Thread by @VABVOX

May is #MentalHealrhAwarenessMonth and one of the MH issues we never discuss in the US is #grief. It sent me to the hospital two weeks ago. I wrote about that and more here, and got some experts to explain the impact.

Grief: A Mental Health Crisis epgn.com/2023/05/25/gri…

A trauma explained how #grief is impacted by social norms: men are expected to hide/control their feelings. This makes #grief even more dangerous. Men who lose a spouse are more likely to choose suicide. #Grief also leads men to substance abuse.
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epgn.com/2023/05/25/gri…

Women are more likely to experience heart-related problems like I did: #grief has physical ramifications, as one expert said. The pandemic made many of us party to collective grief: as a society we suddenly lost over 1M people we never even mourned.
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epgn.com/2023/05/25/gri…

For historically marginalized communities like LGBTQ and Black people, discrimination adds #grief,as several people I spoke with explored with me. Writer @scottynola spoke about the recent loss of a parent and how it opened him up to waves of grief.
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epgn.com/2023/05/25/gri…

One mental health expert explained that #grief is isolating and made more so for people in marginal communities impacted by racism, homophobia and transphobia, all of which exacerbate grieving
and make seeking help for #grief harder to access.
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epgn.com/2023/05/25/gri…

One woman mourning the loss of her wife of 26 years told me she had to constantly explain her spouse was another woman, an extra burden straight spouses don't experience, but one which, experts told me, further marginalized the grieving spouse.
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epgn.com/2023/05/25/gri…

One Black woman said losing a friend to violence had reshaped her perspective over two decades since that loss, and how she felt under threat in society. Her grief, she said, was overwhelming in that she felt similar losses deeply, even when she didn't know the victims.
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I hope people will read and RT/QT this story as although I focused in part on LGBTQ people, most of us are dealing with loss and #grief of a loved one, yet haven't addressed that loss or have been told #grief has a timeline. The experts I spoke with had a lot of insights.
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