Ginger Zee, ABC News chief meteorologist says in her experience of talking about her own journey she sees people starting to be able to say I have depression, I have anxiety, I suffer with X. She says what she thinks we need to do is get rid of the stigma of the action that we have to take. Ginger says it’s nice to have a month for mental health, but every day should be mental health day. Every single person is touched by this. If it is not themselves it is a close family member. She goes on to say she likes to think about her mental health as just as important, and put as much energy, time and money into her mental health as she does her physical health. She says if we did that we would be in such a better place, societally and then the stigma would be erased because the action of making your mind healthy would be a part of our everyday talk.
Ginger Zee suffered narcolepsy. When it was finally diagnosed it was that medication that triggered clinical depression for her. It took some time for her to accept it and get help. The combination of feeling like she just started her career and she didn’t want her boss her or co-workers to know or, think that this girl has a lot going on because absolutely there is that stigma. Whereas had she broken her leg and gone to the hospital nobody would blink an eye. She goes on to say she would love it to be the case, especially for her, and that it took ten years dipping in and out of therapists, not really committing, not really being fully transparent with those therapists until she really said I’m at my very lowest and I can’t get out of here alive; I need help. She went to the hospital and there they were able to spend time with her. She was an inpatient. When she was diagnosed properly, she was given a specialist in the type of mental health help that she needed. Ginger says she can’t tell you the prosperity, the joy and the feelings that she has felt ever since. It’s not done, just like your physical health; you don’t go to the trainer for three months and get ripped and looking good and then just stop. There is intense maintenance and hard work that goes along with keeping your mental health at a very good place and she says that’s the most important thing to remember.
Ginger Zee says how lucky was she that she had financial ability, she had support and family members around her, and she had the ability to get to that hospital. She says there are a lot of people who don’t have that or don’t have access to that, let alone the stigma. Gingers says her charge in life now, has really been about not just ending a stigma but creating an opportunity and a path so others have these places to start their healing because she realizes she is privileged in that and not everybody has access. She says that is her ultimate goal is to make that hospitalization like drugs and alcohol. If someone says she goes in for drugs and alcohol treatment people say good for them. She wants that for mental health.
