Sharing – Many people not only survive mental illness – they thrive

There is an important message in this study and the numbers.

“In this analysis, we asked: what was the chance that people who were diagnosed with depression during the first part of the study would, 10 years later, be recovered from the disorder and report the level of wellbeing met by the top quarter of nondepressed people? Contrary to the idea that thriving after psychopathology is rare, we found that 10 per cent of those who’d had depression earlier in the study met this wellbeing standard (compared with 21 per cent of those who had not had depression). Rather than eliminating the chance of future high wellbeing, depression only halved it. We observed a similar pattern of data in a national sample of adolescents, focusing on non-fatal suicide attempts: those who had survived a suicide attempt were about half as likely to report high levels of psychological wellbeing at a seven-year follow-up compared with nonsuicidal peers.”

The message?

People with depression are less likely to report thriving regarding mental well-being 10 years later, but 10% of them do anyway.

Only 21% of people not diagnosed with depression reported thriving regarding their mental well-being, so it’s not like most people are living at that point anyway, for various reasons. Being diagnosed with depression doesn’t automatically make it impossible for you to recover and thrive. It’s just a bit harder.

More importantly, the article below talks about 67% of the people diagnosed with depression reporting no symptoms of it 10 years later.

People do recover from mental health issues. They can get better. It happens. Some even meet the criteria for mental well-being that only 21% of the world meets.

Have hope.

https://psyche.co/ideas/many-people-not-only-survive-mental-illness-they-thrive