You know mental health is just as important as anything else in your life, maybe even more important. Mental health doesn't deserve the stigma attached to it. People deserve to be able to talk about it without people running away, without people looking at you differently. That's why today's so important. Today is about bringing awareness to mental health and mental illnesses.
A few weeks ago my friend and I were talking about life, complaining about all of it's little problems when all of a sudden we found ourselves talking about depressions and the like. I can count on one hand how many people I've talking about my mental health illness. I don't like to talk about it because whenever I did people looked at me differently, treated me differently, which made me feel even more isolated and even more alone. As time went on, I got lucky, I found people that are accepting to be my friends. But that doesn't make it any easier to tell them about, to talk to them about, because the stigma is still there. And honestly its absolutely ridiculous.
I was watching a video, and i'll post the link
here, and in the people in the video talked about how the hardest part of it all was the stigma. Mental illness is a thing, It's real. And it sucks just as much as any physical ailment. Suicide is still the third leading cause of death, 90% of those deaths had an underlying mental health issue. That says something. Mental illness isn't something that just goes away, it's not something we can pretend doesn't exist. People line up to sign casts, create get well cards but as soon as anxiety, depression, an eating disorder comes up, they leave. In some places people with mental health problems are abused and stripped of human rights.
Mental illness has this way of making people feel isolated people don't need to help with that. 1 in 4 adults suffer from a mental illness, so that means that even if you don't have one, the people around you might. Just because people seem fine doesn't mean they're fine. Just because people suffer from a mental illness doesn't give any one the ability to take away basic human rights. Just because people have mental health problems doesn't mean every one needs to run away. Some people just don't understand mental illness and don't see it as a real thing. We need days like today to educate those who don't know much about this, to bring awareness, and ultimately destroy the stigma attached to it. "People with anxiety aren't rude, people with depression aren't lazy, people with mental illness aren't crazy", I saw this quote and I just thought it was perfect for this post and that it is incredibly true.
The stigma doesn't make it any easier to get better. It makes people embarrassed to get help, to reach out, to even talk about it. I know I was afraid for a really long time to go into therapy, but trust me it's really helpful. I'm lucky, in that I'm part of a program that allows me free therapy through my school system. Not everybody has that chance. If you can, you should take advantage of it. If you don't, find an adult you trust, a friend maybe, a counselor, because reaching out to people who aren't going to stigmatize you or marginalize you, is going to help. There also hotlines and websites you can visit where you can talk about what you need to get off your chest. Here are a couple :
IMAlive,
7 Cups of Tea.
We also need to focus on helping individuals with mental health issues, finding even better ways to treat them. We need to make these treatments available to everybody. We need to help those in countries that mistreat them.
That being said, I also wanted to talk about the things that can help with mental illness. Music is incredibly helpful, so is a hot cup of tea (if you have anxiety don't have caffeine, it makes it worse). Mindfulness is great, I don't do it enough, but it definitely helps:
Pocket Mindfulness. Sometimes it even helps for me to hold ice cubes in my hand. Yoga helps too because it calms me down and gets me to a calm state. Part of living with a mental health issue is learning how to cope. (
Here is a little post on how to cope wit mental illness.)
Just know that you are not alone, you are more than kind of awesome, you have survived this much and that means something. Sometimes just getting up in the morning is a great accomplishment. So breath and take care of yourself. Self care is important, it's not selfish, it's not stupid, its important, a priority.
Here's a little interactive guide thing.
Take some time for yourself, and take care of yourself.
Stay Awesome,
