What Is Breaking Taboo

by | Apr 16, 2019 | Articles, General Mental Health, Taboo & Breaking It

Breaking Taboo is a nonprofit organization that aims to break the stereotype, or taboo, surrounding Mental Health and Suicide. Our intention is to educate, share, and encourage open conversations about this topic. We believe that in order to solve a problem, we must focus on the root cause. In order to save lives, we must kill the silence. In order to kill the silence we must break the taboo. 

A taboo is defined as a social or religious custom prohibiting or forbidding discussion of a particular practice or forbidding association with a particular person, place, or thing. 

We actively promote awareness of mental health and suicide prevention. Our mission is to educate and provide practical tools everyone can use including survival, step by step application, help, information, and resources. Tools that can save lives in times of crisis. Tools that people can take away with them to gain better mental health every day. Tools that inspire others to live a life without shame and frustration.

Someone in this country dies by suicide every 12 minutes. In fact, more people die from suicide than from conflict, wars and natural disasters combined. Mental health issues are often seen as things that can be easily fixed, or issues that people do not consider to be problems. That is simply not the truth.

Why not view mental health in the same way as physical health? Improving ourselves physically and getting help for our body is encouraged and promoted, whereas mental health issues are often shut down and shunned. Mental health is just as important as physical health. 

The taboo against mental health promotes shame, guilt, and secrecy. The taboo prevents people from speaking out, sharing, and getting help. That is why we are here to break that taboo. We are here to change, to bring that knowledge to the general public, to shift society’s thinking, to promote positive change that may significantly improve and save the lives of yourself and of others.

Doing this work isn’t easy! We need your help to Break the Taboo and save lives! Please donate to our cause!

 

Donate Now!

100% of your donations are tax deductible! Spread the word and save lives!

 

 

~Brook Bennett

[dsm_text_divider header=”more related articles” color=”#000000″ divider_weight=”2px” _builder_version=”4.18.0″ _module_preset=”default” header_font_size=”39px” width_tablet=”” width_phone=”” width_last_edited=”on|desktop” max_width_tablet=”” max_width_phone=”” max_width_last_edited=”on|desktop” min_height_tablet=”” min_height_phone=”” min_height_last_edited=”on|desktop” height_tablet=”” height_phone=”” height_last_edited=”on|desktop” max_height_tablet=”” max_height_phone=”” max_height_last_edited=”on|desktop” header_font_tablet=”” header_font_phone=”” header_font_last_edited=”on|desktop” header_text_align_tablet=”” header_text_align_phone=”” header_text_align_last_edited=”on|desktop” header_text_color_tablet=”” header_text_color_phone=”” header_text_color_last_edited=”on|desktop” header_font_size_tablet=”39px” header_font_size_phone=”22px” header_font_size_last_edited=”on|phone” header_letter_spacing_tablet=”” header_letter_spacing_phone=”” header_letter_spacing_last_edited=”on|desktop” header_line_height_tablet=”” header_line_height_phone=”” header_line_height_last_edited=”on|desktop” background_layout_tablet=”” background_layout_phone=”” background_layout_last_edited=”on|desktop” module_alignment_tablet=”” module_alignment_phone=”” module_alignment_last_edited=”on|desktop” global_colors_info=”{}”][/dsm_text_divider]

Inside the Cuckoo’s Nest: My Time in a Psych Ward

My only knowledge of psych wards growing up was from movies. One Flew Over the Cuckoo Nest, Perks of Being a Wallflower, Girl Interrupted, etc. I never knew anyone who had personally been admitted, or at least no one honest about it. My high school in Hartford, CT was...

The Effects of Schizophrenia and Depression on Everyday Life

Schizophrenia is a life-long mental health condition that affects the way someone perceives reality, and can include various symptoms including experiencing delusions and or experiencing hallucinations. Depression is a mental health condition that negatively affects...

What is the Difference Between Personality Disorders and Mood Disorders?

Mood swings during stressful times are natural, but those living with a mood disorder like bipolar (BP) or personality disorder like borderline (BPD) have extreme, erratic, and sometimes irrational changes in their mental state. A lot of symptoms overlap, but these...

How to Practice Self-Care if You Have PCOS

It's all too easy to feel alone and helpless when living with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). This condition, which affects 1 in 10 women of childbearing age, disrupts your hormone and metabolism systems, and the symptoms include increasing your amount of body hair,...

How Does Attention and Imagery Ability Relate to Emotion?

It seems evident that the depth that individuals feel and emotionally respond toward stimuli ebbs and flows. Consider, for example, how a person experiences deep elation and joy when listening to their favorite song yet later experiences a dulled affective response...

What AI Can Bring to Suicide Prevention

Our society has become enthralled with Artificial Intelligence (AI), which is becoming an intrinsicphrase in our zeitgeist. In the coming years, AI will embed itself into various professional fields. Although legal and policy measures may temper its impact, it is...

Mental Health IS physical Health, Exercise Boosts both!

Mental Health IS health. I’ve always said that, because it’s the truth. We can’t separate the two. Just like physical health IS health, mental health is health. I could actually argue that mental health might be even more so, since every single function in our body...

Why is anxiety so paralyzing?

“Why is anxiety so paralyzing?” If there is such a thing as various degrees of literal, I would say there should be a spectrum to define how deeply a life has been interrupted, paused, and frozen still. In my experience, it can be so physically paralyzing you would...

Mental Health Disparities in the LGBTQI+ Community

Among the many health disparities, a glaring one is the higher rate of mental health disorders in people who identify as part of the LGBTQI+ community. Widespread social and political discrimination have caused disproportionately high rates of poverty, homelessness,...

May- Mental Health Awareness Month Multidimensional Awareness

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Which means that there is a lot of extra focus on mental health, mental illness, and breaking the stigma surrounding these two very important topics. We use that word a lot- “awareness”, but so many people don’t fully understand...

Inside the Cuckoo’s Nest: My Time in a Psych Ward

My only knowledge of psych wards growing up was from movies. One Flew Over the Cuckoo Nest, Perks of Being a Wallflower, Girl Interrupted, etc. I never knew anyone who had personally been admitted, or at least no one honest about it. My high school in Hartford, CT was...

The Effects of Schizophrenia and Depression on Everyday Life

Schizophrenia is a life-long mental health condition that affects the way someone perceives reality, and can include various symptoms including experiencing delusions and or experiencing hallucinations. Depression is a mental health condition that negatively affects...

What is the Difference Between Personality Disorders and Mood Disorders?

Mood swings during stressful times are natural, but those living with a mood disorder like bipolar (BP) or personality disorder like borderline (BPD) have extreme, erratic, and sometimes irrational changes in their mental state. A lot of symptoms overlap, but these...

How to Practice Self-Care if You Have PCOS

It's all too easy to feel alone and helpless when living with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). This condition, which affects 1 in 10 women of childbearing age, disrupts your hormone and metabolism systems, and the symptoms include increasing your amount of body hair,...

The loss of someone you don’t know: How Matthew Perry’s death affected me

I was in elementary school when I first watched an episode of Friends. I was immediately drawn to the character of Chandler. We were both awkward. We were both funny. We both had problems. He was one of my first TV crushes after Shaggy from Scooby-Doo. I became...

The Effects of Schizophrenia and Depression on Everyday Life

Schizophrenia is a life-long mental health condition that affects the way someone perceives reality, and can include various symptoms including experiencing delusions and or experiencing hallucinations. Depression is a mental health condition that negatively affects...

Mental Health In the Work Place

Before diving in, I’d like to explain my word choice. Instead of “Mental Illness,” I will refer to it as “Mental Health Challenges.” I don’t like to use terms like “illness,” “issues”, or “problems.” The reason being is, unlike physical ailments, mental health plays a...

What is the Difference Between Personality Disorders and Mood Disorders?

Mood swings during stressful times are natural, but those living with a mood disorder like bipolar (BP) or personality disorder like borderline (BPD) have extreme, erratic, and sometimes irrational changes in their mental state. A lot of symptoms overlap, but these...

A Psychotic Mind: My History of Schizophrenia, Self-Harm, and Suicide Attempts

*Trigger warning: Self-harm and suicide attempts As a child, I remember being happy, I remember feeling safe, but after my parent's divorce, I remember feeling so much anguish and pain. For me, self-injury was activated by my parent’s divorce. I was 11 years old when...

How Does Attention and Imagery Ability Relate to Emotion?

It seems evident that the depth that individuals feel and emotionally respond toward stimuli ebbs and flows. Consider, for example, how a person experiences deep elation and joy when listening to their favorite song yet later experiences a dulled affective response...

Mental Health IS physical Health, Exercise Boosts both!

Mental Health IS health. I’ve always said that, because it’s the truth. We can’t separate the two. Just like physical health IS health, mental health is health. I could actually argue that mental health might be even more so, since every single function in our body...

Mental Health Disparities in the LGBTQI+ Community

Among the many health disparities, a glaring one is the higher rate of mental health disorders in people who identify as part of the LGBTQI+ community. Widespread social and political discrimination have caused disproportionately high rates of poverty, homelessness,...

May- Mental Health Awareness Month Multidimensional Awareness

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Which means that there is a lot of extra focus on mental health, mental illness, and breaking the stigma surrounding these two very important topics. We use that word a lot- “awareness”, but so many people don’t fully understand...

23 Years of Bipolar 1 and I’m Still Dancing

No. I wasn’t always OK with being bipolar. What’s more, the shame of living with such a disease, propelled to do ridiculous actions that your mania compels you to do, the guilt of feeling depressed when that logical side of your tore-up brain knows there is so much...