I’m glad that when I have kids and they get older, I’ll show them the video of George Floyd’s murder, and I can end with saying the cop went to jail and the Floyd family got justice. Because growing up, the stories we hear NEVER end like that, and seeing so many murderers walk free while the childless mothers cry on TV is demoralizing to a kid (and his parents). So, there was a victory today. There’s no alternative way to emphasize that Benjamin Crump is a cold-blooded killer in the court room. This man has won over 200 court cases relating to police brutality. When you have a case of police brutality getting attention on a national scale, Benjamin Crump is on that. He’s represented George Floyd, Jacob Blake, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Michael Brown, and Trayvon Martin. He also will be representing the family of Daunte Wright who just got shot “on accident” on April 11th. I’m glad he applied that pressure, and I hope he keeps his foot on the gas and gets justice for Daunte’s family too.
I’m a believer in celebrating victories in social justice when they happen no matter how small they seem, because so many have died before us, fighting for our rights to be here. Most of the time when people dedicate their life to change, they only see a small piece of it if any at all, and I never want to take away from that. When I checked my phone today after work and saw the verdict I felt relieved. I didn’t even realize it had even been weighing on me and I even felt my throat sort of knot up. But what started as relief and a joyous moment quickly turned to a sort of irritation that I was having a hard time identifying. Why am I pissed? Am I being a contrarian? Am I looking for things to be angry about? I realized that what happened in that moment is I was pissed that it was so damn difficult (and rare) to prove murders of unarmed Black and brown people even when it’s caught on camera. So much so, that on a rare occasion it does happen we parade the streets and literally cry tears of joy. I cry those same tears, and if there was a parade in the streets of Redding I’d be out there for sure, but I’m tired of being tired. I mean the Daunte Wright trial is set to start in a few weeks 10 miles up the road from where Derrick Chauvin was found guilty today, so there is still so much work to be done. I hope that everyone who felt moved by the video of George Floyd’s murder or the trial following stays moved. I hope people who don’t look like me stay invested and learn about the plight of the contemporary Black American. I hope this guilty verdict sparks some legitimate policy changes and police reform. I hope our generation can be turning point in history where there was some real social change. I’ll end with something I read today that says, “While you’re worried about bad apples we’re worried about the roots, because no healthy tree naturally bears strange fruits” Deontrey
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One of the things being brought up often in current politics is “cancel culture”. For those who have been living under a rock and don’t know, cancel culture is when a celebrity or someone with a high status does or says something offensive to a specific group of people, and the reaction from the public is so negative that it forces an organization or institution to act against that individual, which usually results in them losing whatever position they had. We saw examples of this when Kevin Hart was not allowed to host the 2018 Oscars after a series of homophobic tweets years earlier, we saw it with Miles Leonard was released from the Miami Heat about 3 weeks ago after he said an anti-sematic slur playing video games, and the most current example is Piers Morgan who walked off Good Morning Britain, and eventually ended up resigning due to people feeling his constant accusations and criticisms of Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle were embedded in racism. These things happen all the time. Some people felt Kevin Hart was treated unfairly, while others believed after the things he said should ban him from hosting ever again. Piers Morgan has said that he and Sharon Osbourne (who also lost her job at CBS for defending Morgan) are being silenced, discriminated, and treated unfairly due to having a difference in opinion. So, I genuinely sit back and think, where is the line between holding people responsible for their words and actions, and allowing people to have freedom of speech and an opinion?
This question is very debatable, and your personal answer derives from a combination of your philosophy on life, how you view personal relationships, and how you define free speech. Justin LaBoy is a podcast host and motivational speaker who recently appeared on The Breakfast Club, and he said something that resonated with me. He basically said he no matter what you think or believe there is always a “respectfully authentic” way to portray and communicate it. You can disagree, have questions, and have opinions on any and everything, however, more people are focused on not “being afraid of” and “standing up to” cancel culture, instead of just taking more time to consider how their words can affect other people. I feel bad for people who lose their job or opportunities, but there must be some way to learn and hold people accountable. When pulling up Kevin Hart’s tweets, a lot of people (myself included) felt inclined to give him slack because it was a long time ago and he’s a comedian. However, people who are part of the LGBTQ community, and grew up living a legitimate struggle of having to hide and conceal who they are or face abuse from their parents probably don’t find those jokes as funny. I can’t say for sure, but maybe if Kevin would have acknowledged that struggle, he probably would have still been able to host. Piers Morgan probably doesn’t legitimately believe that one race is more superior to the other. He doesn’t seem like a racist. He seems like a man extremely loyal to the Royal Family, very outspoken, and very emotional. He can say that he sides with the Royal Family, and that he doesn’t believe Meghan Markle, but he went out of his way day in and day out to discredit and disrespect her instead of acknowledging for a moment that whether anything discriminatory or not happened, Meghan Markle felt the way she did for a reason even if he himself doesn’t understand it. And if Piers Morgan wants the freedom to continue parading himself like a lummox on national TV to the point where he loses his job, then CBS has the freedom to fire him. If Kevin Hart doesn’t want to simply apologize and acknowledge the struggle of a community of people that he offended that’s ok, but the Oscars have the freedom to remove him as their host. There are hundreds of cases of people getting cancelled and most are circumstantial, so you cannot have a set of ruled and apply it to every individual case. It’s such a popular opinion people have saying how we’re “too sensitive” now a days and people “can’t take a joke”. If that’s your thought so be it, there’s nothing I’m going to write to change your mind. To me, it seems like “cancel culture” has become an issue of politics and ego stroking, when it can be resolved by educating yourself on how to not be an idiot who offends people, and treating other people with a mutual respect. Nobody should feel silenced or attacked because of their opinion, but they should be held responsible for their hateful and offensive speech. I’m curious for other thoughts so DM me on socials or reply to this blog and let’s discuss. Thanks for reading, Deontrey I’ve been taking sporadic breaks from social media since about 2016. I can usually tell when I’ve been on it too much because my fingers will unlock my phone, slide, and click on IG or Twitter without even the slightest amount of conscious thought. This year I hopped off socials in July when the state of the world, and more specifically the state of politics, was pandemonium. I was tired of seeing hateful uneducated opinions, and it was starting to change the way I felt mentally daily. I could barely sit at my laptop and write because I was angry and my thoughts were all over the place. I didn’t want to contribute to all the useless noise, and I felt anything I would write would become drowned out. So, I stopped writing and posting to this blog until I didn't feel so attached and emotionally invested in what I was writing and posting.
I deleted all social media and prioritized my mental health the only way I know how. Of course, staying in the gym and eating right but that’s a given at this point, and devouring books as fast as they can be delivered to my door. I felt (and still feel) like there’s so much knowledge to be obtained and I have such a short period of time left on Earth. I was letting a global pandemic and an election year distract me from my goal, which is to focus on revolutionizing myself and never stop learning. I’ve read consistently for the last 5 years, but these last seven months I was reading like I was getting paid for it. I read about revolutionists, healthcare, gang violence, drugs, quantum physics, the stock market, and the cosmos. I read about socialism, business ideas, cancer, medicine, poverty, spirituality, and meditation. I read books written by preachers, psychologists, hillbillies, doctors, scientists, Roman emperors, CEO’s, Republican’s, and Democrats. I was looking frantically for answers to endless questions. If reading so much material over a wide range of subjects taught me anything it’s that I have so much more to learn, and so much room to grow. I can a better student, son, brother, friend, partner, colleague, employee, Christian, and man overall. The last 7 months allowed me to regroup and focus on that. The Japanese have a word that represents a philosophy to live by. There is no exact English meaning for it, but it roughly translates to, “the endless pursuit of perfection in your craft, knowing that ultimately you’ll never achieve it”. This is called Shokunin. I’ll never know everything or be this perfect person, but every day I can learn something and commit to being the best person I can be. I look forward to getting back to writing, reconnecting with people, and helping each other grow. Deontrey Anyone close to me probably knew this blog was coming, and that could be a good or bad thing. Everyone has something to say right now no matter who they are or what they know, and social media is a war zone that I had to take a brief step away from. In a way it’s a good thing, because it’s important to know what members of your community think, and how they’re portraying themselves to the world. As a 22-year-old psychology major, I still to this day can barely fathom the fact that people can view the world so completely opposite of one another. Of course, this seems obvious from a surface level, but I literally have felt like I’m in the twilight zone for the past two weeks. It all sort of hits at once. Are we seeing the same events? Like are we really seeing the same events? We are? Then how do we think THIS differently? I literally can’t get this out of my mind. I remember so clearly Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the national anthem to peacefully protest POLICE BRUTALITY. What happened? He was met with a fierce and hateful resistance that ended up costing him his career. He was a cry baby, he was disrespectful to veterans, he was stupid. For years and even to this day people say, “What is he protesting?!” “How would he know what it’s like to be oppressed?” “There are other ways to protest!”. Now for the past two weeks, I’m seeing those exact same people get on their social media platforms and post memorials for George Floyd like they feel bad this time, followed by, “Oh but you lost my support with the rioting”. What do you think Colin Kaepernick was protesting? Why do you hate when we protest peacefully? Why do you hate when we protest with the same violence with which we’re met? Why do you only disagree with protests without offering any solutions? I’m confused. Do these people refuse to acknowledge their hypocrisy? Or are they merely utilizing their privilege to ignore it? About five weeks ago, in Michigan, a group of people stormed the governor’s mansion heavily armed with automatic weapons to protest ending the COVID lockdown. It’s their right to have weapons, but there were physical altercations with the police as well. Is that peaceful? According to our president those people were good Americans, they were just “protesting” for their freedom and the economy trying to go back to work. Whereas the people in Minneapolis are thugs who are rioting. Keep in mind this is strategic, because anyone who is paying attention knows there are three separate groups in the streets right now, and bunching them all together allows us to take focus away from the bigger issue. The three groups are: 1. BLM and peaceful people trying to unify and march in huge numbers to protest and have their voices heard. 2. ANTIFA. Which is a far-left, violent, malicious organization used to oppose the alt-right with no association to BLM or any black liberation group. 3. Random criminals and/or civilians that are bored because they have been irrationally confined to their house for the last three months, so they chant “Black Lives Matter” and senselessly destroy. ANFTIFA, people of all colors, and believe it or not police have all been caught on video destroying property in major cities. I’m not saying there aren’t black people out there upset with the death of George Floyd that chose to handle it by going out and looting, because I’m sure that is happening as well. But to label everyone as one single group reacting to the death or George Floyd, and thinking a group of black people act on behalf of the whole race is incredibly imbecilic. To make it worse now everyone and their mother wants to start saying “This isn’t how MLK would have protested!”. First off, keep in mind most American’s knowledge of Martin Luther King doesn’t go past his most famous speech. They don’t know about the weeks of screening and training people had to complete before they were able to participate in one of Dr. King’s sit-ins. They don’t realize the violence he and thousands of people endured at the hands of police during their anything-but-peaceful protests. They just want to conveniently show his picture and say to be peaceful. Second, you may be right, but you know who protested more like MLK? Colin Kaepernick. Third, if you listen to your oppressor about how to protest, then it’s not really a protest is it? To be clear, I do believe there are more effective, efficient, nonviolent means to liberation that do resemble more of Dr. King’s methods. But he even said, “Riots are the voice of the unheard […] large segments of white society are more concerned with the status quo than about justice and humanity”. You cannot only tell people how not to protest without offering a solution, especially when they’re disproportionately being killed in the street by those apparently meant to protect them. People love MLK now, I mean America thinks the man single handedly ended racism, but he was considered the most dangerous man in America when he was alive. His life was in danger constantly, because “good Americans” thought he was doing too much trying to change their common way of life, and for that they assassinated him. MLK played a very big role in the Civil Rights movement, but the Civil Rights movement didn’t even come close to ending racism. Angela Davis put it best at an interview in Brussels when she said, “The Civil Rights Movement was very successful in what it achieved: the legal eradication of racism and the dismantling of the apparatus of segregation. […] The problem is that it is often assumed that the eradication of the apparatus is equivalent to the abolition of racism”. Racism is entrenched in the roots of our institutions, so unfortunately the cold-blooded murder of George Floyd in police custody on May 25th was not the last. For change to begin there is a grave need for informing the untaught, and a grave need for unified action that goes past the conviction of Derek Chauvin and the other four former officers.
Deontrey While I have a passion to get into activism, this blog is intended to be much more than that. However, when I see things daily that affect the progress of liberation I feel pulled to write my thoughts out. In my last post, I mentioned white moderates and their obligation to speak up, but that’s not a profound idea. Those who came decades before me have been preaching that. There’s a movement going on today that is growing tremendously in popularity. I’ve heard it called a bunch of different things, but I specifically heard political analyst Candace Owens refer to it as the Silent Majority (connected with TurningPointUSA). When someone mentions this silent majority, they are insinuating there is a large group of black Americans who have been misinformed and are curious about “the other side” of politics. They're curious about more information, because liberals have been poisoning their brain too long and they need to get “off the plantation” (real quote from them lol). People like Candace Owens, Ben Carson, Diamond and Silk and David Clarke have been the face of black conservatism in recent years. They played a huge role in this movement, and from them stem very popular up and coming pubic figures. Now, when a name like Candace Owens is mentioned, black people who are NOT part of that "Silent Majority" are vicious. In fact, everyone mentioned above has been critiqued tremendously by black America. They lose their black card (whatever that means) or they’re seen as stupid, brainwashed, or Uncle Toms. I call this hypocrisy. To assume that those people don’t have enough brains or intelligence to think for themselves is in fact insulting to black people in general. Candace Owens is very bright, she simply views the world differently, and has different methods for achieving her goals. One’s political party doesn’t define them regardless of their race, and once you insult someone based on that fact nothing follows but counter productivity. It’s important to not insult these people’s intelligence or question their “blackness”, because our goal is progress. Those who came before us fought for our rights to vote for whatever political party WE think represents US. That doesn’t have to be the same party for everyone.
Now, the problem here isn’t what people think. It isn’t with black conservatism, their views, or the people specifically. The problem I feel is something deeper. To the Silent Majority, Trump is the best president to ever live, and whatever your views are people are entitled to that opinion. To be on the Trump train and have any type of influence, one needs to adopt the pro-military, pro-police, pro-life, anti-immigration, anti-democrat, anti-Obama train that comes with that. All of those are conversations are for another day, and again, if that’s someone’s views then so be it. What people fail to realize and what is painfully evident, is that there is nothing more valuable to the Trump administration and the conservative movement than black and Latino faces. We’ve seen this evidence in pictures of Trump eating a taco salad with the caption “I love Hispanics”. Because of this need there are incredible job opportunities for people of color who are willing to support his views and play that role. They get paid great money to say that racism is done with, white privilege is fake, and the issues lie solely within the black community. I see these black people get in front of a screen, and argue surface level issues to try and debunk black people’s anger. For example, a man named Brandon Tatum is a conservative ex-police officer and YouTuber with 224 thousand followers on Instagram. He recently made a video (I’ll put the link below), justifying the actions of the men who killed Ahmaud Arbery, because they were technically within their rights according to Georgia law. It got 1.1 million views on YouTube. Now Brandon Tatum is an ex-police officer as I said, and a very strong minded conservative which he has made evident by his pro-Trump Instagram page. I suggest you watch the video, but to summarize, video footage does show a man that looks like Ahmaud attempting to enter a house under construction from two entrances, and there was a 911 call made shortly after that claimed there was a man breaking and entering which is a felony in Georgia. Also in Georgia, when someone commits a felony, as a citizen you are fully within your rights to pursue them and make a citizen’s arrest; AND as an open carry state you’re allowed to pursue them armed. Therefore, Gregory and Travis McMichael have a very strong case to get off with nothing more than manslaughter as opposed to 1st or 2nd degree murder. If you have been paying attention to anything going on the past century, you’ll learn that those who murder black people on camera usually get acquitted because they’re in their rights. Laws like “Stand Your Ground” in Florida that killed Trayvon, and continue to take plenty of black lives annually. First, Georgia laws have been in place since the Reconstruction Era so it’s highly unlikely their main objective is justice. Second, Ahmaud didn’t steal anything, we don’t even know if he was robbing the house as opposed to looking at new houses being built in his neighborhood, especially since he had nothing stolen on him. So the fact he committed a "felony" is based on assumption. Third, regardless of the law, there was no reason for a young man to lose his life in this situation because two people wanted to play hero. Now I don’t bring all of this up to argue a point, I bring it up to shed light on the potentially dangerous information being put out there. Brandon Tatum assumes black people aren’t smart enough to think for themselves. He thinks we look on the news and react how CNN and other media outlets tell us to. When in fact, the issue has always been deeper than each individual case. George Zimmerman, Darren Wilson, and Timothy Loehmann are all perfect examples of people who were apparently following the law, well within their rights when they took young lives. It’s the system itself, that has been created in an era of racism and been upheld ever since. It’s detrimental to the cause for people of color to get up and mislead people, discrediting their anger, because it gives other people the ability to downplay that anger as well because “look what this guy said and he’s black, if he’s ok with it why aren’t you?”. I feel the need to point out that there was something called a Silent Majority back in the 1980’s with similar beliefs and intentions that helped get Richard Nixon and Ronald Regan elected, and that didn’t turn out to well for black Americans. I also feel the arguments used to amplify Trump’s relationship with minorities are often taken out of context as well. But we’ll save those discussions for another day. For the record, I don’t think any political party has the interests of black America on their mind, so I don’t have loyalty to either. Angela Davis said we need a new, anti-racist, feminist, working class party, and I've come to accept that as well. I don’t want to downplay black conservatism, because I do think it’s currently a vital aspect of contemporary American politics. We need different views, opinions, and voices, but we need them to be rooted in good intentions. We need them to be pragmatic, not put out there for political gain, career gain, supporting your biases, or clout. I encourage you to refrain from questioning the “blackness” of others or pulling the Uncle Tom card based on someone’s political views, because it’s divisive, ignorant, and hypocritical. I also encourage you to not think a single black voice validates every once else’s feelings, or allows you to tell them how to feel. We must keep the real issues at hand, and focus on the actions that will bring effective change. Not get caught up with the surface level issues directly in front of us. From me to you, Deontrey Link to Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjCzJyFKoqo After witnessing the cold-blooded murder of Ahmaud Arbery, I think it’s necessary for those of us who truly care to understand a couple things. First for those who pay attention, you know these things happen every single day. Most of these cases either are not caught on camera, or they don’t go viral enough to draw enough attention. Also, it’s important to know that this happened more than two months ago, and the police department in Brunswick, Georgia have put a tremendous effort into covering their tracks until now. The video that surfaced of Ahmaud being murdered took place at about 1 in the afternoon on a Sunday. We saw Ahmaud jogging in the street before being confronted by the vehicle with Gregory and Travis McMichael inside. Around 6 o’clock that evening when police arrived at Ahmaud’s mother’s door, a woman named Wanda Cooper, they told her he had be killed in an attempted home burglary and was shot by the homeowners. After speaking to the suspects, the case had to be transferred away from Glen County over to the next because of a conflict of interest; Gregory McMichael had been a former police officer in the county and worked in the DA office for close to 30 years. After Ahmaud’s funeral, when Wanda Cooper tried to get information from the other county, they told her that there was nothing they could do until Glen County officers gathered more information on their end. All they could tell her was that her son was dead from being shot twice in the chest. So this strange situation was being left in the hands of those accountable, and there was no way for her to get any answers. Sadly, this is a typical experience for plenty of black mothers all around the nation. Your son does something normal every single day and the whole neighborhood knows him and greets him daily, but because of someone else’s irrational fear added to the lack of accountability for those with less melanin in their skin, you are forced to accept the fact that you’ll never see him again. I refrained from writing a post about “How We Got Here” because it would take up 20 pages and my whole day. I also wanted to write about the lack of “leadership” and organization in the black community, and I will, I’m going to save that post for another day. The point I want to make in this article is, everyone who is reading this right now must take some personal accountability for what happened to Ahmaud.
In his book, Why We Can’t Wait, Martin Luther King said the biggest risk to equality and liberation for people of color is not the white extremist, but the white moderate. Every video of police terrorism that surfaces there are people that say, “Comply with police it’s not that hard”, “We don’t know the whole story”, or “You can’t group all cops together because of this”. While all those things may be true white moderates, almost more than anyone, have the power to show what is and isn’t acceptable in this country. There are arguments and debates about unarmed children being murdered on video by police and whether it’s justifiable. That has opened the door, or rather kept the door open, for two non-officers to do the same thing. I have friends who are white who I consider to be very good people, if I needed the shirt off their back they would give it to me. However, open that Pandora’s box of police terrorism, brutality, or black liberation and they don’t want any parts. White moderates must use their voice and their privilege for the betterment of ALL people. On the other side, while it may not be popular to say, being white in a contemporary society built on political correctness can be difficult to navigate, and I acknowledge the hardships that come with that fully and whole heartedly. It's easier just to stay out of it and not get involved. However, if you have black friends and enjoy black culture, you cannot only be there when it’s convenient for you. There were thousands of brave black men, women, and children marching and sitting in in Birmingham and across the country for their rights; and they had brave white people alongside them, putting their reputation, careers, and even lives on the line for the human rights of everyone. The rest of us, extremists aside, need to begin taking action that goes further than twitter rants and blog posts. Jackie Johnson is the district attorney of Brunswick, Georgia. At 912-554-7200 you can call her office phone and demand further investigation into Ahmaud’s case. Activist Shaun King can be reached at 770-800-0689 and he will direct your call to a series of offices and walk you through steps. You can also sign a petition to arrest the two men who murdered Ahmaud at RunWithMaud.com. I encourage you to continue to learn and grow. Think about what matters to you and what’s worth your time and attention. Also, stay close to your loved ones, because you don’t know what tomorrow will bring. Please send prayers to my lovely cousin Ravien and her family. Alex if you’re reading this head up and stay strong. Luke 12:22-26 Deontrey I always feel the need to emphasize my lack of expertise, because I loathe when people pretend to be experts in things they lack the credentials for. I’m not a psychiatrist yet, I don't pretend to be, I just speak from my own experience. I’ve been working in a psychiatric hospital in Dallas for about 7 months now as a mental health technician. Entry level psychology job. Basically, bedside patient care. We take patients to meals, get them snacks, water, and toiletries, and conduct group sessions. In the most extreme situations, a “Code 10”, we physically restrain patients due to psychological emergencies. Patients are constantly being admitting, being discharged, and being readmitted. So, you get used to seeing familiar faces, and walking into work on any given day you really aren’t too sure what to expect. This isn’t ideal for most people, which is why psychiatric hospitals have some of the highest employee turnover rates in healthcare at 26.5%. The job isn’t easy; patients will target you, yell at you, insult you, and physically assault you. Like I said, this isn’t ideal, but aspiring for a career in psychiatry and counseling I look at this as training for the future. To be able to effectively help others heal, you must have spent time around psychiatric patients, so you can better understand them. These are normal people just like anyone else, more than likely at their lowest in life. I look at it like we’re one decision or event away from being in their exact position. I’ve seen psychiatrists walking through the unit looking scared. They can barely interact with psychotic patients let alone patients reacting to internal stimuli (hearing voices). They get too squirmy and uncomfortable. People can sense that, and it has an incredibly negative impact on their ability to counsel effectively.
Many people often enter their chosen career paths in life with good intentions: teachers, nurses, doctors, police officers, etc. They enter their field to make a difference and to help people, but as the job starts to become stressful and repetitive they lose, or forget, their calling. I’ve seen people become desensitized to horrible things that happen, to the point where they can blow them off as insignificant. People do this to cope and protect their vulnerabilities, and to a certain extent it’s useful. However, psych isn’t like other professions, and by desensitizing yourself you lose that ability to truly empathize with a someone you may be able to help. I’ve been told, “You get used to people telling you crazy stuff, it’s not as bad it gets better”. No, it’s still just as bad every single time. I never wanted to lose that. I didn’t want people’s misery and hopelessness become normal. This thinking led me to the conclusion that the most important aspect of a job in psych is listening. There’s absolutely nothing of more value you can offer anyone, especially a patient in a psychiatric facility, than your undivided time and attention. Giving this and displaying it properly, is the only way I can begin to even try to understand them and empathize with them. Even if it’s something I’ll never be able to understand, like being trapped in a violent relationship or losing a child as a mother, I need to fully take time and process it and try my best. 8-16-hour shifts multiple times a week listening to other people’s problems and tragedy can become exhausting and depressing, like a partner that won’t stop complaining. You feel your mood coming down, and you begin to get tired or irritated yourself. So, employees begin to protect themselves. After a while we feel like we’ve heard every story, every situation, every tragedy, which diminishes the experience of the person in front of us. We lose the chance to make any sort of impact in the only moment we have control over. This is a huge problem because what people fail to realize is checking into a behavioral hospital or psychiatric facility is more often the LAST option a person takes as opposed to the first. By the time employees in a facility encounter a person, that person probably made multitudinous cries for help to the people around them with little to no avail. They’re feeling like if anyone in the world is supposed to care it should be the employees in a facility, otherwise why would they be there? As workers in psych and healthcare, our job to fully and actively display that we care, regardless of what’s going on in our lives outside of work. A patient doesn’t care if I’m tired, if I’m stressed from school, or if I’m irritable that day. If they do care, it really has nothing to do with them, so it should have zero effect on the quality of care they receive. It takes a tremendous amount of energy to transfer positive energy and love to other people. Tony Robbins says when he’s done giving his 2-hour motivation speeches on stage at his seminars in front of thousands of people he immediately passes out from exhaustion. It makes sense. Keeping my mind and heart open to others has become a practice for me, because I don’t think it’s how I am naturally. I love people, just tend to be more reserved and quiet, and let people come up with their own assumptions and perceptions without always trying to over explain myself. I like walking into class, the grocery store, or the gym without having to say a single word to anyone. In psych, I must take a different approach, and in fact ensure the patient that we aren’t misunderstanding each other, because social cues you can normally ignore can turn into big problems. It takes a fully conscious effort for me, but I’ve come to love and appreciate it. Again, I encourage you to pay attention to the people you care about. Be fully present when you’re with them, ask them how they’re doing, and listen to them when they speak. I also encourage you to bring awareness to yourself always. Put yourself first, because you are no help to anyone else if you’re broken. If you or someone you know is struggling with their mental health to the point they need medical help, there’s hotlines and resources in the “Mental Health” section of the website. From me to you, Deontrey Happy Easter! I hope you’re staying safe and blessed during these unfortunate times, and still finding ways to be around people you love. I haven’t posted anything in about a month because I felt that during these difficult times, anything I had to say isn’t particularly relevant. People are putting their lives on the line and losing loved ones across the country, and I think the quarantine has had some negative side effects on all of us. However, I wanted to share my experience from this 52 hour fast I did from 6:30 am Good Friday to about 11 am this morning. People can fast for different reasons, like interment fasting for their health or a hunger strike like Gandhi. The fast I took part in was a spiritual discipline with some members of my church, and the point was to fast from things that usually distract you. Some of us did television, others did sugar, me and a small group of us chose to fast from food completely for the weekend. Now, for those who believers, Matthew 6:16-18 basically says when you’re fasting don’t talk about it. Don’t brag about it, and walk around looking tired and hungry so when people ask you what’s wrong you can tell them you’re fasting. That defeats the purpose, a spiritual discipline should be between you and your higher power. The purpose of this isn’t to boast about anything good I’ve done. People have done much more “impressive” fasts or disciplines. I just wanted to take you through the two days and share my experience with those of you who cared or who may want to try a fast of your own one day.
My pastor set up a zoom meeting for 7 am on Good Friday to give a quick word of encouragement and bless the fast. I got up around 6:30, and ate a string cheese and an orange before the service. I decided that during my fast I would refrain from TV, start and finish a book, read the whole book of Job, and sit (meditate) an hour a day at least. After the service, I stretched and started my book. I read for about the next four hours at a park by my house, and would take walks for little breaks when my eyes would start to strain. The most common side effect of no food is irritability, and I felt it fiercely most of the first day. I read about a total of 7 hours, walked for about 2 hours, and took about a 3-hour nap to pass time. The rest of the evening was reading Job, stretching, and meditating. I woke up about 5:30 on day two, and I felt extremely weak. My stomach was throbbing and the blankets felt heavy. The pain is what we fast for, the pain makes us focus, the pain brings us closer to God. So, I woke up grateful, and dropped straight to my knees in prayer. My schedule was the same. I did some assignments I had for about 2 hours and then finished my book in the next 5 hours. I felt weak throughout the day, but I started rolling. The pain wasn’t as intense, and everything seemed to be moving slow. I started to notice EVERYTHING. Every single detail about my environment I noticed. I noticed when the AC cut on and off, I noticed my broken smoke alarm that’s been broken for so long I usually don’t hear it beep anymore, I heard every car pass by outside, and every ball bounce. When my roommates would prepare food, I could smell it lingering in the air for the next 3 hours it felt like. Outside I felt which direction the breeze was coming from and when it switched, and I noticed how the sun moved in between the spaces of the clouds. It was a small realization that sometimes I move too fast. These are things around me every single day, but today I found them mesmerizing. That night I was extremely tempted to stop the fast. While my experience was good, I was still super hungry and bored to say the least. I hadn’t finished Job, but I felt like I did enough. I was looking for a valid reason to quit so I called my girl for her support. I hit her with, “You think it’s bad if I eat something tonight”. She asked, “Are you sick?” “No” “Well then you probably shouldn’t eat”. I took a hot shower for about 30 minutes, and it felt so good I probably could have slept in there. I laid in bed for about 4 hours before I finally fell asleep for 4 hours. I woke up around 5 am this morning feeling extremely weak, but happy that I would be able to eat in a couple of hours. I said my morning prayers and finished the rest of Job in about an hour and a half. At 8:30 I was to go to my pastor’s house while he had service over zoom, and then he would cook breakfast and we would break our fast together afterwards. Service was so amazing, and I was in such a groove, that I literally almost forgot we were eating after. It really was an incredible, challenging, and rewarding experience. I finished my book, finished Job, and meditated an hour a day. I wanted to get closer to God this weekend, and I wanted to be able to really focus on my thoughts as I plan my next moves in life, and I believe I accomplished that. I hope you can learn something from this, and you can always reach out with more questions. Happy Easter. From me to you, Deontrey As I’m sure many of you know Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) affects about 7% of the U.S population ages 18 years and older, or 17.3 MILLION people, every year. It also affects about 2 million children ages 3-17 every year as well. I’ve seen people very close to me in my life struggle with depression for years. I’ve been blessed with some extraordinary professors and mentors thus far in college who have taught me some incredible information on depression, and I feel obligated to share this information with whoever is willing to listen. I must clarify, I’m not licensed or certified, but I have done a great amount of research on my own. This post is to inform those who DO NOT have access to therapy or counseling, possibly aren’t even diagnosed, or who are simply curious about depression and how to help their loved ones. By knowing a little bit about what depression does to your brain and how it affects you, it makes it a bit easier to overcome it; and YOU CAN OVERCOME IT.
The symptomology of depression displays itself in different forms. Some people experience all of them and others may only experience some of them. There is affective (negative feelings about depression), cognitive (negative thoughts about depression), somatic (physical symptoms of depression like stomach aches, headaches, etc.), and behavioral (the behavior associated with depression such as isolation, insomnia, not eating, etc.). But what CAUSES depression? It could be a variety of things. There can be some sort of major negative life event or trauma that was triggered, someone could have lost something in their life whether that be a loved one or even their confidence, or they could have learned poor, or no, coping skills growing up and simply don’t know how to respond to adversity. I believe the most important thing I’ve learned in college thus far is the Diathesis Stress Model of depression. The Diathesis Stress Model looks like: a vulnerability + a trigger = depression. Vulnerabilities come from what is referred to as your nuclear memories. Your nuclear memories are the first memories of life that form your core beliefs about yourself, the world, other people, and the future. If a parent, teacher, or authority figure told you that you were stupid growing up, your brain likely believes that unconsciously whether you’re aware of it or not. It’s the same way with positive affirmation, a child who grows up believing that they are intelligent will likely perform as if they’re intelligent. This is called self-fulfilling prophecy. The most incredible thing about nuclear memories, is your brain FILTERS OUT any information that is inconsistent to your nuclear memories!! This is very important to be aware of, because by knowing your nuclear memories and how they affect you, you can distinguish the truth from the negative things you were told or experienced when you were younger. Learned helplessness is one of the main things that makes depression difficult to overcome, because it leads to worthlessness.One of the main reasons I want to counsel is nothing breaks my heart more than talking to someone who feels worthless. I’ve spoken to people who say things like, “I’ve tried everything and nothing works” or “maybe this is just how I am”. They feel they’re doomed to this fate forever with nothing to pull them out of the darkness. But that is far from the truth. These people hold themselves to a higher standard that they feel they aren’t reaching. If we feel that who we are if far off from our ideal self, then it’s easy to feel worthless or like a failure. Once we get to the point where we feel worthless, our brain becomes extremely bias in the ways we process information. We begin to think the bad things that happen in our lives are entirely our fault, or we’re a burden to our loved ones and those around us. This type of thinking strengthens depression. Being a Christian, I believe we were all fearfully and wonderfully made. However, no matter what you believe in, the fact is we were made to MASTER our minds and emotions. There are two truths: the truths this world tries to make you believe and a higher truth (the "REAL" truth). It’s important to keep this in mind when thoughts are running wild in your head. Don’t be passive to the vicious negative thought cycles, condemn them. There is no trash can in our mind. Everything we hear and think is floating around in our head somewhere. That’s why it’s important to condemn truths of this world and affirm the "real" truth. Write down what you KNOW to be true about yourself, and affirm it every single day. Any house that is divided against itself will fall, so don’t be so hard on yourself in this life. None of us are perfect, we all make mistakes, and we’re all going at our own pace. Depression is NOT YOU. It is outside of you. From me to you with LOVE, Deontrey I’m typing this from a hotel room in San Antonio. I’m always up early and I didn’t go to church so I really had some time to think this morning. I was deeply reflecting on how I’ve really felt death’s presence lately. I don’t know if it’s something in the air, or if I feel like it is because of all the people that have passed the last few years. I’ve been blessed up to this point because I haven’t lost TOO many friends, and I haven’t lost any family that’s close to me. It’s so strange to look back at now, but I thought about dying a lot as a little kid. Since I was in elementary school I would spend hours wondering how I’m going to die or when it would happen. Not to be morbid, but I’ve always felt like I would pass away young. To this day, I don’t imagine myself being an old man ever. I’m sure that’s normal to some extent. My experiences with death have always been tragic and unexpected, I imagine any type of death is not easy to deal with, but knowing myself I need time to mentally prepare. I remember lying in bed in September of 2016 and my little brother coming in the room telling me one of my best friends from middle school committed suicide in his uncle’s car garage where he was working. Like most people’s experience it didn’t seem real. We weren’t in contact too much anymore, but I had talked to him literally 2-3 weeks prior and we made plans to hang out and catch up soon. I struggled with that loss for a while because I felt like I failed him. Maybe I missed his cry for help or a chance to offer him the support he needed. That was a turning point for me, and I never wanted to feel like I missed those warning signs again. Two years later a good friend and college teammate of mine crashed his car the night of Thanksgiving and passed away. We had JUST talked. I told him, “Love you bro be safe” two hours prior to that. When I got the call the next morning my heart dropped, and I was in Dallas in the middle of basketball season, so missed the funeral and the memorial for him. That made it very difficult for me because I really looked at him like a little brother. I also understood that this was part of growing up, and people die every single day. A couple of months after that Nipsey was killed, and I know that hit a lot of people hard. Nip was a role model to a lot of people, especially Black people, who were really grinding trying to make something of their lives. I felt like this story was cut way too short. He just dropped an album of the year, and his store and clothing line was gaining EVEN MORE popularity. It’s almost worse that a member of his own community gunned him down in his hometown in front of his own store. Then not even a year later, my one and only famous role model and personal hero Kobe Bryant died tragically in the helicopter accident. Kobe dying almost felt like losing my friends. I know it affected a lot of people the same way as me.
These experiences have had a tremendous effect on me, mainly because it’s taught me to cherish the people close to me. Every day when I leave the house I look at my room and think “this is how my room would look if something happened to me and my mom had to come clean my stuff out”. Every time I get off the phone with friends or family I realize it can be my last time talking to them. Some call this a negative outlook. I call this mindset is a blessing. It keeps me grounded, and I know for a fact that when the people I’m close to pass away I’m going to know I cherished their presence while they were here. From me to you, Deontrey |
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