Hey everybody, Happy Thursday!
And since it's Thursday, that means. What does it mean?
It's means that I either do an FAQ video or I do mental health in the media.
And today (drum roll) I'm doing both.
So, prepare yourselves.
Now, the first thing I will do is an FAQ question.
And I received this on my website.
For those of you who don't know, I'm all over the web.
I'm on Facebook, I'm on Tumblr, I'm on Twitter.
I have my website katimorton.com
I'm obviously on YouTube, hello!
Where else am I? I'm all over, I'm on Reddit, I'm on everything.
I post everywhere.
But when I look for FAQ questions specifically,
I look on katimorton.com under Kati's videos and FAQ,
Or I think it says Q&A for videos now,
And below my YouTube videos,
so the Monday video is where I look for questions for today,
as well as on my website.
This one comes from my website.
It says, "Hey Kati, I was just wondering if you might be able to talk sometime
about older people with mental health problems?"
Definitely.
There'll be more Monday videos to come on stuff like this.
"As a long time self harmer I feel guilty and alienated by people who think that
allowing children or younger people to see signs of self harm is wrong.
Hmm
How do adults explain it to younger people and why do you think there is so little
media coverage on adult eating disorders or self harm?"
Now, it's interesting because I get a lot of comments about this.
I get a lot of questions about older adults and people not understanding.
I actually just wrote an article, I'll let you guys know when it comes out,
for a different website, about kind of like the dark side of the internet
and things that people hear, and one of the things a lot of people hear
as self harmers is they'll go in and people say well you know you're a teenager
so you'll grow out of it.
It's a teenager thing.
What? Which is bulls**t.
It's like people with eating disorders will go to get help and they'll be like
I'm sorry you're not sick enough or you don't quite meet the criteria for our
treatment center.
What? They're trying to get help and you're telling them that they don't meet
the criteria!
Ah, so frustrating! Ugh!
But, I believe that people don't talk about it because it's a generational thing.
Back in the day, I was even just talking about this with my friend Rochio, because
I'm working on the LGBTQ workbook, don't worry, I haven't forgot.
We were talking about the differences in generations, from people who were
10 years older than me, I'm 31. People who are 5 years younger than me, and the teens
now, how different every situation is
and the fact that we're now online, hello!
That never existed before, and so therefore, people who struggled in the past
like even when I was growing up we didn't have the internet, like we didn't
have anything.
I used to play this computer game Leisure Suit Larry
and my brother would play Mist and all sorts of weird computer games,
but computers were huge and nobody had them
and there weren't many ways to talk to people,
and so if you struggled, you struggled in silence.
Especially if you were in a rural area where there wasn't any help
and no one understood,
and you didn't know what was going on because no one was talking about it.
And so I think that as we come online,
as more people are aware,
as older adults get online, and share and talk about it,
I think there will be more media coverage.
People will understand that mental illness is not a phase.
It's not a teen problem that you will grow out of.
We don't, what?
That, ugh, ignorance, I tell you.
So, the more we talk about it, the more we share,
the more people will start hearing about it,
the more it will be in media,
because just as many adults suffer as children suffer.
It doesn't discriminate.
Like I've said before, eating disorders, self harm, mental illness,
it doesn't discriminate.
You know with your religion, your race, your location in the world, your age,
your sex, it doesn't discriminate, unfortunately.
You know, it just is. It's the human condition.
Are you a human? Then you could have a mental illness.
So, that would be my answer to why do I think there's so little media coverage.
And I will talk more in the future on Monday videos about how to talk to
young people about it.
If you have children or nieces and nephews and stuff like that,
and I'll start focusing more on older adults as well.
So if you have a specific topic you'd like me to address, let me know below.
Now, media update!
Holy shmamolies!
Anybody hear about France banning ultra skinny models? Anybody? I heard about it.
And first, I was like yay, kind of, but what does this really mean?
And what are they really doing?
And are they offering more mental health help because of this,
because they're recognizing that eating disorders
are really prevalent in the modelling/ fashion industry?
The answer to that is no. They're not offering more mental health help.
However, what they are offering,
and I'll take anything I can get.
I'm just going to read you a little blurb
and if you want you can just look this up.
I'm reading from reuters.com
It says "France will ban excessively thin fashion models and expose modelling agents
and the fashion houses that hire them to possible fines and even jail,
under a new law that was passed on Friday."
Now this is last month, is when this first got passed.
"The move by France with its fashion and luxury industries
worth tens of billions of Euros, comes after a similar ban in Israel in 2013."
I didn't even hear about this one.
"While other countries like Italy, Spain rely on voluntary codes of conduct."
So they don't have any laws in place.
Now the first thing I thought when I read things like this,
so what does the law really say.
How is this really going to work?
It says, "The activity of model is banned for any reason who's BMI, their body mass
index is lower than levels proposed by health authorities
and decreed by the ministers of health and labor."
That's what the legislation itself says.
So, it's a step in the right direction.
I don't know how else I would propose that they do this.
But the one thing that I really love,
listen to this, "The measure is part of a campaign against anorexia
by President François Hollande."
I don't know if I'm saying that wrong.
Sean speaks French better than I do.
"Law makers also made it illegal to condone anorexia and said any
retouched photo that alters the bodily appearance of a model
for commercial purposes must carry a message stating that it
has been manipulated."
Now I love that, but I would rather that it was just banned completely
and if stuff like that was found out that they would be fined, horrifically fined.
Because we all know things are airbrushed and retouched.
What we actually see and what we may as little girls or little boys
try to look like or be like.
It is not real. It's like Barbie.
It's not a real thing.
You can't make that happen.
That person doesn't even look like that.
And so I wish that that stuff wouldn't come out.
Because like I was saying, I wrote an article and I'll let you know when
that comes up, about how we as a society have to change what we value and what
we glorify, because it leaves a lot of us feeling like we can't compete,
we can't keep up, we don't look that way,
we don't act that way, because it's not real.
And the more we promote it and the more it's out there, the worse it will get.
And so, anyway, I think it's kind of interesting.
And so they can get, they can be in prison for up to 6 months and fined
75 000 Euros, which is $82 000, for any agency that's allowing that to happen.
That's not only employing underweight models, but also people who are
putting out that content and kind of glorifying it
and saying this is beauty or whatever.
And so, it's a step in the right direction.
I'm always open to things changing and people putting more pressure on the
fashion houses and the modelling agencies.
Because, it's not right, it's not good,
you can't tell me that that's what all women look like.
It makes young girls and young boys feel like that's just totally difficult and
so hard to grasp and to have happen, because it's not real.
And so the more we put pressure on them to show only what is real,
the better things will get.
And so I want to hear your thoughts about it.
Do you agree, do you disagree, what do you think?
I'd encourage you to read the article or at least Google it and find some other
articles. There's like tonnes of articles about this.
Let me know what you think.
Let's start the conversation.
I will see you all on Monday with a new video.
Bye!
Oh, not bye, I had lied. I'm sorry.
Ok, so I keep forgetting, and it's my own fault,
but please translate videos!
That means even putting them in English so that the captions can come up for those
who are hearing impaired. They can read it.
I found an amazing thing on my 6 Signs of Depression video.
It has been translated I believe into 18 languages.
18! Holy s*** that's amazing!
So please get on, translate videos.
Even if it's English I don't even care whatever,
we need it to be able to put the captions up.
And I know that I've had requests from other people who are hearing impaired
or who struggle to understand English, and as quickly as I talk.
So the more we caption the better.
So every video in the description at the very bottom will have a link to Amara,
which is the program that I utilise to make that happen.
And you can use that link to go and caption the video.
And people have told me it's a great distraction tool, so if you're having a
hard time, caption this video, tada!
Ok, love you all! Bye!
Subtitles by the Amara.org community