When someone asks us how we are, we often end up responding “I’m good” or “I’m okay”. We might not be actually feeling good or okay, but we say it anyway. Why?
Call it mental conditioning we have developed over the years, or we think it’s the “right thing” to say, it doesn’t really help us when we are feeling otherwise.
The thing is, we don’t always need to be okay. It’s natural and all right to feel low, lost, confused, or not cheerful every now and then.
It’s not a compulsion to feel great all the time!
The problem with our natural response is that it’s not exactly natural. We have taught ourselves, consciously or unconsciously that we need to appear all well and good to the world around us.
It all comes from the very bias that we still have about mental health. Yes, we can say that as a society we are becoming more aware and learning to embrace it, but the stigma persists among many.
The very instance we discover that we or someone we know, is going through a tough state of mind, or suffering from some mental condition, it triggers a disassociation in our minds.
Our instant reaction is to either ignore it, thinking that it will pass, or immediately try to find a solution; the solution might or might not be viable at that moment for the person going through it. We hardly consider that it is absolutely okay to feel the way one (or us) is feeling.
Mental health is just like physical health
The most ironic thing about mental health is that it is technically a bodily condition just like any other and yet, there is a strong prejudice about it.
When we have the flu, we easily say that we are not feeling well and we need to rest and so on. Why can’t or shouldn’t we say the same thing when we are mentally not feeling well also?
We might not always do it consciously, but it happens, to most of us. What we don’t realize is that it’s this stigma that erodes our confidence to feel better. Yes, a prolonged, serious negative mental condition might need to be treated, like every other illness. But we need to accept the fact that it’s okay to not be okay.
It’s okay to cry a little. It’s okay to feel a little low. It’s okay to want to curl up someday and feel melancholic. It’s okay to want to run away to a faraway land because life becomes overwhelming. It’s okay to feel lost and not know why.
When it gets too much, we can and will always find help.
We have continued to take mental health too negatively for too long. It’s high time we bring those walls down.
Listen. Respect. Trust. Support. Empower. END THE STIGMA.
