How to talk about Mental Health ps. Nice to Meet you!

[Vida Lives Now]

Hello everyone! I want to say hello as I am new to this forum (kind of.) I joined a few months ago but this is my first time making an original post. I am a 34 year old woman, learning to thrive with depression, anxiety and ADD. I am not my diagnosis : ) And once I was able to be honest with myself in the ways I was struggling I was able to get the help I need and live a life with increased fruitfulness. I am passionate about mental health and self-love and I hope that we can learn from each other as I explore these forums. I want to let everyone reading this know that you are beautiful, worthy of love and I am wishing you peace and prosperity! 

 

On another yet similar note, I read an interesting article yesterday that said yesterday is #TimetoTalk Day. The event encourages people to talk about mental Health. I learned about this in a Forbes article which gives “the do’s and don'ts” of engaging with others about mental health. The link is below and I also pulled some quotes from the article. 

 

Feel free to reply by saying what you think about the tips in the article. As for the first tip, I think sometimes advice is helpful and other times it’s not so when engaging with others I tend to ask them what they are looking for specifically and if I have an idea I ask if it is okay to give advice. Have a great day everyone! 

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/drnancydoyle/2021/02/04/five-rules-for-tackling-mental-health-during-covid-its-time-to-talk/?sh=5f40f19a3d0f

 

Five Rules For Tackling Mental Health During Covid: It’s Time To Talk

 

Beware Accidental Gaslighting

 

“The first rule of #TimeToTalk is to dial down the helpful advice. Mental health difficulties have a biological basis and cannot always be overcome by exercise, meditation and a good chat.” 

 

Just Listening

‘So, what should you do instead? Rule two for #TimeToTalk is about just listening. Rather than jumping in with a practical plan, you could gently ask “what’s the best way to support you right now?” or “when you have felt like this before, what kinds of things have helped?”’

 

Making Real Connections

“If you are concerned, I’d advise starting with just checking in more regularly about nothing in particular, rather than putting someone on the spot. Sometimes a more general chat about the world, what’s on television, a new innovation that’s out, all of this can turn into a larger conversation without it feeling forced. If a phone call feels like a bridge to far, you might start via DMs or text, rather than public feed posts.”

 

Establish Boundaries

“Yes, we must break the stigma and get better at talking about our feelings, but that does not mean that we are required to be a personal therapist at the expense of our own mental health when someone is dealing with issues that are out of our league. This is not selfish, it is actually the safest thing for everyone.”

 

Safeguarding

“A final rule for #TimeToTalk is to always remember that in cases of abuse, violence, a crime or serious self-harm then you can act by reporting a serious situation at work or to authorities, or by calling in others who are more closely related. It’s called safeguarding. If you are not sure whether to act, if it involves breaking confidentiality, then you can check this out by telling the story anonymously to a trusted person.” 

 

[Tim R]

@Vida Lives Now Hello and welcome to the forum

The way we deal with mental health in our society is a catastrophe in my estimation. 

Not only are we doing a terrible job at maintaining a reasonable level of mental hygiene and health, but we're also screwing up concerning the way we deal with mental health problems once we're confronted with them. It's like an invisible epidemic of some sort.

Common mental health issues like depression or anxiety are often being stigmatized, misunderstood and discounted by a vast portion of our societies. People are ignorant about these problems; sometimes and to a certain degree even deliberately. This leads to a belittlement of the issue at hand - and belittlement leads to more ignorance and a deepening of the hole that we've dug ourselves. It's no surprise to me that the rates of depression and anxiety are growing, most shocking of which are the rates among young adults and teenagers. These five rules are alright for raising public awareness, but I think when it really comes down to a serious talk about mental health, it's a bit more complicated and there's more than five rules.

The pandemic makes all of this even worse, depending on where you live. I live in Germany and we're currently in our second Lockdown, almost 3 months in as for today. People are lonely, many lost their job or family business, they are suffocating under a mountain of debt they can't lift anymore, while sitting at home all day doing nothing cause there's nothing left to do. Our politicians seem to actively deny us every spark of hope, always prolonging the Lockdown for two or three more weeks. This takes a toll on mental health. I think we're going to have to deal with the consequences of this in the future. Not quite sure what it's gonna look like a couple of months down the road, but probably not very peachy. 

Here's some statistical resources for you to dig your way through.

https://ourworldindata.org/mental-health 

[Vida Lives Now]

Hello Tim R! 

Thank you so much for your warm welcome and insight. You are soooo right. I live in the United States and we definitely do not do justice to mental health care. It's interesting that this is an issue across continents. 

I will certainly be checking out the statistics you provided. Thank you so much.