Kelly Burch

Don’t talk politics. Do. Not. This old adage is more important than ever this year, with an election that started off bad and has gotten consistently worse.

No having a community rally in support, like it is supposed to during a crisis, can make a family in mental health crisis feel shamed and stigmatized.

Any woman living in the United States can submit a campaign for consideration. The team reviews the application and works with the campaign creator to put her story forward in the most compelling way.

Issues like climate change, energy poverty and social justice causes that intersect with environmentalism can be sometimes feel daunting. However, there are plenty of ways you can make a small difference today. Here are a few.

By introducing my father’s illness as a fact during a time when his mental health had no negative effects on my life, my parents enabled me to live without stigma, which in turn empowered me to advocate for my father’s treatment when his health took a turn for the worse my freshmen year of college.

While I would like to think that I paused for a minute or two to think about what it means to be American, I was mostly focused on looking forward to the fireworks show.
But all of that changed for me last year. Three weeks before the Fourth of July, my husband became a citizen of the United States.

Last week, I did something reckless. I went out for Mexican food, and drank a margarita. The server didn’t ask for my ID, and she didn’t even ask for proof that my ovaries were on lock down.

I’m one of those bigger girls that confuses the medical community by being entirely healthy. My doctor body shamed me and lied to me about tests she ran.

“Then why are you so worried about the scale?” Why was I? I had finally let go of the scale as an indicator of my own health, but my inability to do the same when it came to my daughter was bringing up the same old feelings of inadequacy and frustration.

Just like kids who kick the seat in front of them and middle-aged women who get drunk and chatty on long flights, crying babies are a fact of life.