goes on. Bell Let’s Talk specials, Howie Mandel put his foot down on that audience member; hoo-yah.
Now, I find that I can advertise issues on my social media outlets, but am I actually doing something? It didn’t seem so, so I took it upon myself to go out into the streets and “educate”; just by being a good person. I found that to be far more effective than the first choice.
But what about me? I mean it’s not like I am getting paid to do this, and after I’m discarded. It’s honestly a lot of work, it’s tiring, damaging to my psyche, and the online portion gets to be mundane, it feels as if I am dealing with the same trivial problems over and over.
That’s the nature of people, not everyone is or has been exposed to the same problems or stimuli.
Andeluuu 