Mental Health & Life

We are hearing more and more about mental health issues yet many of us won’t talk about it. There is still a lot of stigma around it that we don’t talk about it. So many questions and stereotypes that we don’t want to talk about it that are hurting our nation.

Most of us would rather die than admit that we have or have walked through mental health challenges because we are scared of what people will say about us. we are worried if we will lose our place in society. We are told that it will bring shame to the family if it is discovered that one of us has dealt with these issues. We say things like, she just needs to snap out of it, just get your stuff together, how can you be depressed and you are a Christian and many more strange things like it.

Why can’t we just admit that we have had mental health challenges or someone around us is working through them? What is so wrong with saying we aren’t coping with life and need some help? Why is there such a stigma around mental health issues? When did it become ok to side line people because of their personal challenges? Would you talk badly about someone with cancer or diabetes or hypertension or any other physical disease? So why do we talk badly about mental health challenges when they are just a disease like any other?

There is the mother who went to bed one day and couldn’t wake up the next because her body was too tired and this struggle led to depression. There is the young person raised in a home with exacting standards to be maintained who just got tired of being someone they aren’t and shut down. There is also the man who hasn’t reached where he wanted to be by now and life isn’t improving but the pressure ‘to be a man’ is more than he can bear. There is the person who has ended up with depression because of a debilitating disease.

There is the couple who have lost a baby and she is broken beyond repair and is barely hanging on but since she was the one who went through the situation no one thinks he is hurting. There is the father whose adult son has died and he doesn’t know what to do with the grief. There is the person who had great hopes in their job but has just been made redundant and he cannot face his family to tell them the truth. There is the pastor who is seeing his congregants growing as individuals but the growth isn’t translating to a vibrant congregation. There is the couple who hoped for happily ever after and till death do us part but now they cannot stand each other.

Mental health challenges are closer to you than you could even know. In fact, they could easily be within you and you aren’t even aware. We need to be more considerate and willing to learn how to manage this as it is indeed a part of life.

#NoExcuse #NoLimitations #MentalHealth

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