How To Stop Confusing Mental Health With Mental Illness
I’m willing to bet that the majority of us don’t even realize there is a difference between the two. We can’t define mental health, or it’s components, because our thoughts get stuck on the idea of mental illness and we throw up a wall.
If this speaks true to you just know it’s not your fault; society and the stigma are to blame for this one.
It really irks me that every time I type “mental health” into google, I am bombarded with information on mental illness but nothing useful comes up on how to deal with the every-day type mental struggles we all have.
It’s no wonder the stigma surrounding mental health is still so prevalent; only 1 in 5 people can truly relate to mental illness but 5 out of 5 can relate to mental health. If we were given a fair chance to understand what mental health is maybe we could finally break the stigma by focusing on the whole instead of the parts.
We are missing a huge opportunity for personal growth because of a simple terminology mix up and it’s costing us significantly.
I got rid of the self-stigma regarding mental health because I was forced to by my illness. My illness gives me an advantage the 4 out of 5 of you don’t have. I have a toolkit to fall back on when shit goes south for me; I know the signs, I know when I can handle it myself, when I need to ask for help, and who to ask.
I have a mental illness but I am also mentally healthy. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. I’m happy, I’m motivated, I have great relationships, and I’m successful in life because I know what mental health is and the steps I need to take to strengthen it.
If you don’t know how to achieve the life you want, or if you feel like you are stuck on the way to make that happen, it might be time to take your mental health into consideration.
Definition of Mental Health:
Mentalhealth.gov “Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices.”
World Health Organization “Mental health is a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.”
Definition of Mental Illness:
Psychiatry.org: “Mental illnesses are health conditions involving changes in emotion, thinking or behavior (or a combination of these). Mental illnesses are associated with distress and/or problems functioning in social, work or family activities.”
Why the Distinction Matters:
Everyone has mental health, not everyone has mental illness. The disassociation between the two can allow us to better understand, and address, our own mental health.
When our mental health is struggling, it can cause symptoms of a mental illness. That doesn’t automatically make us mentally ill.
If one component of our mental health is functioning abnormally, we should have the necessary tools on hand to identify what is going wrong and how to fix it.
We should be able to recognize if the abnormal component can easily be tweaked back into functioning order, or if it needs more maintenance than we are capable of providing.
The process we have for addressing the abnormal components of our physical health needs to be the same for our mental health as well.
For example: If we have a sore throat, we can usually gauge how serious it is and immediately employ steps to feel better. However, we also know the signs to look out for, like a fever or pus, that indicate our attempts to feel better won’t work. We have no objection to seeking professional help if it gets to that point.
This needs to be the same for our mental health too, we should know when professional help is required and we shouldn’t have objections to it.
If only we could recognize the signs of our declining mental health in time to avoid full blown crisis mode. It would help us avoid so many unnecessary set backs in life.
Unfortunately, we can’t do that until we take the time to fully understand what mental health is.
Components of Mental Health (Emotional, Psychological, and Social):
Emotional
Cue the eye roll, it seems obvious, but it’s actually more complex than we give it credit for.
This definition is my personal favorite because it goes so in depth: “ Emotions are a conscious mental reaction (such as anger or fear) subjectively experienced as strong feelings, usually directed toward a specific object, and typically accompanied by physiological and behavioral changes in the body”
As you can see from the color wheel above, there are a lot of different emotions we can experience. Sometimes it’s really difficult to know what we are feeling, or even why we are feeling that way.
If we can first identify the specific emotion, it might become a little easier for us to pin point exactly where it is coming from.
We have emotions for a reason, they force us to quickly pay attention to the situation we are in and they nudge us into action.
For a simple example; If we see a bear charging at us, we need the emotion of fear to permeate throughout us in order to fully appreciate the danger we are in and to jump start our body into doing what it needs to do to survive.
Our emotions set the stage for our thoughts and behaviors. If the emotional component of our mental health is working effectively, productive thoughts and behaviors usually follow.
However, If our emotional component is not working effectively our subsequent thoughts and behaviors are much more likely to harm us.
Psychological
The psychological component can be thought of like a bridge between the emotional component and the social component. Emotional response to stimuli drives thoughts, actions, or behaviors which in turn affects how we interact with our social environment.
A positive outcome is possible if a broken emotional component is overrun by a functioning psychological component.
For a personal example;
I have a terrible sense of style and my husband has a great one. Before I met him, my closet was mostly full with black and grey sweats. He has helped me add some color into my closet and pick out stuff that actually matches.
So one time I was online shopping and I was absolutely determined to put together some practical, colorful, and “Aaron worthy” outfits lol.
I was pretty proud of the choices I made because I only had black slacks, everything else was colorful. I was sure he would agree that my sense of style was improving just a tad bit.
His reaction did not live up to my expectation at all, he said “well this is a lot of black”.
Man, the amount of rage that coursed through me after that comment was ridiculous lol.
It triggered a response to yell at him and call him an asshole but my psychological component was like hold up this beyond irrational, like calm the fuck down.
My emotion didn’t listen to the rational thought so I had to get up and walk away before I could calm down and decide if the reaction was warranted.
It took a solid thirty minutes for me to realize it absolutely was not warranted because I’m psycho, but still the process was important.
My emotional component was a tad (!) broken, my psychological component was on point, and my social component (relationship) was spared the messy situation that could have arisen from that initial gut reaction to yell at him.
Social Component
The social component can apply in two main ways; the first is the relationships we form with the people around us and the second is our contribution to society.
We are social beings, we weren’t meant to walk this life alone. We crave the sense of belonging we get from being close to another human; whether it’s a romantic partner, a friend, a family member, or a child. It doesn’t really matter, as long as we are connected we are content.
We need relationships in order to function on both a personal and societal level.
We suffer tremendously if we aren’t able to form and maintain these connections.
We benefit from contributing to society too; whether that’s through our jobs, community service, or anything really. We mentally benefit from contributing to a greater good that is important to us.
When the components of our emotional and/or psychological health aren’t working effectively, our personal relationships and societal contribution become harder to obtain and our mental health is negatively affected.
Why Mental Health is Important:
Mental health is important because it quite literally makes us who we are. It is a crucial part of our day to day function. It is what makes us each unique, and it drives us through every aspect of life.
When our mental health is functioning optimally we feel invigorated, we know our purpose in life, and nothing can stop us from doing what we want to do.
When our mental health is not functioning optimally we feel unmotivated, like we don’t belong, like we are unlovable, like there is no hope for a better life, or like someone made a mistake in putting us on this earth.
I’ve been on both sides of the spectrum and I can honestly say that if I hadn’t embraced the importance of mental health when I did, I wouldn’t be here today.
How Mental Health Affects You:
Mental health affects your job, your ambitions, your motivation, and all of the other complicated aspects of what makes your life worth living.
How Mental Health Affects Daily Life:
Our mental health is the reason we are able to have a daily life.
We are faced with many possibilities of how the day can turn out from the moment we wake up. Our mental health decides whether we work out, make breakfast, sleep a little more, or just give up on the day before it even starts.
If we are mentally healthy our daily life run smoothly. We adjust our daily goals accordingly when faced with adversities or set backs.
How Mental Health Can Affect Physical Health:
To start this topic, I first want to reference the definition of emotion I provided earlier; “emotions are typically accompanied by and behavioral “:
Our emotional state can profoundly affect our physical state.
Take the bear example for instance, the common emotional response when a bear is charging at us is fear. Fear causes our brain to shock our nervous system into action. Our nervous system in turn causes our blood pressure and heart rate to sky rocket. Our lungs start to frantically pull more oxygen into our body so that the majority of our blood can flow safely outwards to assist our limbs in the fight or flight response that is needed for survival.
Our physical body reacts in ways beneficial to our overall physical health when we are mentally healthy.
If we are not mentally healthy, our physical reactions can start to negatively influence both our physical and mental health.
When our emotional component is broken, we start having emotional reactions that aren’t warranted. This alone can negatively influence our physical health but if our psychological component is broken too, it can cause even more harm to our physical health.
Take the bear example again, if we have the same emotional reaction to something non-threatening that we have to the bear, our body is preparing us for an imminent threat that our psychological component can’t contribute to.
There is no need for a fight or flight response. So what thoughts, behaviors, or actions should our psychological component employ to help us out? Our body is having a strong negative reaction that we can’t easily fix, so what if we chose to numb it by consuming alcohol or drugs instead?
Are Mental Health Problems/Issues Rare:
This is another topic that irks me during my many google searches.
Mental health problems and/or issues don’t always translate to a mental illness but the information that is readily available to us doesn’t reflect that.
This really sucks because sometimes we can fix the problems ourselves if only we had a little guidance.
By not addressing the problems as they arise, we allow them to become so entangled in other areas of our lives that we can no longer fix them ourselves. We don’t even know where to start.
Mental health problems commonly arise from our environment. If our environment gives us an obstacle that we can’t easily overcome, we tend to develop negative emotions towards it. These emotions are meant to push us to either remove the obstacle or go around it.
A true problem arises when we ignore the emotional response and the suggested solution. Instead, the emotion is allowed to fester and start interfering with other aspects of our lives.
Thanks to the stigma, this isn’t a rare occurrence. We don’t recognize this process in time to correct it ourselves.
It doesn’t mean we are broken, it just means we are human and we need to work on piecing our mental health back together.
Are Mental Health Issues On The Rise:
Absolutely, if you are as obsessed with statistics as I am check out this article to see just how serious of a problem we are running into.
COVID19 has played a part in the recent spike but the rise started well before the COVID era.
Mental health issues are prevalent and on the rise in children, adolescents, young adults, middle aged adults, and elderly adults.
We are all affected by poor mental health at some point in life. 1 out of 5 of us can develop a mental illness if we aren’t careful. We are not immune.
Conclusion
So there you have it, a very in depth explanation of what mental health is and how to stop confusing it with mental illness.
Mental health is so important. I hope this post has allowed you to see that. Please leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts on mental health and this post. I appreciate any feedback!
Originally published at https://strugglebus.org on January 19, 2021.
