We didn’t talk about our mental health growing up.
Or, those weren’t the words we used to describe our emotional state. We used terminology like “being sensitive,” “nerves,” or “feeling blue.”
Sometimes, the descriptors were often less gracious than that, especially when it came to longer-term mental health challenges or conditions. We learned that big, messy feelings took up a lot of space.
It wasn’t until adulthood that many of us learned to hold space for them and find healthy coping strategies.
Those experiences inform so much of our passion for the work we do at Healthline Media. Here, we help people find the language to talk about health challenges that often go unspoken due to stigma.
We can offer an entry point to thinking and talking about our health and well-being in new ways and can help people find support to take the next step on that journey.
This Mental Health Awareness Month, we’re revamping our Mental Well-Being hub to do just that.
This carefully curated selection is designed to take you on a journey — from taking preventive actions to protect your mental health, to recognizing signs that you may need additional support, to helping you manage a diagnosed mental health condition.
At Healthline, our goal has always been to help create a stronger, healthier world through education and advocacy.
Mental health has always been a core part of that vision, but it took on even more importance after we lost our dear friend and colleague, Jake Boos, to suicide in 2018.
Our collective grief mobilized us — as an organization and a health and wellness publisher — to invest and expand our work in mental health to normalize open, vulnerable conversations about emotional well-being and to provide potentially lifesaving resources to people who might be experiencing hardship.
When Psych Central joined the Healthline Media family in 2020, we had one goal in mind: to create a space for healing. This goal redoubles our commitment to mental health and helps us honor Jake’s legacy.
We launched Psych Central amid the pandemic, racial strife, and a polarizing election. Like many of you, we were doomscrolling — inundated with all the reasons the world would never be the same.
We wanted to provide a respite from all of the uncertainty. We wanted to be a source of truth among all of the noise.
Psych Central has been around since 1995 — that’s over 25 years! The founders recognized the need for a space to validate mental illness and provide our community with trustworthy resources on their path to healing. We are honored to build on that mission.
Though mental health is a timeless topic, this work now takes on a special significance as the impacts of the ongoing pandemic, global conflicts, and injustices here at home are becoming clearer, especially for children and young adults.
In particular, we’ve seen how social media has played the precarious role of both connector and isolator during this challenging time for many young people.
This May, Psych Central and Healthline are partnering to focus on the unique mental health challenges both youth and parents are grappling with right now in our Youth in Focus initiative.
With this joint effort, we aim to shed light on those experiences and offer resources for families to take the next step — whether that’s learning how to make sense of and space for big, difficult feelings or tools to help you find support.
We’re doing that by providing resources for you, your families, and your loved ones so you can navigate your journey with trustworthy information and tips.
Some of our latest content includes:
- Reading for Youth Mental Well-Being: Personalized Book Quiz
- From Surviving to Thriving: Helping Kids Refill Their Joy Tanks After Major Change
- Anti-LGBTQ Policies Are Affecting Young People’s Health: How to Help
- U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy: How to Address the Youth Mental Health Crisis
- The Benefits of a Social Media Break, Plus 30 Things to Do Instead
Think of it as a deep dive into the important issues that are top of mind for parents, kids, and families right now.
We hope you’ll join us on Healthline, Psych Central, and our other sister sites, Medical News Today, Greatist, Bezzy, and Healthgrades, as we amplify the importance of mental health this month — and every month.
Be well,
Faye McCray, Editor in Chief, Psych Central and Erin Edge, Editor in Chief, Healthline