If you have not already heard, May was Mental Health Awareness Month, and the theme is Back to the Basics. So we thought we should go back to the basics and explain what Mental Health Awareness is all about: gaining insight, education, and normalizing mental health. In 1949, the nonprofit Mental Health America established this nationwide initiative to increase awareness and provide education around the importance of mental health and mental illness. While we have come a long way in the past 70 years, the unspoken stigma around mental illness and asking for help still exists. Mental health professionals and advocates have worked tirelessly to overcome this narrative, and society has begun to shed these false beliefs and negative stigmatizations. However, we still have ways to go.
From “I” to “We”: Recognizing That We ALL Have Mental Health
Let’s be real here, we are in the middle of a Mental Health Crisis and access to professional behavioral health services is vital. So how can we continue to combat this stigma so that people feel safe to reach out for help? Debunking the myths around mental illness is a place to start, as well as a shift in conversation. First, it's imperative to understand that mental health is not just the absence of illness, but a broad concept that applies to us all. Mental health lies on an ever-fluctuating continuum– between illness and wellness. Mental wellness can co-exist with mental illness. Mental wellness is an internal resource that helps us think, feel, connect, and function; it is an active process that helps us to build resilience, grow, and flourish. It is important to note that our mental wellness is not a static state of being. Mental wellness is a lifelong process and fostering it can strengthen our mental, emotional, social, and psychological resources. We can all struggle with our mental health, depending on what goes on in our environment, as well as our physiology and biology. Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It impacts our behaviors, our decision-making skills, and the ability to navigate and cope with stressors. Depending on the day or season in our life, our mental health is ever-shifting. For example, if we are going through a big life change, it is natural for us to experience heightened states of anxiety or stress that can ultimately impact our wellbeing. Normalizing and acknowledging that we all have mental health is the first step to changing the conversation and avoiding pathologizing those who are struggling or working through hard times.
The Shift to Wellness
Shifting the conversation from a focus on illness to an emphasis on wellness will continue to foster a more positive view of mental health. Mental wellness can help us change the narrative away from stigma to a shared humanity and responsibility. By tending to our mental health and improving our mental wellness we can reduce symptoms of psychological distress and better cope through challenging times.
People Matter, Words Matter
We all have a responsibility to help shift the conversation away from pathologizing those who are struggling with their mental health.
Words to ban from your vocabulary about your/others’ mental health:
weird
nuts
crazy
broken
useless
unusual
worthless
abnormal
lost cause
These words are more productive and help to normalize when your loved ones or yourself is struggling with mental health:
brave
worthy
unwell
healing
resilient
struggling
overcoming
improvement
working through
