The topic of mental health took center stage Monday night as Tulsa nonprofit Northside Neighbors launched its mental health campaign. “Be Seen. Be Heard. Be Well.” is a series of social media callouts and in-person events to normalize conversations around mental health.
Carlos Meeks, a clinical supervisor with Family & Children’s Services, spoke at the event. In college, he said, people on the outside saw his life as promising.
But on the inside, he was suffering. Meeks said he didn’t know then that he was depressed.
“I was in college, on the way to the NFL. Everything on the outside was real good but everything on the inside was real dark,” he said. “I didn’t know where to go. I didn’t know who to talk to.”
Today, years after leaving the gridiron and serving a stint in the military, he’s helping others navigate the ups and downs of life.
“Nobody could help me at that time. So I came into this field so I could be that person and get people who are stuck,” he said.
A big part of the mental health initiative is connecting residents in the Hawthorne and Walt Whitman neighborhoods with resources, Northside Neighbors’ executive director Reggie Ivey told The Eagle. It targets Black residents in both neighborhoods and will run through the end of December.
Throughout the conversation, panelists discussed the everyday pressures of life and how poverty and epigenetics can impact people’s mental health.
“We are a strong people and for years we didn’t necessarily need therapy, right? That’s what we thought,” said Ebony Skillens, who runs the mobile mental health clinic Skillz on Wheelz with her husband.
“But now, there’s a new way that we get to do it if we choose. Because everybody deserves a therapist. You don’t have to process it alone,” she said.
They also encouraged attendees to partake in other ways of healing beyond talk therapy such as cycling, music or dance — especially before things elevate to crisis level.
“We’re talking about people that might be experiencing grief, people that might be experiencing the stress of life,” Ivey said. “When you don’t have enough money to make ends meet and you’re trying to figure out how you’re going to take care of your kids and how you’re going to pay the rent and how you’re going to pay your utility bills, it wears on you.”
Next, Ivey wants to convene a similar forum on mental health solely for Black men.
You can check out our mental health resource guide here in both English and Spanish.
Editor’s note: This story has been corrected to show the name of the mental health campaign is “Be Seen. Be Heard. Be Well.”
