Mental health care needs to be normalized. We are living in a world that is constantly changing and has become completely out of our control.
This is not the world that we have lived in and we are far from having that sense of normalcy back.
However, everyone is still only showing how glamorous life in a pandemic can be. In reality, it’s OK to be struggling, it’s OK to not be living your best life; it’s OK to not be OK.
Mental illness is not a sign of personal failure. It is not a sign of weakness.
It is a sign of being human.
Just like any other illness human beings face, mental illness needs to be treated. Taking care of yourself mentally is just as important as taking care of yourself physically. There is nothing wrong with that.
In the world that we live in today, we never see how much a person can be struggling. We only see the sunset they watched, the selfie they took or the activities they do with their friends.
We never see how hard it is for them to go to sleep at night, go to work or school or even wake up in the morning.
This is not something people should be ashamed of. This is something we should normalize because the only thing more exhausting than having a mental illness is pretending that you don’t.
Someone who is struggling so hard to function normally on a daily basis cannot afford to pretend to be someone they are not.
Hiding a need for mental health care is just as bad as not receiving treatment for a broken bone; both will only hurt you even more. Everyone must accept this in order to help each other heal.
One in five people suffer with some form of mental illness. Less than half of them will seek out care.
With mental illness being more common than cancer, diabetes and heart disease, why is it not OK to get help?
Suicide is the second leading cause of death among people aged 10-34. If we want to prevent people from dying at their own hands, we need to allow them to get help.
We never really believe someone close to us is struggling with their mental health.
Mental illness is a high functioning disease; those it affects can still be successful, reach their goals, appear to thrive. They will always give out so much love to other people but are never able to love themselves.
However, you can still love yourself and be a work in progress.
People struggling with mental illness can be the people you love the most, the ones who seem to be their happiest.
But when they announce that they are finally getting help, everyone they normally surround themselves with suddenly begins running in the opposite direction.
This is the most harmful thing that we can do. As a society, we need to understand that in the midst of struggling, nobody wants to be ashamed of being human.
Going to therapy, seeing a psychiatrist, taking medication and even receiving inpatient residential treatment should be acceptable and normal for people to seek out. They are taking care of themselves.
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