27 Sep Music My Medicine, Yoga My Therapy #OKNotToBeOK
Mental health issues were never unusual to me. In fact, they were pretty normal and still are. When I was seven or eight my cousin attempted suicide and I walked in on her crushing pills into the bathroom carpet. I didn’t know exactly what was happening but I alerted my parents by saying she was "crushing chalk." I never saw my laid-back dad move out of that bed and into the bathroom quicker in my life.14 May My Mother, by L. Michael Gipson #OKNotToBeOK
On January 16, 2013 my mother committed suicide. She was 55 years old, just two months shy of her 56th birthday. The suicide was her second attempt in three months following an eleven-month illness that several physicians and specialists failed to correctly diagnosis until eight weeks before her more successful suicide.
While her physical illness was rare and particularly aggressive in her case, leaving her struggling with great pain in her last days, it was her mental health condition that contributed to the lack of seriousness in which my mothers’ physicians took her claims of great suffering.
You see, 13 years before her death, my mother was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, had been on disability for most of that time, and had a long, well-documented experience working on her illness with mental health professionals throughout her city. She complained of severe physical pains, demonstrating and documenting her symptoms with great specificity to each doctor, desperate to be heard, to be believed, and received in turn the kind of dismissive pats you give a child trying to get out of bedtime.
25 Apr Big K.R.I.T.: “Music has always been my therapy”
Soul Culture sits down with Mississippi rapper Big K.R.I.T for our ongoing #OKNotToBeOK mental health campaign, as he speaks on music as therapy, loneliness, depression and finally making the decision to be happy.23 Apr Wretch 32 on using music to express himself and cope with anger
"It's an amazing thing that I found music, man..." Following on from Ne-Yo's talk on the therapeutic power of music, chart-topping British rapper Wretch 32 sits down with SoulCulture and reveals how he uses music as a portal to express himself, for our #OKNotToBeOk mental health campaign.10 Dec 50 Cent penning fitness book & nutrition guide Formula 50: A 6-Week Body Transformation Plan | Health
50 Cent aka Curtis Jackson has long since had more than music on his mind. The rapper turned business mogul has announced plans to release a fitness book through publishing house Avery Brooks.
21 Dec 3 weeks on from World AIDS Day, “A Condom Is [Still] A Girl’s Best Friend”
“A condom is a girl's best friend”.
And a man's, agreed? This is the [translated] title of the French ad that has appeared on billboards in Paris since the summer 2009. It is part of the yearly renewed Aids campaign, a continual effort to raise awareness and to promote 'safe sex'. While it seems the need to entertain extends to all matters, so that even awareness about Aids must be inviting and playful, the statistics are a sober reminder that HIV is all but that.