Mental Health/Pain Pt. 1

Mental Pain, while it is less dramatic than physical pain, is more common and also harder to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden. It is easier to say ‘My tooth is aching’ than to say ‘My heart is broken’.  I wonder if it has to do with the fear we have of others knowing our pain. Because while some people will understand you even when you don’t speak, some won't even when you do.  One of the worst pains is getting hurt by a person you explained your pain to. We are living in complete and utter fear because we are scared of our own struggles. But, you are not your illness. You do have an individual story to tell. You have a history, a personality. Staying yourself, now that is just part of the battle. Mental illnesses don’t get discussed as often as they should. They are all piled into one category, you are just insecure and sad. Sure being sad or insecure is an issue people struggle with but it is so much more than that. 

Anxiety is defined as a feeling of fear, dread, and uneasiness. However, Anxiety isn’t so much the feeling of being lost at sea but believing you have to fix the whole thing in your stomach. “Having persistent sadness and a lack of interest or pleasure in previously rewarding or enjoyable activities,” that’s what you see when you look up the definition of depression. Depression is so different for every person, yet we will define it as just losing interest in what makes us happy.  There are 7 types of eating disorders and all of them are different from one another. Yet they’re all thrown under the definition of having extreme emotions, attitudes, and behaviors involving weight and food. Bipolar disorder, Obsessive-compulsive disorder, social anxiety, schizophrenia, and dissociative disorder. All different types of mental illnesses that more than 26% of Americans ages 18 and older suffer from, that’s about 1 in 4 adults.  According to the CDC, more than 4 in 10 adolescents have struggled with mental illness in their life. Personally, I wouldn’t define this as just being sad or insecure. This is all far more serious than that.