Whether an illness affects your heart, your leg or your brain, it’s still an illness, and there should be no distinction.
Michelle Obama
May was designated as Mental Health Awareness month in 1949. Designated by the United States and organizations such as National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), Mental Health America, and other affiliates.
Mental health has long been stigmatized and something we did not talk about. Many cultures thought of it as religious punishment or demonic possession. Hippocrates lead the way in treating people without religion or superstition. He treated patients by changing their environment, and occupation, or giving them medication. Despite this history, negative views of mental illness in the US persisted and often lead to degrading and confinement into institutions.
Don’t Believe Everything You Think
The term mental health brings forth images of people talking to themselves and yelling at nothing. You know that person. You probably have crossed the street in fear of being hurt. The stigma of psychiatric hospitals may bring forth the movie/book “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest“. People are being lobotomized, undergoing electroshock therapy, or being so drugged that they cannot control simple body needs. The truth is that about one in four experience mental health issues and never have seen the inside of a psych ward nor do many realize that they are suffering.
We suffer from trauma caused in childhood or as an adult. The causes range from an abusive family, violence in the home, neglect, or deprivation. Other situations such as accidents, victims of a crime, medical injury or illness, or a natural disasters. Reactions to each situation, when it turns into negative or self-critical thoughts, lead to depression, anxiety, and lack of self-confidence. Whatever the reason and outcome, we continue to feel that the trauma whether acute, chronic, or complex continues to play again and again in our heads.
We may start at the beginning of our story as someone with potential. However, the circumstances and the choices that are made by us for or for us can turn our potential from a flower to a weed.”
Jay Shetty, author of Think Like a Monk
We Think, Therefore We Believe
Research of late correlates what we think with our reactions. Whether you are feeling fabulous or feeling like you have been run over by a bus, your thoughts engage your body as if the negative event is happening again. If we feel poorly or stressed, our body reacts as though there is a real problem and will respond accordingly. So, next time you are “down in the dumps”, smile and tell yourself that you are OK. It sounds so simple and, in some ways, it is, but we must start somewhere.
Start with –
Put one foot in front of the other, and soon you’ll be walking cross the floor. Put one foot in front of the other and soon you’ll be walking out the door.
Kris Kringle
(I know. It’s kind of silly to put this video, but when we were children everything in our lives was about the next thing. Our concept of time was relevant to the “now”.)
What to do Next?
We will dive deeper into different ways of getting out of your own head with some techniques that I have learned and used over the many years.
- Meditation/Mindfulness
- Exercise & Food
- Journaling
- Therapy & Doctor Visits
- “Alternative” Therapies
There are many ways to cope with what has happened in your life and this list is by no means the only one. Each provides steps to “self-actualization”. These steps according to Abraham Maslow start with a base of physiological needs and end with self-actualization and we will explore them in more detail also.
I hope you get as much out of the coming series of writings as I did in researching and presenting them to you. Leave a comment and until then; Be Well!
