“What mental health needs is more sunlight, more candor, and more unashamed conversation.” – Glenn Close
Kicking off this years first post with the ‘Talk Thursday’ segment. Please read, comment and share. 💕
Mental health (MH) refers to the state of our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It impacts the way we feel, think and act, making it important in all areas of our lives.
When there’s a shift in balance concerning your mental health, everything seems to come to a halt. Productivity level drops, you feel empty & unmotivated, you’re constantly sad, tearful and tired most of the time amongst other things.
Depression is a common MH problem and it’s described as a mood disorder that causes a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest or pleasure, feelings of guilt or low self-worth, disturbed sleep or appetite, low energy, and poor concentration.
Way too many people suffer from depression but are ashamed to talk about it let alone seek the professional help they need because, society and stigma!
Mental Health
As someone who struggled with depression for the most part of last year, I know what i was told (in their defense they were trying to help) that made me want to scream, recoil, shut everyone out and deal the best way I knew how to.
- Snap Out of It! – This is one of the worst things anyone can say. Expecting the person involved to just ‘snap out of it’ when it’s not a switch you can just turn on and off at will. Trust me when I say if this was the case, a lot of people would be better.
- I know how you feel – Yes, this is meant to be all empathic and caring but trust me when i say it really doesn’t help because if you truly knew how anyone dealing really felt, you wouldn’t say this.
- Happiness is a choice – Errm duh! We know this but how does one ‘choose’ to be happy when ones serotonin level is playing hide and seek?
Try thinking positive – I get that mental issues occur up there but are you aware that chemical & electrical imbalances are at play here? A change in thought doesn’t make it all go away.
It’s a bit like telling a diabetic to think happy thoughts, instead of giving them insulin.
Depression
- Everyone has problems – indeed they do but why belittle one’s mental struggles with the ‘responsibilities’ another might have?
- Could it be a financial thing?- I don’t even know how to respond to this but i’m sure if it was about money, Kate Spade wouldn’t have killed herself.
- Go out more – Trust me when I say people dealing with depression would love to go out more but the way this thing is set up, all one wants to do is curl up in bed.
- It will pass – Please note that every illness will fluctuate with how serious it is, but illness generally doesn’t go away by itself.
- Exercise!!! – Exercise is helpful in providing some mood boosting chemicals to a person, but only if their brain is already mainly healthy.
There’s a lot more I could add to this but i’m sure you all get the point by now. People dealing with any form of depression need medication, therapy and lots of love and reassurance. Until my next post,
Stay you, stay beeeyuteeful…
I feel like what we like to do in this ends is comparison. Ahan! Your own even small, if you know what happened to me… bla bla bla.
Fortunately, there’s hope for our society and I believe slowly but surely we’d be able to beat depression together. No two people feel pain the same way.
Thanks for sharing!
Exactly! We tend to compare pain as if it makes it any better. We need to stop this.