At Stroy’s in downtown Columbia, brotherhood and conversations are helping bring awareness to mental health.<\/p>\n
COLUMBIA, S.C. \u2014 \u00a0During Mental Health Awareness Month, experts say conversations around mental health are more important than ever as thousands of South Carolinians continue to struggle in silence.<\/p>\n
More than 900,000 adults in South Carolina are living with a mental health condition, according to NAMI South Carolina.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In Columbia, some of those conversations are happening in an unexpected place – the barber shop.<\/p>\n
At Stroy\u2019s Barber Shop in downtown Columbia, owner Darrell Goodwin says mental health is still a difficult topic for many.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are going through things and no one wants to talk about it. We\u2019re not even used to having open dialogue about it,\u201d Goodwin said.<\/p>\n
Barber Khyler Brannon says the pressures many people carry often go unspoken.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just a weight. It feels like a weight on you. You feel like you have to succeed for the sake of your family. I\u2019ve known about everybody in here about most of my life. They\u2019re easy to talk to if I need to talk to them,\u201d Brannon said. \u201cThe main thing people need to do is love each other. I feel like everybody just got away from loving each other. We\u2019re all so divided as a people and that\u2019s the problem. That\u2019s the main problem with a lot of mental health issues.”<\/p>\n
Goodwin says stigma and silence sometimes prevent people from speaking up.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s dialogue. We don\u2019t talk about it enough because everybody\u2019s scared of mental health,\u201d Goodwin said. \u201cWe see it in people we think are regular. It\u2019s not just the homeless and it\u2019s not just the people with that exact problem. People are going through things and no one wants to talk about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Local mental health experts in Columbia say early recognition and treatment are needed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe earlier you can find or treat someone that\u2019s going through a mental health issue, the better off they are,\u201d said Bill Lindsey, state executive director of NAMI South Carolina.<\/p>\n
Lindsey also said it’s more common than you think.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s one in five people who will have a serious mental illness. That\u2019s 20% that will be affected by mental illness in their lifetime,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Those conditions include major depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia, which can significantly impact a person\u2019s behavior and health if left untreated, Lindsey said.<\/p>\n
As conversations continue in places like barber shops, advocates say breaking stigma starts with speaking up.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAll we need is love,\u201d Brannon said. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At Stroy’s in downtown Columbia, brotherhood and conversations are helping bring awareness to mental health. COLUMBIA, S.C. \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[97,259,260],"class_list":["post-643315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}