Now before you say anything or before you scroll by without reading, you need to give me a chance to explain my reasoning behind this. I have suffered from severe clinical depression since I was in the 7th grade, I was diagnosed with severe clinical anxiety and social anxiety the fall of 2014. Trust me when I say this, I do know what I am talking about.
The stigma around mental health these days is that it's "all in your head". I mean, lets be serious here...people like me have been told for years to just get over it, we have been told we are doing it for attention. We have been told that we do not need medication. We have been told that we use our mental health "disorders" as nothing but a crutch to get out of certain things. When, in all reality we are sick.
Now, how would you react if I told you that mental health is all just in your head? How would it make you feel? How much anger would you have towards me just because of that simple sentence? The brain is an organ, one of the primary organs that we need to work in order to possess life and in order to function we need it to work properly. However, many people are not fortunate enough to have their brain working to its full potential. In fact, every year, about 42.5 million American adults (or 18.2 percent of the total adult population in the United States) suffer from some sort of mental health illness. Which means, like the other organs within the human body the brain can get sick and it is as life threatening as even the strongest of illnesses. When the brain gets sick, people lose the ability to function normally and depending on the disease or disorder it can alter a person completly. Depression, Anxiety, OCD, Schizophrenia, ADHD/ADD, Borderline Personality Disorder, Multiple Personality Disorder, Bipolar and so many others are illnesses that the brain is able to acquire.
Yet people, continuously say that "its all in your head" without realizing that what you are saying is actually true; that MENTAL health disorders are in the head, they are effecting the way the brain functions. If you look at brain-scans (I will show a picture) each disorder effects different parts of the brain and how the brain works. In order for the brain to work properly, every part of the brain needs to function 100%.
The symptoms caused by these illnesses are the reasons behind why people say it is all in our heads. I will list a few symptoms for these illnesses.
Depression: feelings of emptiness or hopelessness, angry outbursts, loss of interest in normal activities, sleep disturbances, lack of energy, changes in appetite, feelings of worthlessness, trouble thinking, concentrating, making decisions and remembering things. Reoccurring thoughts of death, suicidal thoughts/attempts, self harm.
Anxiety: Feeling nervous, restless, increased heart rate, having signs of impending panic, breathing rapidly, sweating, shaking, trouble concentrating, having the urge to avoid things that trigger anxiety. Not talking at all, sitting rigid, starring into space, fast talking, stuttering,
OCD: Intrusive thoughts, constant checking, fear of contamination, hoarding.
Schizophrenia: Delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thinking (speech), abnormal motor behavior.
ADHD/ADD: Inattention, hyperactivity, impulsivity.
Borderline Personality Disorder: an intense fear of abandonment, pattern of unstable intense relationships, rapid changes in self-identity and self-image, periods of stress related paranoia, loss of contact with reality, impulsive and risky behavior, suicidal threats or self-injury, wide mood swings, ongoing feelings of emptiness, inappropriate and intense anger.
Multiple Personality Disorder: Dissociative amnesia, depersonalization, derealization, identity disturbances, two or more distinct personalities exist in one individual, severe distress.
Mental health, is a disease, it is an illness that impacts daily life, it impacts how people do things, it impacts the way your brain works. The symptoms I have listed for these diseases prove that.
Mental health IS all in your head, but not for the negative reasons others give you, simply because the brain is sick.
