After detailing her own struggles with anxiety, Megan Thee Stallion has created a website offering links to resources like free therapy and therapists specialising in helping LGBTQI+ people with their mental health.
Though celebrities often maintain an image of glamour and carefree living, singer Megan Thee Stallion has always been candid with her fans about her own mental health struggles and anxiety. Rather than present to the world a mere highlight reel of her success and red carpet appearances, Megan Thee Stallion wants everyone to know that ultimately, regardless of fame, we’re all human and dealing with our own struggles. Not surprisingly, the star even sung about it in her song “Anxiety” off her latest album, in which she said she’s “a bad bitch, and [she] got bad anxiety.” Now, she’s created a website in a hope to combat just that.
The website, launched with the name Bad Bitches Have Bad Days Too, is an incredible resource for anyone who has ever struggled with their mental health. It offers numerous links to resources such as free therapy and therapists who specialise in helping Black and LGTBQI+ people, along with crisis hotlines and more.
Megan @theestallion created a website that compiles a list of diverse mental health resources and is sending it out to her fans and followers. Real hot girl shit.https://t.co/dUAnYKW0mb pic.twitter.com/b8sSO9oiba
— Shea Jordan Smith (@shea_jordan) September 25, 2022
According to a fan, Megan even sent out messages about the website to her fans herself, writing: “Hotties! You know how much mental wellness means to me, so I created a hub with resources that can help when you might need a hand. Head to http://badbitcheshavebaddaystoo.com now and check it out. Love y’all so much.”
That Megan includes amongst the mental health resources, specialists and organisations that cater specifically for groups like Black women, Black men, and LGTBQI+ people is something worth celebrating. As Araya Baker, a counsellor, educator, suicidologist, and policy analyst researcher wrote in an article for Teen Vogue in 2018, marginalised people need therapists with similar backgrounds. Baker explained, “Research on race-matching in therapy suggests that for some clients, sharing a minoritised identity with a therapist may reduce guardedness, mistrust, and self-consciousness.”
It’s a sentiment echoed by Gloria Oladipo who wrote a 2019 Teen Vogue article in which she expressed the many reasons she needs a woman-of-colour therapist, not least of which was so she didn’t have to explain certain microaggressions, or issues like that of misdiagnosis. “As racial misdiagnosis continues to be an ongoing problem, the ability to have our needs accurately assessed and treated is critical for women of colour’s mental health,” wrote Oladipo.
If one thing came to light during Covid-19-enforced lockdown, it’s that mental health is a priority. Just like we make time to go to the gym and exercise, so too must we make time to work on our mental health and continue to flex these muscles that ensure we are combatting anxiety, stress, and working on techniques to help navigate those situations in life where such feelings can occur. With an endless news cycle that can be both overwhelming and negative, along with scrolling through social media that makes it all too easy to enter into a dialogue of comparison, it’s not surprising that more and more people around the world are experiencing anxiety and depression, according to the World Health Organisation.
Resources like that created by Megan should be celebrated, just as her music. Not only does it provide help for so many, but it also encourages conversations around mental health to take place, removing the stigma surrounding anxiety and depression as these struggles come to be seen as deeply human.
If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health or anxiety, help is available. Call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or text 0477 131 114 for 24/7 support where you can access confidential one-to-one text with a trained Lifeline crisis supporter. You can also chat online or talk to a mental health professional at Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636.
Source @womenshealth.com.au: Read more at : womenalive.org
