Today is World Mental Health Day and I thought, I really want to post something about this. Now I’m here, I’m not sure what to say. I’ve got loads I could say, but I don’t know if I can say it all without becoming emotional.
Mental health still has a big stigma attached to it – people just don’t talk about it if they’re having problems with depression, anxiety, not being able to cope. They don’t talk about it if their kids have these problems, too. Why is that?
Mental health is just as important as physical health. Mental pain hurts just as much as physical pain. But they’re not seen in the same way. Is it because you can’t see what mental illness does to the person as well as you can see what physical illness does to the person? Look closer then.
The signs of mental illness are just as evident as the signs of physical illness if you know what you’re looking for. The consequences of mental illness can also be physical – the pallor of the skin, the thinness of the body, the scars on the arms.
Medicine, what medicine?
I wish there were a pill people could take when they have mental health problems, a medicine that would work like antibiotics work, or painkillers work. I don’t think there’s a pill that exists to do that. There are lots of medications – antidepressants, anti-anxiety tablets, pills to help you sleep, pills to wake you up, but none of them provide a one-size-fits-all answer, not one of them ‘cures’ the problem. I think it’s debatable whether they even work for most people. I know some people do find relief in antidepressants, but I’ve never met any of them. I lie, I know one person who took them and said they helped. I don’t know if she still takes them.
Antidepressants never worked for me. I’ve been prescribed them several times over the years, but they did nothing. Meditation, breath work and yoga have worked so much better for me – and deciding not to have alcohol in my life has definitely helped as well.
Don’t dismiss this as woo woo. I know that deciding alcohol wasn’t adding value to my life and was no longer serving me was one of the best decisions I have ever made. Since I decided to live my life without it, my emotions are less frazzled, my mind is calmer, I sleep much better and I’m not as quick to fly off the handle. Alcohol is a poison; it destroys brain cells and messes with your head.
Looking inside and outside
Meditation and mindfulness have been lifesavers, helping me find peace within myself and focus to live in the present, while yoga simply gives me great joy. I think there is such strength in these practices and such power in them. I’m not trivialising mental illness saying this – without these things in my life I would have disappeared down a black hole not so long ago and I don’t know that I would have been able to climb out of it again.
In the UK today, mental health services are severely lacking. There’s not enough staff, not enough appointments, not enough help. Kids who turn 18 automatically move from children’s mental health services to adult mental health services, which are worlds apart. A child one day is still a child the next day, just because they have a birthday one day doesn’t suddenly make them grown up the day after.
It’s a total shambles and it’s heartbreaking.
If it’s something you never think about then think about it today. Give a few minutes to reflect on how mental illness impacts the person, their family and friends as much as physical illness does. You might not be able to see it, but just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there. You don’t know what the person next to you at the bus stop, or standing in line with you at the supermarket is going through. You have no idea what that kid curled up in the doorway in town has been through. Until you’ve walked in their shoes then you don’t have a clue.
So don’t judge. Be understanding. Be compassionate. Be kind.