Hold Each Other Accountable Mental_Awareness

 Caution: Mental Health Warning. Proceed at Your Own Risk. 

Your mental health could be deteriorating at a rate faster than the speed of light or it could slowly sneak up on you until you wake up one day and find yourself a completely different person. Men have a tendency to externalize their issues, which may result in outrageous or careless behavior (e.g., excessive gambling or reckless driving). Moreover, unchecked mental health issues could slowly seep into your work life, gradually dismantling your budding business and networking relationships. 

According to Mental Health America, Inc., men are particularly prone to the following disorders: depression (over 6 million men in the U.S.), anxiety or phobic disorders (3,020,000 U.S. men), bipolar disorder (onset between 16 - 25 years old), psychosis and schizophrenia (90% diagnosed by age 30 are men), and eating disorders (35% of binge-eating diagnoses are men). In 2010, 79% of suicides were committed by men, who tend to resort to more painful methods of death. Also, men are less likely to speak about their mental health due to social expectations not allowing men to express feelings of vulnerability, a lack of intimate communication, and the tendency to belittle stressful events. 

Initial signs to watch out for: 

1. Heightened sensitivity or apathy 

Heightened sensitivity means having a low tolerance for certain sights, sounds or smells in your environment and the tendency to avoid the stimuli. On the other hand, general apathy either appears in a lack of emotions and/or a lack of desire to engage in activities. 

2. Thinking problems 

Cognitive issues can arise as a lack of memory or concentration, disconnection from reality, and even delusional thinking. Delusional thinking usually involves believing you have special powers or have control over uncontrollable events, such as the weather. In some cases, disconnection from reality can sometimes lead to psychosis, in which the individual may hear or see people or voices that are not present or has obsessive delusional thoughts. 

3. Overall decline in daily performance 

This is usually indicated by an extremely poor performance in activities that you once excelled in. A decline in performance can appear in all areas of life: social, personal, academic, and even work. 4. Unusual behavior 

While unusual behavior is a debatable concept, it is usually behavior that greatly deviates from outside of the norm and differs from the individual’s usual behavior. In instances involving anxiety, extreme nervousness can lead to withdrawal from other people and social situations. For example, your friend who was once an outgoing, social butterfly suddenly becomes an extreme hermit. 

5. Behavioral changes The body and mind are biologically connected, so when the mind is not functioning properly, this can appear in the form of changes in sleep or appetite due to hypothalamus dysregulation or rapidly changing shifts in mood due to chemical imbalances. 

Mental Health Quiz: *note: this quiz does not constitute for the DSM-IV or count as an official diagnosis 

For each item, if you can relate to this situation most days of the week (5 or more), then indicate: 

yes = 1, no = 0 

1. You quickly feel over-stimulated in loud environments with too many people or events 

going on 2. You often feel anxious or at unease in these overly stimulating environments 3. You have lost any desire to engage in your hobbies or activities that you once found 

enjoyable 4. You don’t feel much these days 5. You tend to forget information quickly, whereas you never had this issue before 6. You tend to zone out or have trouble concentrating on your current task 7. You get distracted easily from your work 8. You believe you have the ability to read minds or that other people can hear your 

thoughts. 9. You find yourself doing terrible in areas of life in which you once excelled (e.g., work, 

academics, sports) 10. Friends and family often comment that you are acting “different than usual” 11. You find yourself withdrawing from your friends and bury yourself in work. 12. You can be ecstatic one minute and extremely angry or depressed the next due to a 

simple comment or with no provocation 13. You are overly sensitive to constructive criticism 14. You are rarely present in the moment 15. You find yourself skipping meals or overeating in one sitting 16. You have trouble falling asleep on a consistent basis 17. You sleep for more than 8 hours yet always feel tired in the morning 

If you answered “yes” to 3 or more of these questions, then you may want to consider contacting a local mental health professional to check-in on your mental health. Even if you are not diagnosed with an official mental health disorder, you can still benefit from weekly (or monthly) therapist visits. Therapists are there not only to treat severe disorders but to also improve your current mental state and increase general life or work satisfaction. 

If you ever feel the need to talk to someone and a mental health professional is not available at the moment, feel free to contact the Mental Health America Hotline, a 24-hour mental health call center for crisis intervention or general support. For those men who feel more comfortable with texting, you can text a professional through the Crisis Text Line, and all text message receipts are kept confidential. 

Mental Health America Hotline: Text MHA to 741741 Crisis Text Line: Text CONNECT to 741741 

References: 

1. Mental Health America (2019). Infographic: mental health for men. Retrieved from: 

https://www.mhanational.org/infographic-mental-health-men 2. American Addiction Centers (2019). Mental health hotline. Retrieved from: 

https://www.psychguides.com/guides/mental-health-hotline/ 3. American Psychiatric Association (2018, July). Warning signs of mental illness. 

Retrieved from: https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/warning-signs-of-mental-illness