Thread by @healingwhileblk

I’d would love for us to center rest for Black people and put material resources toward Black mental health this #MartinLutherKingDay

Inspired by @kearathe_advocate

TW: Mentions of suicide

Despite efforts to paint the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in a saint-like light, He was indeed a human being and also susceptible to mental health struggles….

Dr. Nassir Ghaemi, in his book “A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness” revealed Dr. King attempted suicide twice before the age of thirteen.

Andrew Young, in Peter Kunhardt’s documentary ‘King In The Wilderness’, said doctors urged Dr. King to seek psychiatric care due to ongoing bouts of severe depression. However, his team knew the FBI would assuredly gain access to whatever he shared in order to discredit him.

In 2022, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association declared a national emergency for child and adolescent mental health….

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report shows that beginning April through October 2020, emergency mental health visits for those ages 12-17 increased by 31%.

The rate of suicide for Black children under 13 is twice that for white children. (JAMA Pediatrics)

King mentions: ‘What I have been doing is giving, giving, giving, and not stopping to retreat and meditate like I should—to come back. If the situation is not changed, I will be a physical and psychological wreck…I have been too long in the crowd, too long in the forest.” (JET)

Those remarks were from 1959 when he stepped down as President of the Montgomery Improvement Association. He was only 30. He early in his organizing career and was already depleted. He went on for another decade knowing the tolls it would take on his spirit.

Taylor Branch, author and historian who wrote a number of books on Dr. King and the CRM, noted his autopsy revealed his heart was in the condition of a 60-year-old man rather than that of a 39-year-old.

This ties directly into the comorbidity conversation @Imani_Barbarin & @JMaseIII highlighted. An overwhelming amount of Black people in this country live with three or more comorbidities (hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, etc.)

I’m not sure how long Dr. King would have lived if he wasn’t murdered.

I do know the chronic stress (read: state sanctioned anti-Black racism) he was under took years off his life.

To wrap up here: Dr. King’s words don’t guide me toward an idea of color-blindness which is used to maintain a false idea of equality and justice…

If anything, it’s an urgent message to rest and take care of my mental because it’s attacked at every turn.

It’s a reminder poverty is not a personal failing but a reminder of a country’s deliberate decision to prioritize militarism and capitalism over people….

It’s an urging for Black people to rest. sit down. lay down. quit. resign from the job that’s draining and racist. don’t take all those credits…

Leave some of those boards and committees. outsource if possible. ask people to help. don’t do this diversity 101 work for free. take the mental health day. take the sick day. use the pto. use all of it. unplug. set boundaries. take the time to realign when needed.

spend time with your loved ones. meditate. find supports and outlets. go to therapy if you can.

This #MartinLutherKingDay I’m choosing rest and I don’t want to hear any whitewashed quotes suggesting I should do otherwise. Good day.