It's not an easy time for anyone, and now more than ever we need to prioritize our mental health and wellbeing. Between the constant pressures you’re under with the day-to-day life and worrying about the current situation of the country, you might be feeling stressed or anxious, which in turn makes you unwell.
The mythical beliefs on this matter in our society makes it even worse. Sometimes it's hard to find someone that would just listen, even among the so-called ‘educated’.
I personally believe that having the right information is the first step to self-help.
I see people diagnosing themselves with different psychological disorders from the very little knowledge they see on social Media. Others on the contrary tells you that mental health problems don’t affect them. Mental health problems are pretty common worldwide, we just don’t talk about them enough.
Mental health problems are getting worse on daily basis because the society has failed to talk about this more often. The society is the deep cause of stigmatisation and discrimination of mental health patients, and these results in delay for these people to seek a proper help.
Some of the misconceptions as you may already know include;
• Mental illnesses are caused by God’s punishment, black magic, evil power and witch craft.
• Personality weakness or character flaw cause mental problems
• Mental patients are not like other people
• Psychiatric illness is different from other physical illness
• Psychiatric patients are always ill, they never get well and once they are mentally ill, they are always mentally ill.
• Psychiatric patients take drugs throughout their life time.
• Psychiatric patients are always dangerous and violence.
• Professionals psychiatric and psychologist who work with the mentally ill persons are likely to be mentally unstable.
…....the list goes on..
source
SO, WHAT DOES MENTAL HEALTH MEAN?
According to World Health Organisations (WHO), Mental Health is a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.
source
THEN WHAT IS MENTAL ILLNESS?
Mental illness is an Illness with behavioural or psychological manifestations and/or impairment in functioning that result from genetic, biological, physical/chemical, psychological, or social disturbances
WHAT CAUSES MENTAL ILLNESS IN GENERAL?
Here is the thing about mental health, there is no specific cause like that of physical illnesses. However, there are some widely accepted factors studied by different scholars all over the world.
- Biological factors (neurochemical abnormalities)
- Genetics
- Psychological factors (upbringing and life events)
- Social and environmental factors
Your mental health is the entire software to your body. You may not be able to identify mishaps as fast as your physical health, so having a good insight on the issue can help you look after it well.
Psychoanalysts agree that you don’t have to wait until you fulfill a certain criteria for a specific disorder to detect a problem in your mental health. Simple things like finding yourself frequently thinking about trivial parts of your life, recurrent difficulty concentrating, feeling or reacting becoming difficult, or even impossible to cope with etc., can be hints that you need to put your tasks on pause and take time to take care of your mental health.
Your daily life activities, hobbies, social circles and leisure time activities affect your personality as well as your mental health to a great deal so its highly suggested that you carefully choose what you feed your brain.
- Spend time on things that build you.
- Hang out with people that make you feel valued.
- Try to move on from past traumas (I know it’s not easy….look for self-help books, podcasts, talk about it with someone that can support you).
- Try building good values in life.
- keep your routines in check (what you eat, your sleep pattern, stressful events, exercise).
- And if it gets beyond your control try reaching out to professional help.
Learning about different mental disorders can help you be at ease with the concept that the society has taken too far and it will come in handy when you are dealing with related issues for yourself and your loved ones. That is why we am here, to give you a better insight. Let’s look out for each other.