Women under fire

Releasing emotion and reclaiming peace in turbulent times

BY WENDY TAMIS ROBBINS, ANXIETY EXPERT/AUTHOR

Molly Williams Sewall Street

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May is Mental Health Awareness Month and Mother’s Day, so it feels fitting to focus on women’s mental health this month — where we are and what we can do about it. We are living in turbulent times and women’s mental health is suffering as a result.

There is uncertainty in the economy, gun violence, an extreme political divide, dehumanizing directives and legislation in southern states, and the recent Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. And this is just in the U.S. We can’t help but also be affected by watching the conflict and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine and women struggling in Iran and under Taliban rule in Afghanistan. These events have all contributed to a global mental health crisis that continues to disproportionately affect women.

Even prior to the pandemic, women were twice as likely as men to be diagnosed with anxiety disorders, depression and PTSD.

» one in five experienced an anxiety disorder.

What can we do?

You are not alone if your life feels exhausting and overwhelming. And if the world feels chaotic and unsafe. These events dysregulate our nervous system. As a result, we experience emotions like frustration, fear, anxiety, loneliness, anger, even rage, and a profound sense of loss.

While this is a normal human reaction to the events unfolding around us, there is an implicit bias against it. We are taught that expressing and processing these emotions is not acceptable or appropriate as women. While we see men express anger, frustration and rage from the Oval Office to Wall Street to professional sports and beyond, women are labeled “too emotional” and unfit to lead. This stereotype is more than flawed and unfair, it’s dangerous to our health. It ignores the science that shows “negative” emotion — if not examined, processed and released, but rather internalized and ignored — causes chronic pain and mental health and addiction issues.

Caution: What not to do

We tend to use coping mechanisms to hide from these difficult emotions. We over-work, over-eat, over-drink, over-exercise, overspend, over-Netflix. We numb ourselves and mislabel it as “self care” to avoid what we really need