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[THREAD] I want to take a moment to talk about why every SINGLE one of us would have their mental health suffer at least once in their life, and why it is important to normalize mental health treatment soon. This isn’t all doom because I will talk about prevention too.
First, it is important to remember that criteria for mental health is not as narrow as it used to be. Grief used to not count as a mental health issue. For depression, we needed to feel the same way for 6 months before it was diagnosed that way officially.
It is important to remember that grief can count as mental health problem given the suffering we go through. It doesn’t take 6 months for something to be depression. Having diagnoses like these used to delay people getting help and professionals taking it seriously.
We all, at one point or another go through these issues. It can be messy to go through them alone or to be judged for showing emotions of grief differently. Having a neutral person use science and unconditional support to guide us through that can make us cope in a healthy way.
Furthermore, we all live in this fast paced society that keeps getting more and more demanding. Job expectations are harder than ever, while simultaneously paying less than they did for previous generations. Burnout is real across the board.
This can easily precipitate mental health problems as well. Then we have schools and certain programs that pride themselves on breaking their students’ psyche as a way to show off how prestigious they are. This is complete BS and only damages us further.
We also have cultural and parental issues that normalize abuses and dismiss experiences and traumas, which we then carry for years, leaving a trail of depression and anxiety in its path. My biggest hope is that these young generations are actively trying to shift that.
There are also some ways in which we can protect ourselves or be proactive when it comes to our mental health. I talk about the importance of self-care but many of us still don’t apply it. Our brains are not machines that can sustain work all the time and no rest indefinitely.
We need to practice self-care daily the same way we need to sleep every night. It is an important process that allows our brains to relax so that they can function well when we need them to. Furthermore, we need to remove the glamour of working hard and long hours unnecessarily.
Even something that we are passionate about can become triggering and depressing if we do it all the time without a break or opportunities to disconnect. Also, the sad truth is that in a capitalist system, we are easily replaceable. Doesn’t matter our job.
The system is made so that it continues no matter what happens. You could be a CEO, doctor, engineer or any other job, if you were to burn out or be incapacitated for a while, they will find a replacement in a few weeks maximum.
Jobs are also meant to provide us some quality of life, hobbies and self care in exchange as well. So if we spend all our time working, we are not benefiting from the results of our labour. Finally, we need to normalize cutting off people.
To be honest, I am happy that more people are completely okay with blocking or ghosting people they find problematic. We need that because our mental health is not meant to sustain that level of toxicity for a while, no matter what. No free pass because someone is “family”.
Finding a house with a roommate or moving in with a friend, anything is better than being in a toxic environment. It doesn’t matter how much guilt family or partners use, it is okay to leave for your own well-being because you don’t owe them anything.
In conclusion, while some pain is inevitable in a way, there are many things we can do to prevent many of the issues that most of us go through often. We can minimize those problems as much as we can and seek help as early as we can to have as many happy days as possible.
