Featured photo: Juliana Loving and Lily (in costume) were in attendance in DPC’s free mental health summit representing Pathways 2 Counseling
Written by Tanya Terry
It began with a conversation, and it became a dream-a dream for all Flint residents to be well in their minds, spirits and bodies.
Calvin Ray Martin, executive director of Destiny Power Center, experienced three people he knew committing suicide within a two week time frame.
One of the families asked him to do the eulogy, but asked him not to talk about God because they were angry thinking God would allow their son to suffer, then send him to straight to hell. Martin searched scripture and did not find any that said if a person commits suicide they will go to hell.
“There’s so much stigma in the Black and brown community, that I wanted to make sure that we destigmatize a lot of things that have been said and done,” Martin said.
This prompted Martin to produce the play “Listen to the Silence.”
For the play, which later became a film, Martin interviewed individuals who attempted suicide, families of loved ones who committed suicide.
“A lot of people that commit suicide, their name is never mentioned again. We don’t talk about that anymore. So, my job became: ‘Let’s talk about it. Let’s prevent it from happening again.”’
Martin said conversations he had regarding suicide helped him realize a conversation can save a life.
A free mental health summit recently took place at the Sylvester Broome Empowerment Village.
“All of this started from a conversation.”
Tarnesa Martin, who among many other titles, is a patient resource and community advocate for Hurley Medical Center. Having also been a nurse for 20 years, she has worked with a lot of patients with mental illness. She led a class about anxiety and self harm for the summit.
Martin told class participants there are a lot of misconceptions about self harm. For example, people tend to think of self harm as physical. However, self harm can range from burning, branding or picking the skin to binge drinking, excessive substance abuse or unsafe sex. It can even be not allowing oneself to get the proper exercise or sleep.
“It’s rejection,” Martin explained. “Sometimes we get rejected so much we start rejecting ourselves.”
Mental Health Summit event.
Martin, also an ordained minister, described how she drank water when she was sad and in Biblical times water represented the spirit. Therefore, she considered herself to be “flushing the sadness.”
She also said the first step in getting help for self harm is to tell someone you trust you are injuring yourself, and she spoke about the various types of therapy available.
Shuntai Hill, MA, L.P.C, NCC is CEO/clinical director of the largest Black owned private counseling practice in the state outside of Detroit, called Re-connect My Life, which is in Flint. She led a class at the summit on self care.
In it, she talked about how research shows women tend to think about others outside of themselves, whereas men tend to worry mostly about themselves. This can lead to physical symptoms, such as headaches and muscle tension.
“The strongest women have the most problem because everyone goes to them and they feel they have no one to go to,” Hill said.
Hill also explained part of self care is setting boundaries concerning how we allow people to treat us in our lives.
“If you start saying no, it creates conflict,” she stated. “If you keep saying no, they’ll learn…You teach people how to deal with you.”
Hill offered a free therapy session for each participant.
Linnell Jones-McKenney spoke in front of the summit attendees.
“People are hurting and often frustrated because they have not tapped into the dream-the purpose in which they came on this earth for,” Jones-McKenney said. “Therefore lose sight of their vision. This is where depression, suicidal thoughts and stressful mental disorder stems from. But whenever we can tap into our purpose for living, realize our dream, utilizing our gifts and talents and are able to live our lives on purpose, like I’ve always said, what a wonderful world this place will be.”
