Quit with the Clichés: Real Help Saves Lives

“Smash the Stigma”

“It’s Okay to Not Be Okay”

“This too shall pass”

These mantras have become nothing more than clichés - overused and ineffective, assuming they were ever effective. These clichés merely providing a way for someone to verbalize their discomfort and inability to stand in a difficult place. That difficult place is dealing with someone in crisis.

According to Dr. Jorey Krawczyn Consultant for the Blue Wall Institute, “Crisis is the new normal. With that premise, then at some point in time crisis was abnormal and there were procedures, protocols, and treatment that one could apply to re-establish a normal state. Consider individuals and organizations that create a crisis and initiate it as a marketing strategy. They can start out small with health issues, vaccines, or deaths. Or on the grand scale of wars, environment, or economies. Answers and solutions are now not the norm. In reality, the bigger and more unsolvable the crisis, the better. Simply view social media for the most current unresolvable crisis and accept it as the new norm. 

This is simply what is happening here. If we continue to throw around clichés, we simply create an unresolvable crisis, and it becomes the new norm. Often, those throwing these clichés around are unable to help those in crisis seek out appropriate resources or are not trained clinically to do so. 

We have become a "check box" profession that trains to the problem instead of the solution. If we keep checking the box, we are going to keep living inside of the box. Living in the box does not provide solutions, but rather the status quo, and quite frankly, the status quo is killing us. The "stigma" surrounding issues of mental health is not what we experience as the overwhelming factor for people not getting help, rather, it is the issue of confidentiality and trust, both of which align with the 10 Fatal Factors and interpersonal relationships, which align as our leading killer. 

Sadly, these clichés have for some become some sort of feel good, fix all band aid to get those who do not know what else to do out of this uncomfortable situation. A recent social media post used “It’s Okay to not be Okay” on a notice of an officer suicide. To say I was shocked was an understatement, and to think that many are okay with this becoming the norm is even scarier. It is that difficult and uncomfortable place that we must sometimes stand in, to provide the real help to those suffering. 

Real help requires work and it is dirty and ugly. Real help requires more than a mantra. It requires getting out of the box and not settling for the status quo. 

Real help saves lives.

"We can't show you an easy way, but we can promise you a better life." ~Anonymous

If you or someone you know is in crisis,