No mental health issues? Lucky you

With Mental Health Week just having past, it’s great to see awareness building on the topic – an issue that has always existed, but with more visibility and acknowledgement, comes a perception that problems are increasing.

If you don’t struggle with your mental health, that is great. You lucked in when mental health issues were being randomly assigned to around a quarter of the population, or roughly half of us over the entirety of our lives.

But if you haven’t had the misfortune of experiencing a mental health issue, the topic might seem confounding to you, and you may have even gotten tired of hearing about it. It’s really hard to see something that isn’t there. Are some people just using it as an excuse?

It’s difficult to understand something that you do not experience. It’s not my job - or anyone’s job - to make you understand what it’s like to experience mental health problems. But what you can do, is remember these important facts. It is more than likely that someone close to you has some kind of mental health challenge going on. Or you employ someone. Or work with someone. Or live with someone. 

·         Mental health exists on a spectrum of mild to severe. There is no one size fits all.

·         There will be good days and bad days. Just because today is good, they are not suddenly healed. 

·         More than one challenge at a time could be going on - depression, anxiety, and anything else, all kinds of combinations.

·         They are not choosing to have mental health issues. Who the hell would choose that?!

·         People having mental health problems are not weak - facing it and being honest about their experiences requires real strength.

·         No, they can’t snap out of it. Can you snap out of a headache? Or a broken leg?

·         Mental health challenges often come with physical side effects such as digestion problems, fatigue, headaches, aches and pains. 

Talking with someone with mental health issues can be really helpful - be respectful and inquisitive. Avoiding the topic won’t make it disappear. We can never judge whether a person’s issues or problems warrant their severity of symptoms – it is impossible to tell what kind of reaction and effect a life event may have on someone. And quite frankly, it’s unhelpful to try.

False positivity is also ineffectual and unhelpful. Reminding them of all the “good” things in their lives may come from a good place but is more likely to make them feel invalidated than empowered. I’m not saying this can’t be done, but first you must acknowledge their pain: “dance in the dark then lead to the light” is when you sit with them and say something like “that must be a really rough thing for you to be going through”, before offering helpful suggestions, if that’s what they need.

It’s not always obvious if someone is struggling with mental health. You may get a shock to hear that someone you know is struggling. People are very good at hiding emotional pain, but we all have a threshold and there is only so much we can take.

Trying to understand their experiences might be a challenge, but either way, you can simply accept that they are struggling and be there for them. Not to problem solve, but just so that they know they’re not alone.

Anyone is capable of that.

Kathryn Wright  is a registered counsellor specialising in rural mental health.

www.kathrynwright.co.nz