We All Have Mental Health Issues

I was reading the Depresh Mode newsletter recently, and I’m going to agree: looking at mental health in this way might not be mind-blowing to everyone, but it does hugely change the game:

In the issue, the author discusses a podcast episode in which Dr. Royce Lee, a psychiatrist and professor of psychiatry at the University of Chicago, was interviewed. To quote:

The moment that blew my mind in this interview, though was when I asked Dr. Lee whether people who had covid were more likely to develop additional mental disorders later on. He said maybe the time as come to stop thinking about mental illness as something just some people get while others don’t. We’re all patients or potential patients. You wouldn’t characterize anyone as a person who just never gets a cold or flu or infection; we’re all susceptible to physical disease. Likewise, maybe as human beings, we will all get sick to some degree at some point.

What I love about this is that we must reevaluate how we view mental health through this lens.

First of all, we can start to acknowledge that everyone has days when they struggle with anxiety, depression, and general mental health things. Somedays, I can focus and blast through a ton of work, while other days, I just can’t. It’s all a part of mental health. We all have good days and bad days with mental health, the same way we have good and bad days with physical health. Everyone occasionally gets a cold, coughs, is tired, develops a headache, etc.

On those days, we take it easy, treat ourselves well, and, most of the time, get better without much intervention. Sometimes, the cold or flu can get severe and require medical attention. Sometimes, our mental health requires intervention. Other times, we have a severe illness, one that is dangerous to our very existence. We need more extreme care.

In the world of physical health, we have layers of treatment options, from over-the-counter items like cough and cold medicine to advanced medical procedures. All are designed to bring the appropriate treatment to the patient.

With mental health, we don’t always do that.

Imagine frowning upon someone taking ibuprofen for a headache because they should “tough it out.” Or talking about how the common cold affects people “over there” and not your group.

It’s nonsense. Yet, when it comes to talking about mental health, people start that same nonsense as if they have never had a day when they struggle with anxiety or need to take a break from the stress of day-to-day life.

I think it’s time we started looking at mental health the way Dr. Lee describes it. We all have mental health issues of some form or another, just like we all have different physical ailments at times. Stigmatizing people who need mental healthcare and being unable to provide it is a failure for all of us.