What is mental health?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What does it mean to be \u201cmentally healthy\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Are symptoms the signs of \u201cabnormal\u201d behavior, requiring pharmaceuticals, psychotherapy, or more?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Physical health and mental health are different. When you have a physical symptom: a painful bruise, extreme fatigue, endless coughing, etc., it\u2019s likely you are ill or that your body needs to heal. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The same cannot be said for mental health. Everyone gets sad, angry, or paranoid. Everyone gets sudden bursts of energy or sudden spells of despair. Not everyone knows what it\u2019s like to have cancer or to break a bone, but we all know what insecurity and sadness feel like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the mental health world, the point that these emotions, thoughts, behaviors, or feelings become \u201cabnormal\u201d and thus diagnostic is roughly when they are so extreme or disruptive that they interfere with, in a negative way, a person\u2019s functioning, well-being, or relationships with others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And so, we imagine the man who is suffering from depression. He is lethargic and emotionless, almost unable to move from his bed. We imagine the attempts to \u201ctreat\u201d this man with antidepressant drugs or through the work of clinicians. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, when he is feeling \u201cbetter,\u201d he is no longer depressed. He\u2019s able to live life like he used to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He\u2019s finally mentally well. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Right?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Unlike a broken leg, mental health \u201csymptoms\u201d are guaranteed to come back. This man is going <\/em>to feel sad again. He\u2019s going to feel low on energy again. It may get so extreme and disruptive that he\u2019ll need to receive \u201ctreatment\u201d all over again, particularly if he does not make any changes to what is actually causing <\/em>the depression in his life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n On and on the cycle goes for our depressed man and so many others, many of whom may not be \u201cdiagnosable\u201d with an identifiable mental disorder, but are still struggling with bows of mental health challenges nonetheless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s no doubt that there are extreme mental illnesses out there: disorders like borderline personality disorder and schizophrenia come to mind (though I worry we lack a complete understanding of these as well).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet, it can\u2019t be denied that, unlike physical injury or illness, basically every <\/strong>human is guaranteed <\/strong>to experience, to some extent, the same feelings, behaviors, thoughts, and emotions as those society deems to be \u201cmentally ill.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Life is GREAT. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But it is also challenging and uncomfortable.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Life will make you smile and laugh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019ll also break you down and force you to be strong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some people respond better than others, for a variety of reasons. Some people hide their struggles better than others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the idea that \u201cnormal mental health\u201d is the same as \u201czero symptoms\u201d ignores the reality of being HUMAN. It tells us that there is something wrong with our inherent being. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Mental health isn\u2019t the absence of symptoms. A life of pure comfort and zero challenge isn\u2019t attainable. And if it were, our human nature would lash out against it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s time to change the conversation on mental health. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s time to embrace our struggles and challenges as the conditions<\/strong> of the game we\u2019re all born into. Our challenges do not need to weigh us down; they can be (and often are) the fuel that gives life meaning. They burn in us a fire of desire to conquer what lays in front of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In doing so, we discover how much we\u2019re truly capable of.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What is mental health? What does it mean to be \u201cmentally healthy\u201d? Are symptoms the signs of \u201cabnormal\u201d behavior, requiring pharmaceuticals, psychotherapy, or more? Physical health and mental health are…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1954,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-thoughts"],"yoast_head":"\n