Wellbeing starts with Mental Health!

One year ago I was in a state of "impairment in functioning" in my professional life.? I wasn't able to perform my day-to-day work.? I was stressed and overburdened with personal and professional concerns.? I found myself at a place where I could not work.

I never imagined that I could experience a mental health breakdown. What concerns me about it now, is just how common it is for people to either deny or reject the reality that "they are just as at risk" from a mental health crisis as anyone else.? Yet, no one is "immune", so I invite you to consider the idea that you might be on the other side one day.?

My hope is that by opening this conversation with my network, it will help someone who is struggling as I was at one point.

When I was there, at first, I was resistant and unwilling to admit it, but in doing so, I finally was able to begin the journey to deal with my breakdown and become responsible for overcoming it.? I’d like to share my insights from this journey with you.

Like anything, we can only intentionally act on the things we are aware of.? So, what is mental health? According to the World Health Organization website, Mental health is a state of mental well-being that enables people to cope with the stresses of life, realize their abilities, learn well, and work well, and contribute to their community. It is an integral component of health and well-being that underpins our individual and collective abilities to make decisions, build relationships and shape the world we live in. Mental health is a basic human right. And it is crucial to personal, community and socio-economic development.

Being mentally healthy is not just the absence of mental disorders. It exists on a complex continuum, which is experienced differently from one person to the next, each experiencing varying degrees of difficulty and distress, with potentially very different social and clinical outcomes.

Mental health conditions include mental disorders (such as depression and anxiety?) and psychosocial disabilities (such as?).? These often cause significant distress, impairment in day-to-day functioning, or risk of self-harm. People with mental health conditions are more likely to experience lower levels of mental well-being, but this is not always or necessarily the case.

Here are three important things I learned during my own journey.

1) We are generally afraid to talk about mental health due to many factors, such as culture, stigma, responsibility avoidance and or general apathy.

How to address: Talk to someone, a therapist, friend, partner, or someone, but talk about it. It’s a must and often our deepest worries can be de-escalated or even dealt with in a much better fashion if you talk. Although it’s often not easy to talk due to culture, fear, religions, perceptions, and embarrassment but its far harder to face the consequences of not talking about it. I'm grateful that I had a friend who was willing to listen, talk and not judge me and even gave me a hug that was needed. He knows who he is and I'm grateful to him for being an honest and true friend.

2) No one is immune. Every one of us can experience the perfect storm, no matter how strong, resilient, or impervious we think we are. But even though no one is immune, there are things we can do to avoid a mental health crisis.

How to address: Learn more about the reality of mental health and the symptoms to look out for.? Regularly take a look at your own mental health. It’s okay to experience a mental health crisis (MHC). You're not immune from the common cold, flu, covid-19 or possibly so many other ‘physical’ health challenges, yet you've probably learned how to effectively deal with those things over time - an MHC is absolutely no different to this. Be physically healthy (such as exercise, nutrition, sleep?). Above all, seek out reliable and credible learnings on how to deal with an MHC.

3) Most concerning of all for me, Companies and organizations are still not taking mental health seriously, at least in the part of the world I work in. The company I was with had twenty or more mandatory trainings that each manager and employee should do each year around processes, employee evaluations, safety, and others but not one was focused on mental health awareness or how to navigate a MHC. It was never addressed either from a personal point of view or employer-management point of view. This needs to be taken seriously and we need to get past the "cultural" challenges.

How to address: Talk to your company about what they can do to bring awareness of this issue to the forefront. It won't always work but be the change you want to see. Talk to your company medical professional if you have one or occupational health professionals about how to partner with them to bring this to the awareness of others. Talk about it to your colleagues and to your line manager.

I know it's easier said than done, and I more than anyone understand that talking about it can be very difficult, but it can also be liberating, healing, soothing and eventually you can overcome.

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Be well, be healthy and stay focused on being the best version of you that you can be.