Mental health: why can’t I just get over it?
Mental Health Awareness Week this year falls at a time when statistics point to the fact that post-Covid more and more people - including children - are trying to access mental health support. Although this highlights a worrying incidence of poor mental health, we should also see the change as proof of greater awareness of the importance of mental health and hopefully the beginning of the end of the stigma surrounding it. However, we still have a way to go, as we have seen in the media recently when mental health issues are the source of entertainment.
There has been a growing consensus among academics, therapists, and other wellbeing professionals. This consensus challenges how mental health has been understood and treated in the past, and it is long overdue. It’s an old but persistent idea that mental health is merely a chemical imbalance, a deviation from the healthy norm and is something to be fixed.
Mental health is a continuum on which everyone lives their lives. Just like physical health it can change depending on our circumstances. Mental and physical health are connected on the deepest level, one affects the other. In the West we have tended to look at them separately but any practitioner who sees patients will know that they are interlinked.
Ultimately we need to understand mental health symptoms as normal responses to situations which can happen to anyone. If we can confidently account for how mental health illness develops - and that growing consensus suggests we can - then we can begin to be much more impactful in our support.
There is a strong body of evidence (see below for links) that conditions such as anxiety, depression and PTSD are linked to responses of our anatomic nervous system, and begin as an important part of our survival response to stimulus. According to Dr Stephen Porges in his work on the Polyvagal theory, we pick up information on a neurobiological level, our nervous system detects threat or danger and chooses the most appropriate response to limit the amount of harm we may face. Immobilisation is the shut down response which we know as depression; fight, flight or freeze response is what we understand to be anxiety. (PTSD is a combination of both). Just like breathing, our bodies make the decision in these instances. We detect the threat before we can even process it consciously. Because this is a primal response, we often don’t know exactly what causes this reaction in us. And we can be stuck in this response for long after the situation or stimulus passes if we don’t get the signal that on a neurobiological level that we are ok.
Coping strategies that we subsequently learn - to numb ourselves, distract or to seek pleasure -can be harmful and can exacerbate how we feel. Perhaps we numb ourselves by overworking. Perhaps we seek distractions or short term pleasure by drinking or eating too much, gambling or scrolling on our phones. What’s happening in these cases is that those strategies become fixed patterns of thought and behaviour that remain with us long after we need them, or long after the context of their production has receded into the past. Over the long term, those strategies affect our emotions, our brain activity, our physical health, and our perception of ourselves.
In terms of treatment, medication has its place and can be life-changing for people who need it to function. However, our nervous system needs clear signs that we are safe and for our sense of well-being to return. Our lives and society aren’t set up to make it easy, but we have to learn to express our feelings safely, turn down the noise of the constant input and move towards simple ways of being in the moment.
Ending stigma
From this viewpoint, then, it seems completely wrong to stigmatise somebody with mental health illness. Personal experiences of judgement and shame can add to an already overwhelming sense of pain: ‘why can’t I just get over it?’ When these attitudes are repeated at a wider social level the effect is further isolation and feelings of hopelessness, leaving the sufferer in an extremely vulnerable position. There should be no shame in going through the experience of challenges with our mental health.
Mental health conditions are not a ‘sign of weakness.’
Mental health illness is not ‘irrational’ or ‘a cross to bear’ that is random. It’s rooted in clearly demonstrable neurobiology shaped by specific life experiences.
Could understanding mental health conditions in this way help to lessen the shame associated with it? Let’s hope so.
It is not your fault, but it is your responsibility to look after your mental health. The first step is awareness of where you’re at, to give yourself the best chance to feel well even if that means making big changes in your life to prioritise your well-being and seek out the support that is right for you. It is not always easy but it is possible to develop healthy ways to support yourself, feel well and thrive.
This week I have created a programme of well-being to give you a taste of different approaches that will help boost your mental health - from mindfulness, yoga, nutrition and hypnosis-meditation. The aim is that you can give things a try to see what best supports you to feel well. As always you can book in a confidential call to speak to myself or Victoria - we’d love to chat about how we can help. Everyone needs support at some time in their lives and most people don’t need much.
Further information:
Polyvagal Theory Dr Stephen Porges
British Psychological Report Pies, 2020; Aftab, 2020