Why is Mental Health Important?

Oftentimes, We tend to walk back, to the same source who evinced what hell feels like, trying to find our 'solace'; Not realizing,
An end is always the beginning of something beautiful. A new hope. A new day of spring after cold winters.
                                                                                                                     - Shruti Bevara 

I was once asked, What is Mental Health? An elderly lady had this question when I said I am a Mental Health Blogger. It would be too soon to be called a "Mental Health Enthusiast" wouldn't it? Well, that's the goal. Anyways, my answer to her was -
"No matter how much of an athletic body one has, no matter how fit one is, physically, if one is at battle in their mind, with their mind, no amount of physical fitness can bring peace to that person. Mental Health is a different definition for everyone, but ultimately everyone seeks peace. If one is disturbed at their mind, they are disturbed to the core. Finding their inner peace is what having mental health means. Keeping our mind healthy, just as our body is of utmost importance. Keeping a balance is important, most important."

Scientifically speaking - Mental health is a broad term that refers to a person's condition regarding their emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, act, and feel, and how to handle our emotions. It is not just the absence of mental illness but a state of well-being where a person realizes their abilities and capabilities.

Just as the heart is a part of our body, we try to keep it as healthy as possible and so is our mind. Let me ask this - How many of us treat our minds just as their minds? How many of us keep our minds healthy?

The WHO (World Health Organization) study states there has been a 13% rise in mental health conditions and disorders since the past decade. Around 20% of the world's children and adolescents have a mental health condition. Two of the most common mental health conditions are - 

• Depression 
• Anxiety 

Humans are best known to be "Social Animals" We crave attention, appreciation, gratitude and love most of all. We want to be 'accepted' anywhere we go, we want to be noticed, complemented, and appreciated for everything. There is no harm in desiring to be the best. There is no harm in seeking attention provided it is within the 'healthy boundary'. Anything in excess is always a harm. 

Understanding mental health conditions their phases and types is a challenge in itself. It takes years to discover that one has a mental condition. Keeping aside the diagnosis and treatment. Man can endure all the physical pain he experiences because his mind convinces him that "he got this" and that he can swim through this huge wave and swim straight out of it. But if the main source is damaged, no amount of 'backup' can back him up and take him out of the water. 

We forget to appreciate ourselves, for making it this far, in the world, on earth. So, let's do that first, Sit in Silence, Pat ourselves on the back, hold ourselves together, and say "thank you" for being so strong whenever I thought of giving up on myself. 

If our heart runs our body, our mind runs our soul. Henry Ford once said -

You are the master of your fate and captain of your soul. 

That one, stuck with me till today, we don't realize it often that we are the result of the choices we make, that no one made us into what we are today. The grand total of the choices we made defines us and puts us into perspective. Only one has to realize that they have the power to speak their minds.

Life is not always roses and rainbow paths. Life is Grey. It never was black and white and it never will be; We just imagine it to be black and white. It mocks us, giving us hope that it will be a cakewalk, but it sure ain't a cakewalk! It is a stone and broken glass walk.

Let's ask ourselves some real questions, see where we stand in this crazy ride called "Life" -

• What kind of a person am I?
• Am I led by fear or by self?
• Do I seek validation from others for my actions?
• When have I led myself down? Why?
• Did I give away the power to control my life? To whom?
• What are my personal achievements?
• What are my emotional achievements?
• In terms of emotional strength, where do I stand? 

When you sit by yourself, what is it that you think about? Your struggles in life? Finding solutions for it? Or do you let the guilt eat you alive for the choices and course of actions you didn't take? Or do you just live in the moment? Feel the air against your skin, whispering all kinds of secrets in your ear. 

They say "The worst battle is with the close ones", Well, no one is more close to you than yourself! So, fighting the battle with yourself, your current self, and your future envisioned self is as important as breathing! If not, you are a walking corpse! With no destination, goal, or love for life or your purpose on this planet, just like that zombie in the movies; Is it harsh? Yes. Is it a wake-up call? Double Yes!!

We spend half our lives, living, fulfilling our responsibilities, providing for our families trying to create history, not actually realizing the true purpose god put us on earth. Every stage/phase of life, every nook and turn we face, is a step towards our purpose in life. There is a saying - 

Fail before you succeed, try before you give up, and love before you lose.

We all have been there and found ourselves clueless numerous times not knowing our next step. Led by self-doubt and the fear of failure. We suffocated, like someone pushed us deep into the sea, surviving it seemed impossible. Carrying the constrictor knot (hardest knot to untie) in our chest all our lives, is like carrying the trauma inside us, or what remains of that trauma, watering it, providing it the space and environment to grow. 

Unknown, the fact that it affects our emotional and mental being so diversely that it results in deflected thought processes, destructive mindsets, and feeling powerless for no reason. We destroy our temple.

In no time, we end up having zero control over ourselves! Everything starts to feel like a huge task, the day-to-day chores seem like rocket science, with no idea how to do them, and the worst symptom - waking up in the morning seems impossible. That is when you ought to realize you are carrying all the emotional baggage from the past and the anxiety of 'what ifs' from the future. 

You are running around crazy with everything you have no control over. Realizing what is in your control and what is not, is a sign of maturity. Knowing your limitations and when to stop and take a break. Giving yourself BurnOut is not how you survive life. Finding your self-worth and finding a way to love yourself amidst the chaos of life is called success. 

Anyone can find material success in life; what they can't have is, a healthy mind, a healthy mind-body relationship. We run around all our lives to achieve success in material terms. and feel proud of owning it. But what about owning a mind that brings you all the material success you desire? Wouldn't that make us unstoppable?

How do we affect our Mental Health?

Let's dig deeper, conduct an autopsy of our brains and our emotional senses -

We are our biggest critics, bullies, and abusers. That's right, you heard it right! Now don't put up that long face saying why? what? This is absurd! Because I can see right through you, just hear me out, okay?

Unintentionally we abuse, bully and criticize and literally bash ourselves, for every action, we make or don't make. The guilt of doing or not doing something eats us alive. Fun Fact - Guilt tends to affect us more for what we didn't do than what we did. And we tend to carry it all our lives, projecting it onto our current circumstances. Think about it. 

We often feel a rush of emotions, and before we can analyze it properly, it fades away. Imagine a critical situation, let's analyze our emotions -

• Anger: Anger is a positive emotion, that shows the amount of concern, care, and love a person has, it is often considered as negative because of the shadowed negative emotions it brings along i.e. aggression and obsession. 

• Jealousy: We create a comparative chart in our minds, with a pointless basis to find out who is better. We judge and show no willingness of appreciation or to adapt better than the other person. We condemn ourselves from pursuing what we want because we are busy trying to find faults in other people.

• Regret: We have mastery in regretting every square inch of life. That is the absolute truth! We regret making a choice, also not making it, saying something, not saying something. We 'spend' a lifetime figuring out all the possible reactions, on all the "what-ifs" to a situation, instead of snapping out of it, and working on other choices we have to make.
  Just like change, regret is inevitable too, we regret things whether we do it or we don't. The grass seems greener on the other side, always. 

• Guilt: Regret and guilt, both emotions are like sailing the same boat, in different time zones. Guilt doesn't have much to do with action, rather, we feel guilty for things we didn't do, decisions we didn't make. Guilt is a deeper emotion, that challenges us to self-analyze our acts and emotional behavior. It is that baggage that we carry till we die, the shadow side of guilt, fogs our ability to think straight. 

• Trauma: Any kind of bad experience that imprints itself into our brains, that has a drastic effect on our behavior, triggering/encouraging responses like panic attacks, anxiety, and a deep hole of depression. Decides our course of reactions, turns around emotional patterns and introduces us to the dark side.

Any experience doesn't have the power to turn itself into trauma, it depends on the person's ability, his emotional strength, that to what extent a person can or cannot tolerate the negative change. To what extent a person can hold the power of emotional control. 

What do we lack, while taking care of our Mental Health?

We all know where this is going, if we start listing our inabilities, it would reach up to space, and hit the planet Mars! It is that real! But seriously, we carry a lot of negative emotions yet we cannot hold and handle our mental well-being. We are so busy pointing fingers at others, for whatever's happening in their lives, for their actions, putting aside our lives, forgetting we have a life to live! We lack compassion and empathy for ourselves. The levels of comfort and compassion we show to people going through hardships, we show zero amount of compassion if we go through the same. Why? 

We ask ourselves to toughen up, and stop acting like a 'little girl'. We are asked to be as hard as a rock so that nothing affects us. "Crying is not an option, it is a sign of weakness." We are raised contradictorily, to be independent, yet dependent on family, to be strong-willed, yet see crying as a weakness but not as a channel to release emotions and hard feelings. 

 

The contradictory upbringing is what left us clueless for most of our lives, we are asked to 'fix' our lives, yet we are not given the freedom. enough to try and change within us. 

What do we lack? We may think we have everything, a vision for the next 5-10 years, savings for the future, a career, a family, and friends, what more do we need? Ever imagined why you are not there in your plans, for your future? You, as in the growing, adapting, enhancing and improving you.

• Instinct: Known as 'Gut feeling' the 'little voice' inside you that connects you to your body and guides you just as your brain. Instincts do not scream, not panic, not pump your body with adrenaline or bring chills down your spine, no; It is a wave of clarity that overcomes, you in the middle of your darkest moments, which tells you 'It is going to be alright, you got this.' It is that little voice inside you, that saves you, from you.

• Overcoming Fear: We are obsessed with the idea of the future, and what it might bring, we create a chain of thoughts - When? Where? Why? Who? How? We reach a conclusion the extremely harsh end where we meet chaos. destruction, even death. Oh! Remember it is all inside our heads, we create 'self-destruction' and go through the same path for thousands of times until we fall into the pit of anxiety or depression or some other psychological disorders.

Some of us are brave enough to fight through it, someone very wise once said - 

"Shruti, we all have psychological disorders, just that some of us hide it very well."

• Self-care: Self-care is the most fundamental aspect of meeting your own needs. Aside from your basic security, your needs are to allow yourself to feel what you feel without judgment, fear or suppression. Without seeking others' validation for your actions, without the fear of being consumed by social norms, to be a certain way. To take care of yourself without feeling any bit of guilt or remorse. 

• Emotional Intelligence: The ability to understand, interpret and respond to our emotional needs, healthily. Emotional intelligence does not mean eating pizza at 2 am or just because you are feeling stressed and overeating gives you a sense of control, no. It means knowing your emotional lackings and gaining control over it. Working on yourself, polishing for the betterment.

• Self-motivation: We have bags of self-sabotage right in our backs, no lack of that, but, self-motivation? What is that? We need external forces to tell rather, show us that we have skills, we are worth that job, or that reward, or that piece of cake because we worked so damn hard for years. Do we really need someone to tell us that we are 'allowed' to enjoy ourselves, to celebrate ourselves for no goddamn reason? I mean, we are alive, breathing, and experiencing this beautiful world, do we need more reason than that?

We are so blinded by living in this invisible race, to be better than others, to be successful, to have tons of money, to buy a house by 30, to marry before 30, 'settle' before 30 and start a family; as if we don't then hell breaks fire. We forget to live a little, we forget to enjoy the little moments, the smallest gestures by our loved ones (also grand gestures help too), we forget to pay gratitude, to just do our part and enjoy our short time on earth. 

I am addressing every generation when I say this, We are not healthy, and we need to start taking care of ourselves, for us, for people whom we love, who love us for what we are; To set an example, for our future, to not be clueless but to be rational and calculative and clear, in their lives.

I am not here to tell you how to be this or that. I am here to remind you that the life you lead, is yours, your mind, body and soul are yours, and you must take care of it. To not be consumed by fear, but be consumed by love and kindness.

Dedicated to my crazy sister, my second mother, a true Leo, my emotional mess handler, my biggest motivator, The reason I am a rebel (because she ain't one). 

Happiest Birthday love, I will be there, even when the world turns its back on you, protecting you, loving you and taking the life out of you! 

P.S. It took me 2 months to write this piece, my most thought article, taken out of experiences and stories around me. I hope it changes something within you. 

Until next time, Stay True! Stay You! Stay Positive!
Share your thoughts in the comment section, would love some wisdom and perception!